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OF THE HINDUS.
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that one of the principal rites of the Saktas is the actual worship of the daughter or wife of a Brahman, and leads with one branch of the sect at least to the introduction of gross impurities. But besides this derivation of PRAKŘITI, or Sakti, from the Supreme, and the secondary origin of all female nature from her, those who adopt her as their especial divinity employ the language invariably addressed towards the preferential object of worship in every sect, and contemplate her as comprising all existence in her essence. Thus she is not only declared to be one with the male deity, of whose energy some one of her manifestations is the type, as Deví with Siva, and LAKSHMÍ with VISHŃU; but it is said, that she is equally in all things, and that all things are in her, and that besides her there is nothing?
Although the adoration of Prakniti Or SAKTI is, to a certain extent, authorised by the Puráňas, particu
Thus in the Kási Khanda:
सर्वमन्त्रमयी त्वं ब्रह्माद्यास्त्वत्समुद्भवाः । चतुर्वर्गात्मकी त्वं वै चतुर्वर्गफलोदया ॥ त्वत्तः सर्वमिदं विश्वं त्वयि सर्व जगन्निधे। यद्दश्यं यददृश्यञ्च स्थूलसूक्ष्मस्वरूपतः ॥
यत्तत्त्वं शक्तिरूपेण किञ्चिन्न त्वदृते क्वचित् । "Thou art predicated in every prayer — Brahma and the rest are all born from thee. Thou art one with the four objects of life, and from thee they come to fruit. From thee this whole universe proceeds, and in thee, asylum of the world, all is, whether visible or invisible, gross or subtle in its nature: what is, thou art in the Sakti form, and except thee nothing has ever been.”
