Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

IS SHAKTI FORCE ?

desire that the “1” should be, he says that man has viewed this desire in two different ways, either as a whim of Creative Power, or a joyous self-expression of Creative Love. Is the fact then of his being, he asks, a revealment of Force or of Love ? Those who hold to the first view must also, he thinks, recognise conflict as inevitable and eternal. For according to them Peace and Love are but a precarious coat of armour within which the weak seek shelter, whereas that which the timid anathematise as unrighteousness, that alone is the road to success. “The pride of prosperity throws man’s mind outwards and the misery and insult of destitution draws man’s hungering desires likewise outwards. These two conditions alike leave man unashamed to place above all other gods, Shakti the Deity of Power—the Crue! One, whose right hand wields the weapon of guile. In the politics of Europe drunk with Power we see the worship of Shakti.”

In the same way the poet says that in the days of their political disruption, the cowed and down-trodden Indian people through the mouths of their poets sang the praises of the same Shakti. “ The Chandi of Kavikangkan and of the Annadamangala, the Ballad of Minas, the Goddess of Snakes, what are they but Peeans of the triumpi of Evil? The burden of their song is the defeat of Shiva the good at the hands of the cruel deceitful criminal Shakti.’ “ The male Deity who was in possession was fairly harmless. But all of a sudden a feminine Deity turns up and demands to be worshipped in his stead. That is to say that she insisted on thrusting herself where she had no right. Under what title? Force! By what method? Any that would serve.”

The Deity of Peace and Renunciation did not survive. Thus he adds that in Europe the modern Cult of Shakti says that the pale anemic Jesus will not do. But with high pomp and activity Burope celebrates her Shakti worship.

“Lastly the Indians of to-day have set to the worship of Europe’s Divinity. In the name of religion some are saying that it is cowardly to be afraid of wrong-doing. Both those who have attained worldly success, and those who have failed to attain it are singing the same tune. Both fret at righteousness as an obstacle which both would overcome by pnysical force.’ [am

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