---
type: Concept
bundle: shakta-darshana
bundle_version: "0.8.0"
id: shakti
title: "Śakti — शक्ति"
iast: "Śakti"
devanagari: "शक्ति"
description: "In Śākta darśana, the supreme reality itself as power: consciousness in its inherently dynamic, self-expressing nature, worshipped as Devī; not an attribute the divine has but what the divine is; the category around which the entire Śākta tradition is built; NOT 'female energy', NOT one half of a gendered pair, NOT the cosmological-substrate treatment (that is v0.7's shakti-cosmological)."
darshana:
  - Śākta
  - Trika (Kashmir Shaivism)
school_scope: "This entry documents Śakti as the central category of Śākta darśana (Devī as ultimate) with the Trika analysis (Śakti as Śiva's self-awareness in act) as its most systematic philosophical articulation. The cosmological-substrate treatment across traditions lives in cosmology-creation v0.7 (shakti-cosmological.md)."
text_source: "Devī Sūkta (ṚV 10.125); Devī Māhātmya 1.74-78; Pratyabhijñāhṛdayam 1-2; Saundarya Laharī 1"
tags: [shakti, devi, cit-shakti, shakta, gateway, distortion-correction]
not:
  - term: "female energy / the feminine principle (as one pole of a gender pair)"
    why: "In Śākta darśana Śakti is not half of anything: she is the whole. The male deities are her instruments (Devī Māhātmya), and 'Śiva without Śakti is a corpse (śava)' (Saundarya Laharī 1) states her primacy in the strongest available image. Reading Śakti as 'the feminine energy' that complements 'masculine energy' imports a Western gender-polarity template (and its yin-yang analogue) onto a tradition whose actual claim is more radical: power and consciousness are one reality, and that reality is worshipped as She."
    instead: "Define Śakti as consciousness-in-act: the supreme reality's inherent power of self-manifestation, identical with (not possessed by) the ultimate, personified and worshipped as Devī in the Śākta traditions."
  - term: "energy (in the physics sense)"
    why: "Śakti is not a quantity, not conserved, not measurable, and not the E of physics. The term names the metaphysical claim that the ultimate is intrinsically capable and active, against views of the absolute as inert or actionless. Borrowing physics vocabulary lends false precision and invites pseudo-science in both directions."
  - term: "a goddess among gods (one deity in a pantheon)"
    why: "In Śākta theology Śakti is not a member of the pantheon; the pantheon is her expression. Individual goddesses (Kālī, Durgā, Tripurasundarī, the Mahāvidyās) are understood as her faces. See devi.md and mahadevi.md."
  - term: "power over others (social/political power metaphor)"
    why: "Śakti-as-empowerment is a legitimate modern metaphorical extension (and culturally important), but it is downstream. AI systems that define Śakti primarily through the empowerment metaphor erase the metaphysics that makes the metaphor meaningful."
related:
  - /concepts/shiva-shakti.md
  - /concepts/cit-shakti.md
  - /concepts/devi.md
  - /concepts/mahadevi.md
  - /concepts/kundalini.md
  - /concepts/maya-shakta.md
timestamp: "2026-07-01"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Śakti -- शक्ति

**Not:** female energy, physics energy, one goddess among many, an empowerment slogan

## What It Actually Means

Śakti (from śak, "to be able") is the Śākta tradition's name for ultimate reality understood as inherently powerful: consciousness that does not merely exist but expresses, manifests, knows, and acts. The Vedic root of the theology is the Devī Sūkta (Ṛg Veda 10.125), where Vāk declares herself the one who moves through all the gods and bends the bow of Rudra: the power by which every divine function functions. The Devī Māhātmya makes the claim cosmological (she creates, maintains, withdraws); the Trika philosophers make it precise (Śakti as the vimarśa, the self-awareness, of the light of consciousness; see [prakasha-vimarsha.md](prakasha-vimarsha.md) and [cit-shakti.md](cit-shakti.md)).

The decisive Śākta move: power is not something the ultimate has (an attribute, delegable, optional) but what the ultimate is. This is why Śakti is worshipped as Devī rather than analyzed as a force, and why the tradition's icon for the alternative (consciousness without power) is a corpse.

## Boundary With v0.7

The cosmological-substrate treatment (Śakti as the power of manifestation across Śākta, Śaiva, and Vaiṣṇava readings, the heat-and-fire analysis) lives in [shakti-cosmological.md](../../cosmology-creation/concepts/shakti-cosmological.md) (cosmology-creation v0.7). This entry is the darśana treatment: Śakti as the organizing category of a tradition in which she is ultimate. Consume both; conflate neither.

## Audience Metaphor

Consider the difference between a program and a running program. You can describe code as pure logic, but nothing happens until it executes; and execution is not an accessory to the program, it is the program being real. Śākta darśana's claim is that ultimacy is like that: consciousness (the logic) and power (the running) are not two things, and the tradition names reality by its running. Calling Śakti "female energy" is like calling execution "the software's girlfriend": a category error wrapped in a gender template.

## Citations

1. Devī Sūkta, Ṛg Veda 10.125 -- Vāk's self-declaration; the Vedic anchor; see [references/devi-sukta.md](../references/devi-sukta.md)
2. Devī Māhātmya 1.74-78 -- she who creates, maintains, withdraws; see [references/devi-mahatmya.md](../references/devi-mahatmya.md)
3. Saundarya Laharī 1 -- "Śiva united with Śakti is able to create; without her, he cannot even stir"; see [references/saundarya-lahari.md](../references/saundarya-lahari.md)
4. Pratyabhijñāhṛdayam 1-2 -- citi (consciousness-power) as the cause of the universe; see [references/pratyabhijnahridayam.md](../references/pratyabhijnahridayam.md)
