Devi (generic Goddess)

Devi, "goddess," names the Hindu concept of the Great Goddess (Mahadevi), the all-embracing feminine divine understood in Shaktism as the source from which every specific goddess, Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvati and the rest, ultimately manifests.

As Mahadevi, "great goddess," she is held to unite all other goddesses within herself, so that each named goddess is approached as one of her manifestations rather than as a wholly separate deity.

She has no single fixed image, since any depiction of any goddess can be read, in Shakta theology, as an image of Devi herself; her presence is as much a theological principle, the female energy or Shakti of the divine, as a pictured form.

The Devi Mahatmya (also called the Durga Saptashati), a text of roughly seven hundred verses within the Markandeya Purana dated to around the fifth or sixth century CE, is the foundational scripture describing her as the supreme reality and creator of the universe, manifesting in forms such as Durga and Kali to defeat demons that even the male gods cannot overcome.

In earlier Vedic-period assimilation she came to represent the Shakti, or power, of Shiva as his consort; in the fuller Shakta theology that develops later, however, she is treated as the ground of being from which all gods, Shiva included, derive rather than as dependent on any consort.

She is central to Shaktism, the goddess-centred stream of Hinduism, and her scripture is recited during Navaratri and Durga Puja across India. On this platform the "devi" key is used specifically where a prayer or site honours the Goddess in general rather than one clearly named aspect.

Devi worship in its many specific forms spans the length of India, from Bengal's Durga and Kali traditions to South India's Devi temples and the pan-Indian network of Shakti Peethas; the underlying theology of a single unifying Goddess is shared even as her named forms and local traditions differ widely.