The worship of female deities becomes prominent somewhat late in Indian literature and it does not represent—­not to the same extent as the Chinese cult of Kwan-yin for example—­the better ideals of the period when it appears.  The goddesses of the Rig Veda are insignificant:  they are little more than names, and grammatically often the feminine forms of their consorts.  But this Veda is evidently a special manual of prayer from which many departments of popular religion were excluded.  In the Atharva Veda many spirits with feminine names are invoked and there is an inclination to personify bad qualities and disasters as goddesses.  But we do not find any goddess who has attained a position comparable with that held by Durga, Cybele or Astarte, though there are some remarkable hymns[684] addressed to the Earth.  But there is no doubt that the worship of goddesses (especially goddesses of fertility) as great powers is both ancient and widespread.  We find it among the Egyptians and Semites, in Asia Minor, in Greece, Italy, and among the Kelts.  The goddess Anahit, who was worshipped with immoral rites in Bactria, is figured on the coins of the Kushans and must at one time have been known on the north-western borders of India.  At the present day Sitala and in south India Mariamman are goddesses of smallpox who require propitiation, and one of the earliest deities known to have been worshipped by the Tamils is the goddess Kottavai.[685] Somewhat obscure but widely worshipped are the powers known as the Mothers, a title which also occurs in Keltic mythology.  They are groups of goddesses varying in number and often malevolent.  As many as a hundred and forty are said to be worshipped in Gujarat.  The census of Bengal (1901) records the worship of the earth, sun and rivers as females, of the snake goddesses Manasa and Jagat Gauri and of numerous female demons who send disease, such as the seven sisters, Ola Bibi, Jogini and the Churels, or spirits of women who have died in childbirth.

The rites celebrated in honour of these deities are often of a questionable character and include dances by naked women and offerings of spirituous liquors and blood.  Similar features are found in other countries.  Prostitution formed part of the worship of Astarte and Anahit:  the Tauric Artemis was adored with human sacrifices and Cybele with self-inflicted mutilations.  Similarly offerings of blood drawn from the sacrificer’s own body are enjoined in the Kalika Purana.  Two stages can be distinguished in the relations between these cults and Hinduism.  In the later stage which can be witnessed even at the present day an aboriginal goddess or demon is identified with one of the aspects (generally a “black” or fierce aspect) of Siva’s spouse.[686] But such identification is facilitated by the fact that goddesses like Kali, Bhairavi, Chinnamastaka are not products of purely Hindu imagination but represent earlier stages of amalgamation in which Hindu and aboriginal ideas are already compounded.  When the smallpox goddess is identified with Kali, the procedure is correct, for some popular forms of Kali are little more than an aboriginal deity of pestilence draped with Hindu imagery and philosophy.