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A goddess, a female deity, contrasts with male deities, known as " gods". A great many cultures have their own goddesses, sometimes alone, but more often as part of a larger pantheon that includes both of the conventional genders and in some cases even hermaphroditic deities. The Goddess can provide a female version of or analogue to God; sometimes, the relationship is more rooted in monism, as opposed to a straight-cut monotheism or polytheism, and the Goddess and God are seen as part of one transcendental monad.1 Hinduism
Hinduism admits a complex belief system that sees many gods and goddesses as being representative of and/or emanative from a single source, either a formless, infinite, impersonal monad known as Brahman, or a single God seen by some sects as Vishnu, others Shiva, or still others Devi, the mother goddess, providing a large range of belief system with Vedic scripture. Thus, many analogues between passive male ground and dynamic female energy have lead to the personification of such energies as male and female pairs, often envisioned as male gods and their wives. The transcendent monad, Brahman, transcends categories but its representation through the existential duality that is limited by time, space and causation, simply put the universe as we know it, occurs through the categories of male God and female energy, working as a pair. Brahma pairs with Sarasvati, Vishnu with LakshmiIn Hinduism, Lakshmi or Laxmi ( Sanskrit: ) is the goddess of wealth and fortune, as well as (secondarily) luck, beauty and fertility. Lakshmi is considered an alternate form of Devi. Lakshmi is married to Vishnu, and also married his incarnations Rama (i, and Shiva with UmaIn Hinduism, Uma is the goddess of beauty and sunlight. She is an aspect of Devi, and is strongly associated with Parvati (another aspect of Devi). Her cult is centered in Bengal. Alternative: Gauri Uma is a district in Ehime, Japan. Uma Thurman is an Ame, ParvatiHindu goddesses In Hinduism, Parvati (alt. spellings: Paarvati Parvatti is an alternate form of Shakti. She is named Prvati as a Sanskrit convention, to be understood as 'the daughter of the mountain' Parvata. She is married to Shiva, the Hindu God of Des, or DurgaHindu goddesses In Hinduism, Durga is a form of Parvati or Devi, the supreme goddess. She is depicted as a woman riding a lion with multiple hands carrying weapons and assuming mudras, or symbolic hand gestures. This signifies life. This form of the Godde. KaliThis article is about the Hindu goddess. Kali is also a martial art. See Eskrima. Kali is a destructive and creative aspect of God as the Divine Mother in Hinduism. Kali is the fierce aspect of Devi, God's energy, i. Shakti or God as the Divine Mother, wh is a form of Parvati. A further step was taken by the idea of the shaktas , or Hindu worshippers of the Goddess. Their, and much of Hindu tantra's, ideology sees Shakti as the principle of energy through which all divinity functions, thus showing the masculine to be dependent on the feminine. Indeed, in the great shakta scripture known as the Devi Mahatmya , all the goddesses are shown to be aspects of one presiding female force, one in truth and many in expression, giving the world and the cosmos the galvanic energy for motion. It is expressed through both philosophical tracts and metaphor that the potentiality of masculine being is given actuation by the feminine divine.
The strong monist or Advaita bent in Hinduism defies polytheist or monotheist categorization and for this reason local deities of different village regions in India are easily seen by outsiders as their own Goddess in different form, a process that has been called Sanskritization. While the monist forces have led to a fusion between some of the goddesses (108 names are common for many goddesses), centrifugal forces have also resulted in new goddesses and rituals gaining ascendance among the laity in different parts of Hindu world. Thus, the immensely popular goddess Durga was a pre-Vedic goddess who was later fused with Parvati, a processs that can be traced through texts such as Kalikapurana ( 10th century), Durgabhaktitarangini ([{Vidyapati]] 15th century), Chandimangal ( 16th century) etc.
