Concepts of Shakti as found in Saundarya Lahari

Abstract

Saundarya Lahari is a piece of Sanskrit literature the type of which is called ‘Khanda Kavya’ (small poetry). It is comprised of 100 stanzas and its composer is Adi Shankaracarya, the great Hindu philosopher in the eighth century. This poetry can be further divided into 2 parts : Ananda Lahari and Saundarya Lahari. The former starts from the first stanza to the 41^st one, describing the glory and attributes of the Goddess. The latter is from 42^nd stanza to the 100^th, praising the beauty of the Goddess from head to feet plus the conclusion. Therefore, this small piece of literature contains great amount of both philosophical and poetic values. The main philosophical concept found is that the Goddess or Shakti is the great energy which runs all the comic processess. She is one and inseperable with Shiva and they two are the manifestation of Brahman.  In addition, the 3 main contents of Tantra, which are Mantra (sacred syllables), Yantra (diagram representing the Goddess) and Chakra (the subtle system in human’s body), also appear herein.