Related Research Articles
A goddess is a female deity.
Nut, also known by various other transcriptions, is the goddess of the sky, stars, cosmos, mothers, astronomy, and the universe in the ancient Egyptian religion. She was seen as a star-covered nude woman arching over the Earth, or as a cow. She was depicted wearing the water-pot sign (nw) that identifies her.
Hathor was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom were connected with kingship, and thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs. She was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra's feminine counterpart, and in this form she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, and maternal care, and she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife.
Parvati, Uma or Gauri is the Hindu goddess of power, nourishment, harmony, devotion, and motherhood. Parvati is one of the incarnations of Bhuvaneswari Devi. Along with Lakshmi and Saraswati, she forms the Tridevi of Hindu goddesses.
Lakshmi, also known as Shri, is one of the principal goddesses in Hinduism. She is the goddess of wealth, fortune, power, beauty and prosperity, and associated with Maya ("Illusion"). Along with Parvati and Saraswati, she forms the Tridevi of Hindu goddesses.
Durga is a major deity in Hinduism. She is worshipped as a principal aspect of the mother goddess Devi and is one of the most popular and widely revered among Indian divinities. She is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction and wars. Her legend centres around combating evils and demonic forces that threaten peace, prosperity, and Dharma the power of good over evil. Durga is believed to unleash her divine wrath against the wicked for the liberation of the oppressed, and entails destruction to empower creation. Historians of religion and art tend to trace the earliest depiction of Durga to the seals of Indus Valley Civilization. However, this claim lacks direct visual evidence from the site. There are several hints to her in the early Vedic texts and by the time of the epics, she emerges as an independent deity. According to Hindu legends, Durga is created by the gods to defeat the demon Mahishasura, who could be only killed by a female. Durga is seen as a motherly figure and often depicted as a beautiful woman, riding a lion or tiger, with many arms each carrying a weapon and often defeating demons. She is widely worshipped by the followers of the goddess centric sect, Shaktism, and has importance in other denominations like Shaivism and Vaishnavism. Under these traditions, Durga is associated and identified with other deities. There are many devotees of Goddess Durga who recite Saptashloki Durga Saptashati to seek her blessings.
The Mahavidya are a group of ten Hindu Tantric goddesses. The 10 Mahavidyas are usually named in the following sequence: Kali, Tara, Tripura Sundari, Bhuvaneshvari, Chhinnamasta, Bhairavi, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi and Kamala. Nevertheless the formation of this group encompass divergent and varied religious traditions that include yogini worship, Saivism, Vaishnavism, and Vajrayana Buddhism.
Saraswati is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning. She is a part of the tridevi of Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Parvati. All the three equal forms unite with the trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva to create, maintain, and regenerate the Universe, respectively.
The Triple Goddess is a deity or deity archetype revered in many Neopagan religious and spiritual traditions. In common Neopagan usage, the Triple Goddess is viewed as a triunity of three distinct aspects or figures united in one being. These three figures are often described as the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone, each of which symbolizes both a separate stage in the female life cycle and a phase of the Moon, and often rules one of the realms of heavens, earth, and underworld. In various forms of Wicca, her masculine consort is the Horned God.
Shaktism is one of several major Hindu denominations, wherein the metaphysical reality is considered metaphorically a woman and Shakti (Mahadevi) is regarded as the supreme godhead. It includes many goddesses, all considered aspects of the same supreme goddess. Shaktism has different sub-traditions, ranging from those focused on gracious Parvati to that of fierce Kali.
Anat, Anatu, classically Anath is a major northwest Semitic goddess. Her attributes vary widely among different cultures and over time, and even within particular myths. She likely heavily influenced the character of the Greek goddess Athena.
Ushas is a Vedic goddess of dawn in Hinduism. She repeatedly appears in the Rigvedic hymns, states David Kinsley, where she is "consistently identified with dawn, revealing herself with the daily coming of light to the world, driving away oppressive darkness, chasing away evil demons, rousing all life, setting all things in motion, sending everyone off to do their duties". She is the life of all living creatures, the impeller of action and breath, the foe of chaos and confusion, the auspicious arouser of cosmic and moral order called the Ṛta in Hinduism.
The Goddess movement includes spiritual beliefs or practices which emerged predominantly in North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand in the 1970s. The movement grew as a reaction to perceptions of predominant organized religion as male-dominated, and makes use of goddess worship and can include a focus on female people, or on one or more understandings of gender or femininity.
Al-Lat, also spelled Allat, Allatu and Alilat, is a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess worshipped under various associations throughout the entire Arabian Peninsula, including Mecca where she was worshipped alongside Manat and al-'Uzza as one of the daughters of Allah. The word Allat or Elat has been used to refer to various goddesses in the ancient Near East, including the goddess Asherah-Athirat.
Sati, also known as Dakshayani, is the Hindu goddess of marital felicity and longevity, and is worshipped as an aspect of the mother goddess Shakti. She is generally considered the first wife of Shiva, other being Parvati, who was Sati's reincarnation after her death.
Sarpanit was the consort of Marduk, the main god of Babylon, and a goddess of birth. She was already attested as the wife of Marduk before his ascension to the top of the Mesopotamian pantheon, appearing in inscriptions of the Babylonian kings Sumulael and Samsu-iluna. Some researchers regard her simply as one of the "prototypical divine wives."
Kali, also known as Dakshina Kālikā, is a Hindu goddess, who is considered to be the Master of death, time and change. She is also said to be the Parvati, that is the supreme of all powers, or the ultimate reality.
Devī is the Sanskrit word for 'goddess'; the masculine form is deva. Devi and deva mean 'heavenly, divine, anything of excellence', and are also gender-specific terms for a deity in Hinduism.
Navaratri is a Hindu festival that spans over nine nights and is celebrated every year in the autumn season. It is observed for different reasons and celebrated differently in various parts of the Hindu Indian cultural sphere. Theoretically, there are four seasonal Navaratri. However, in practice, it is the post-monsoon autumn festival called Sharada Navaratri which is the most observed in honour of the divine feminine Devi (Durga). The festival is celebrated in the bright half of the Hindu calendar month Ashvin, which typically falls in the Gregorian months of September and October.
Mahadevi, also referred to as Devi, Shakti, Adi Parashakti and Adi-Shakti, is the primordial Goddess or Divine Mother - The Supreme Energy who possesses all riches, all strength, all fame, all beauty, all knowledge, all renunciation and is the Creatrix of the universe in Hinduism. Shaivas consider her as Parvati, while Shaktas consider her as Tripura Sundari, and Vaishnavas consider Goddess Lakshmi as Mahadevi.
References
- ↑ Monaghan, Patricia (2009). Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines. ABC-CLIO. p. 155. ISBN 978-0313349904 . Retrieved 15 August 2015.
- ↑ Loar, Julie (2010). Goddesses for Every Day: Exploring the Wisdom & Power of the Divine Feminine around the World. New World Library. p. 239. ISBN 978-1577319511 . Retrieved 15 August 2015.
 | This Hindu mythology-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |