Introduction to Tantra Sastra - Aghori

ŚIVA AND ŚAKTI 13
pure transparency, śyāma, red, white, and yellow.
There is some difference in the schools as to that which
each of the three forms produces but from such threefold
form of Ahaṃkāra issue the indriyas (“senses,” and the
Devas Dik, Vāta, Arka, Pracetas, Vahni, Indra, Upendra,
Mitra, and the Aśvins. The vaikārika, taijasa, and
bhūtādika are the fourth, fifth, and sixth creations,
which are known as prākrita, or appertaining to Prakṛ
ti. The rest, which are products of these, such as the
vegetable world with its upward life current, animals
with horizontal life current and bhūta, preta and the
like, whose life current tends downward, constitute the
vaikrta creation, the two being known as the kaumāra
creation.
The Goddess (Devī) is the great Śakti. She is Māyā
for of Her the māyā which produces the saṃsāra is. As
Lord of māyā She is Mahāmāyā. 1 Devī is avidyā (nescience)
because She binds and vidya (knowledge) because
She liberates and destroys the saṃsara. 2 She is Pra
kṛ ti, 3 and as existing before creation is the Ādyā (primordial)
Śakti. Devī is the vācaka-śakti, the manifestation
of Cit in Prakṛ ti, and the vāchya-Śakti, or Cit
itself. The Ātmā should be contemplated as Devī. 4 Śakti
or Devī is thus the Brahman revealed in Its mother
aspect (Śri-māta) 5 as Creatrix and Nourisher of the
worlds. Kālī says of Herself in Yogini-Tantra: 6 “Saccid-
1 Mahāmāyā without māyā is nir-guṇā; and with māyā Sa-guṇa; Śaktānanda
tarangini, Chap. 1.
2 Śāktānanda-tarangini (chap. i).
3 Brahma-vaivarta Purāṇa (chap. i). Pakṛ tikhānda. Nāradīdya Purāṇa.
4 See chap. ii. of Devī-bhāgavata.
5 Devī is worshipped on account of Her soft heart: (komalāntahkaranam).
Śāktānanda-tarangini (chap. iii.)
6 Part I, Chapter X.