Chapter 16: Shaktism, Smartism, and the Panchayatana Synthesis

Shaktism worships the Divine Feminine, Shakti or Devi, as supreme reality. Its central scripture, the Devi Mahatmya (c. 400–600 CE), narrates the Goddess's defeat of the buffalo-demon Mahishasura and other threats the male gods could not overcome, and is recited annually during Navaratri/Durga Puja (Coburn, 1991, Encountering the Goddess: A Translation of the Devi-Mahatmya, is the standard academic translation and study). Shaktism encompasses gentle maternal forms (Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvati) and fierce, transgressive forms (Kali, Chamunda, the ten Mahavidyas), and overlaps extensively with Tantric traditions in both Shaiva and Vaishnava contexts.

1. The ten Mahavidyas

Later Shakta theology elaborates the Goddess into ten "wisdom" forms, the Mahavidyas — Kali, Tara, Tripurasundari (also called Shodashi), Bhuvaneshvari, Bhairavi, Chhinnamasta, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi, and Kamalatmika — each representing a distinct aspect of power, from the fierce and death-confronting (Kali, Chhinnamasta) to the serene and auspicious (Kamalatmika, closely identified with Lakshmi). David Kinsley's Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine (1997) remains the standard English-language study of this group, arguing that together the ten form a deliberately unsettling theological curriculum: a practitioner is meant to confront every register of reality, beautiful and terrifying alike, as a manifestation of the same ultimate Shakti, rather than worship only the comfortable, maternal face of the Goddess.

2. Shakti Peethas: a sacred geography

Shakta tradition maps this theology directly onto the land. According to a widely told Puranic story, the god Shiva's first wife, Sati, immolated herself after her father Daksha insulted Shiva; a grief-maddened Shiva carried her corpse across the cosmos until Vishnu's discus dismembered it, and wherever a piece fell, a Shakti Peetha, a "seat of the Goddess," was established. Different textual traditions count 51 or 108 such sites, among them Kamakhya in Assam, Kalighat in Kolkata, and Vaishno Devi in Jammu and Kashmir, each associated with a different body part and a different local form of the Goddess. Whatever its historical origins, the legend has the practical effect of binding a subcontinent-wide network of pilgrimage sites into a single narrative and a single body — the Goddess's own.

3. Shakta Tantra: Kaula and Shrividya

Shaktism overlaps heavily with Tantra, and Shakta Tantric practice is conventionally divided into a "left-hand" stream, Vamachara or Kaula, associated with transgressive ritual elements historically including the consumption of meat, wine, and ritualized sexuality as a path to liberation, and a "right-hand" stream, Dakshinachara, which retains Tantric symbolism and mantra practice while observing conventional Brahminical purity codes. Within the right-hand stream, the Shrividya tradition — centered on the goddess Lalita Tripurasundari, her mantra (Panchadashi or Shodashi), and her geometric diagram (the Sri Yantra or Sri Chakra) — became especially influential among South Indian Smarta Brahmins, including at the Shankaracharya mathas discussed in Chapter 25. Douglas Renfrew Brooks's The Secret of the Three Cities (1990) and Auspicious Wisdom (1992) are the standard academic studies of Shrividya's theology and its integration with Advaita Vedanta.

4. Smartism: a liberal orthodoxy

Smartism is not devoted to a single deity but is a liberal, integrative Brahminical orthodoxy following Shankara's Advaita philosophy. Its ritual innovation, traditionally attributed to Shankara, is Panchayatana puja, the simultaneous worship of five deities — Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, Surya, and Ganesha — as equally valid forms (ishta-devata) of one formless Brahman. This inclusive model is the theological mechanism by which Sanatan Dharma has historically absorbed and harmonized what would otherwise be rival sectarian claims to supremacy. Archaeological evidence of five-shrine (panchayatana) temple platforms from Gupta-era sites suggests the underlying arrangement predates Shankara himself, even if its systematic philosophical justification is credited to him.

