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18. SAKTISM
Devi becomes Adi Para Sakthi - the Primal Eternal Energy worshipped by the Trimurthi and the gods
As in all earlier cultures this concept of sex degenerated into various secret cultic foms involving magic, witchcraft, immorality, and occult powers. An example of the perverted expression of the truth, a travesty of the original practices, is the theory of the five Makaras (Pancha Makaras); -Madya or wine, Mamsa or flesh, Matsya or fish, Mudra or symbolical acts, and Maithuna or coition. In order achieve this, Tantra is declared as a secret doctrine. It is a Gupta Vidya. It then takes many divergent forms of worship and rituals.
In Sankara's theology here is the scheme:
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