7

There are many sects in Hinduism: Shaivas, Vaishnas and Ganapatyas, to name a few. For the Goddess, there are Shaktas. However, obviously, Shaktas are only glorifying Shakti, the wife of Shiva, more than the other two Tridevi. In fact, they say all the Tridevi are her incarnations, hence in this context, Shakti is the most powerful as the other Tridevi were merely her avatars.

Are there any sects which glorify Lakshmi or Saraswati themselves or am I just misinterpreting who the Shaktas worship?

Edit:

After reading Amit Saxena's answer below,I realised that the word "Shakti" in Shaktism doesn't refer to Shakti,the wife of Shiva but Shakti, the feminine form of the Divine(Brahman) and that I was,apparently," misinterpreting who the Shaktas worship" .However,in the answer in this question,there are groups like Srikula and Kalikula,whom visualise Shakti/Brahman/the supreme deity as Lalitha Tripurasundari and Durga respectively.Are there any sects like these for Lakshmi and Saraswati?If the answer is no,why not?

Improve this question
8
  • 2
    Actually Shaktas don't believe Shiva's first wife Shakti is the supreme bejng, they believe that Adi Parashakti is the supreme being, and they think that Shiva's wives Shakti and Parvati, as well as Brahma and Vishnu's wives Saraswati and Lakshmi, are all just manifestations of Adi Parashakti. However it is true that Shaktas tend to put more emphasis on Parvati than they do on Saraswati and Lakshmi. I don't know of any Shaktas that place emphasis on Saraswati or Lakshmi, but I think some Shaktas do emphasize Krishna's lover Radha.
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Commented Mar 15, 2016 at 14:02
  • 1
    By the way, you may be interested to know that because Shaktas tend to place so much emphasis on Parvati, they also give importance to Shiva, and so at some point a bunch of Shaktas started adopting Shiva as their Ishta Devata. This group eventually became so big that it developed into its own sect of Hinduism - Kashmiri Shaivism. That is why Kashmiri Shaivites use Shakta Agamas that happen to focus on Shiva (the Bhairava Tantras) rather than regular Shaiva Agamas like other Shaivites do. Abhinavagupta, whom I discuss here, was a Kashmiri Shaivite: hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/282/36
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Commented Mar 15, 2016 at 14:13
  • @Keshav Srinivasan Why do the Shaktas do this to Lakshmi and Saraswati?In the link below,I had found proof that Lakshmi and Sarswati were more like Adi Parashakti than Parvati.Would appreciate if you could shed some light on this matter.link:hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/10893/…
    – user4627
    Commented Mar 15, 2016 at 23:50
  • @KeshavSrinivasan I know there are sects like Shaivas and Vaishnavas worship Shiva and his incarnations and vishnu and his incarnations respectively.However,are Shaktas like some Vaishnavas(Gaudiya Vaishnavas)who believe that Krishna,a manefestation of Vishnu,is more powerful than Vishnu himself?I mean they think that Parvati,an incarnation of Adi Parashakti, is Adi Parashakti herself,right?
    – user4627
    Commented Mar 15, 2016 at 23:55
  • You cannot make sweeping generalizations about Shaktas - just as you cannot do with followers of Vishnu or Shiva. Shaktas have their monists and dualists same as the others. Shaktas are not worshiping Shakti as the wife of Shiva from a Puranic standpoint, they are worshiping Her as as the Saguna Brahman.
    – Swami Vishwananda
    Commented Mar 16, 2016 at 7:43

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
3

Shakti also refers to the feminine form of Divine in general. There are Shakta Upansihads which worship these different forms.

Saubhagyalakshmi Upanishad is a Shakta Upanishad related to the Rig Veda which worships Lakshmi form of Shakti.

Similarly, the Sarasvati-rahasya Upanishad of the Krishna Yajurveda worships Saraswati form of Shakti.

Hence, Lakshmi and Saraswati are worshipped as part of the Shakta texts.

Also, you might be interested to know the following:

The Devi Upanishad of the Atharva Veda worships Durga.

The Sita Upanishad of the Atharva Veda worships Sita as a form of the Shakti.

Also, the Bahvricha Upanishad of Rig Veda worships the feminine form of the Devi in general.

Improve this answer
2
  • The above mentioned Saubhagyalakshmi Upanishad and the Sarasvati-rahasya Upanishad just worship Lakshmi and Saraswati respectively.However,I don't think that they potray them as Brahman?
    – user4627
    Commented Sep 7, 2016 at 10:45
  • They do, each form is portrayed as Brahman itself. The idea is to choose a form which one can relate the most to, hence the variety.
    – Amit Saxena
    Commented Nov 8, 2016 at 19:46
0

There are no different sects for different forms of the mother. All shaktis (Lakshmi, Kali and Saraswati) are nothing but just one energy and the believers of this Shakti(s) are called Shaktas. The ways and forms of worship can be different for different mothers but in essence all are the same.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.