5. Panchayatana in practice today

In the classical arrangement, five symbols or small images — traditionally naturally occurring stones rather than sculpted icons, such as a Shaligrama for Vishnu and a Banalinga for Shiva — are set out in a quincunx, one at the center and four at the corners, on a round plate or a home shrine. Which deity sits at the center is a matter of the individual household's or lineage's ishta-devata; Shiva-centric, Vishnu-centric, and Ganesha-centric versions are all attested, and some South Indian Smarta communities, particularly Gaud Saraswat Brahmins, add a sixth deity, Kartikeya, producing what is called Shanmata, "the six-fold doctrine." The practice remains standard in many Smarta households' daily puja today, even as the more visible, public face of Shaktism — Durga Puja pandals, Navaratri garba dancing, temple festivals to Kali or Kamakhya — dominates the calendar of communal worship.

6. Regional Shaktism: Bengal and Assam

Shaktism has particularly deep roots in eastern India. In Bengal, Kali worship became the emotional and theological center of an entire regional religious culture, most famously through the nineteenth-century mystic Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, priest at the Dakshineswar Kali temple near Kolkata, whose intense, often ecstatic devotion to Kali as Divine Mother shaped the outlook of his most famous disciple, Swami Vivekananda (see Chapter 26), even though Vivekananda's own public teaching leaned more toward Vedantic universalism than Tantric Shaktism. In Assam, the Kamakhya temple near Guwahati, one of the most important Shakti Peethas, is associated with the goddess's yoni (generative organ) and hosts the Ambubachi Mela, a festival centered on the symbolic menstruation of the goddess — a rare instance within Sanatan Dharma of a major pilgrimage tradition treating menstruation not as a source of ritual impurity but as a mark of generative, sacred power.

7. Two solutions to the same problem

Read together, Shaktism and Smartism represent two very different answers to the same underlying question that runs through this book: how does a tradition with dozens of legitimate deities and sects avoid fracturing into permanently rival, mutually exclusive religions? Shaktism answers by theological maximalism, folding every other deity and every register of experience, gentle and terrifying alike, into a single all-encompassing Goddess. Smartism answers by philosophical minimalism, treating all named deities as equally provisional, equally valid doorways to a single formless Brahman that ultimately transcends every name and form. The two are not rivals so much as complementary strategies for the same civilizational problem of religious pluralism, and, as the next chapter's discussion of food, sacrifice, and ahimsa shows, that problem extends well beyond theology into everyday questions of ritual and diet.

3. Śāktism and Smārta practice in comparative perspective

Śāktism and Smartism illustrate two different ways of organizing plurality. Śākta traditions can place the Goddess at the center and interpret other deities through her power, while Smārta practice can use a multi-deity arrangement to affirm a common ultimate reality. These are not interchangeable positions. The former can be strongly theistic and goddess-centered; the latter is associated particularly with Advaita interpretations in which different personal forms can serve as approaches to Brahman.

The concept of iṣṭa-devatā is especially important for understanding this pluralism. A devotee may have a preferred deity without necessarily denying the religious legitimacy of other deities. This differs from saying that all Sanatan Dharma traditions are doctrinally identical. Vaiṣṇava, Śaiva and Śākta theologians can maintain strong claims about their chosen deity while still participating in a shared religious environment.

4. Panchāyatana Pūjā and historical caution

Pañcāyatana Pūjā is traditionally associated with the Smārta milieu and involves the worship of five deities, commonly Śiva, Viṣṇu, Devī, Sūrya and Gaṇeśa, arranged together with a chosen focus. The practice is often attributed retrospectively to Śaṅkara, but the historical attribution should be expressed cautiously. Later traditions have strong reasons for connecting the practice with Śaṅkara's project of Advaita and religious synthesis, while the precise historical origins of the ritual arrangement are more difficult to establish.

