Sastras describe a divine cosmic power called Shakti. The Divine Mother is the embodiment of the Supreme Brahman’s inherent power by which creation, sustenance, dissolution, etc, are constantly happening. The Shakti Schools of worship stress the Mother-aspect of the Ultimate Reality. The prevailing practice is to glorify the deity of each school as the Supreme Being and describe all other deities as subservient.
Adi Sankara, in the hymn Saundarya Lahari describes the Supreme Reality as Siva-Shakti, the Inseparable Whole, said Sri Goda Venkateswara Sastrigal in a lecture. In the very first verse he states that Siva is endowed with the power to create only when united with Shakti. Otherwise He is incapable even of movement. The acharya extols the Divine Mother who is adored by Hari, Hara and Brahma. Even the celestial beings pray that their individual powers are retained. Only those who have acquired merit in the past can be fortunate to chant Her names and sing Her glory.
How can we say that the Vedas are eternal? At the beginning of each Kalpa, the Supreme Brahman imparts the Omkara to Brahma. Brahma then meditates on the Omkara and then proceeds to create. All the Vedas are contained in Omkara and all the words in the Vedas are eternal. Every word has as its counterpart a form, an object which it denotes. The word, the object and the relationship between them are eternal verities. At the end of each cycle there is complete dissolution and creation begins afresh at the beginning of the next cycle. However there is no break in the verities of the word, its meaning and their relationship. The Vedas are said to prostrate to the divine mother. They pray to the Goddess that the relationship between words and their meanings have to be retained without any discrepancy.
ADVERTISEMENT