ABSTRACT
The preceding chapters have provided the historical trajectory of the Mahāvidyās with special reference to early medieval eastern India. Although the Mahāvidyās have been generally understood as the Tantric feminine pantheon consisting of ten goddesses, their formation included divergent religious strands and elements: the yoginī worship, cult of Kālī and Tripurasundarī, Śaiva and Śākta Tantras, Vajrayāna Buddhism, Vaiṣṇava bhakti, Brahmanical strand of Puranic traditions and so forth. I have traced the complicated historical process through which these traditions culminated in the Mahāvidyā cult, and the goddesses with different origins and contradictory attributes were brought in a cluster. In other words, it is the historical reconstruction of Śākta traditions in eastern India where various religious trends have simultaneously evolved, encountered, merged and divided, and tremendous mutual borrowings of concepts and practices took place. In this concluding chapter, I would like to recapitulate briefly the process of making the Mahāvidyās and comment upon their socioreligious implications.