This is a useful example of the distinction between tradition history and critical history. A community's attribution to Śaṅkara is itself historically meaningful because it explains how the community understands its identity. But it is not identical to independently dated evidence proving that Śaṅkara personally instituted every later practice associated with his name. The portal should preserve both levels of information.

5. Why Smartism should not be presented as “all Sanatan Dharma”

The inclusive character of Smārta practice has sometimes encouraged modern writers to describe it as if it were the default Sanatan Dharma position that all deities are simply equal manifestations of one God. That formulation is too broad. Oxford scholarship on Vedānta emphasizes that Sanatan Dharma philosophical schools disagree substantially about the relation between Brahman, individual souls and the world. Oxford Bibliographies: “Vedānta”. A historical account should therefore describe Smārta pluralism as one important solution to sectarian diversity, not as a universally shared Sanatan Dharma doctrine.

Modern Sanatan Dharma reformers and global teachers sometimes presented Advaita-style universalism as a general philosophy of Sanatan Dharma. That development is historically important in its own right. It shows how an internal Sanatan Dharma tradition could become a major modern public language for explaining Sanatan Dharma to audiences outside India.

6. Pluralism, orthodoxy and the problem of labels

The categories Śākta, Smārta, Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava are useful for organizing historical material, but they should not be mistaken for modern denominational membership categories with precise boundaries. Individuals can participate in several ritual worlds over the course of their lives, and families may maintain a household deity while also observing festivals associated with other deities. A temple may have a principal deity but still incorporate a wide range of associated practices.

The Smārta model is particularly useful for studying this kind of layered identity because it provides a theological framework in which multiple deities can be worshipped without requiring exclusive allegiance to one. Yet this should not be confused with the claim that all Sanatan Dharma traditions endorse the same pluralist theology. Some traditions make explicit claims about the supremacy of their chosen deity, and those claims matter.

Śāktism likewise contains multiple models of divine unity. In one setting the Goddess may be the supreme reality; in another, a particular goddess may be understood as a manifestation of a broader Devi; in still another, Śakti may be discussed in relation to Śiva. The word “Goddess” therefore conceals considerable theological diversity.

A serious historical portal should make these distinctions visible. Doing so strengthens rather than weakens the case for understanding Sanātana Dharma as a long-lived civilizational tradition capable of containing philosophical disagreement, devotional specialization and regional diversity.

7. The place of ritual within philosophical pluralism

Smārta and Śākta traditions also demonstrate that philosophy and ritual should not be treated as separate worlds. A philosophical claim about Brahman can be expressed through worship, mantra, icon arrangement, meditation and household observance. Conversely, ritual practices can preserve theological ideas even when practitioners do not articulate them in formal philosophical language. This relationship between lived practice and intellectual doctrine is essential to understanding Sanatan Dharma traditions historically.

The same household may therefore participate in several forms of religious life: daily worship of a chosen deity, observance of family festivals, pilgrimage to a Śākta or Vaiṣṇava shrine, and engagement with Advaita teachings. Such combinations are not necessarily signs of inconsistency. They reflect the layered character of Sanatan Dharma religious identity.

8. The historical value of plural worship

Plural worship also provides evidence for how Sanatan Dharma communities negotiated diversity without requiring institutional uniformity. The ability to honor several deities can support family traditions, regional pilgrimage and philosophical reflection simultaneously. This flexibility is historically important because it helps explain why Sanatan Dharma religious identity has often operated through overlapping affiliations rather than a single centralized authority.

9. Transmission beyond the medieval period

Smārta and Śākta traditions continued to change in the early modern and modern periods through new print cultures, educational institutions, monastic organizations and reform movements. These developments did not simply replace older practices. They often preserved inherited texts and rituals while changing how those traditions were explained to new audiences in India and abroad.

The history of these traditions is consequently best presented as a history of interpretation as well as practice. Texts acquire new meanings when read in new institutional and social environments, while rituals can preserve ideas that are no longer stated explicitly in philosophical language. This continuity through reinterpretation is a recurring feature of Sanatan Dharma religious history.