Book Title: Development of Hinduism
Author(s): M M Ninan
Publisher: M M Ninan

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Page 484
________________ 18. SAKTISM Egyptian mother goddesses Hathor and Mut (Mother) The ancient culture of Aztecs had a Mother Goddess, known as Coatlique, or Lady of the Serpent Skirt, the creator of the world lived in the Aztlan, mountains. She had 400 children who populated the universe Lucius Apuleius writes in The Golden Ass (AD160) about Goddess, "I am nature, the universal Mother, mistress of all elements, primordial child of time, sovereign of all things spiritual, queen of the dead.... Though I am worshipped in many aspects, known by countless names, propitiated with all manner of different rites, yet the whole round earth venerates me." Translation by Robert Graves. These were the goddesses of the Canaanites when the Hebrews conquered Canaan and are referred to as the "Abomination". Yet being an agricultural goddess of fertility , magic and witchcraft it thrived in the times of the period of Kings. Evidently Saktism is a universal culture celebrating female power who swayed every formation of culture indirectly in a subtle way. So it is logical to assume that similar cults existed in the Indus civilization long before the Aryans. Indus valley civilization was also an agricultural civilization. According to Bhattacharya it might have been in existence in the pre-Indus cultures of Zhob Valeey and Kulli which existed in the third millennium BC. The Indus seals were found in Sumerian Ur attesting to the fact that people of Sumeria and Mohenjodaro and Harappa in India were trading partners between 2300 to 2000 B.C. 480

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