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.

Some Hindu scholars demur to this derivation of Saktism from lower
cults. They point to its refined and philosophic aspects; they see in
it the worship of a goddess, who can be as merciful as the Madonna,
but yet, since she is the goddess of nature, combines in one shape
life and death. May not the grosser forms of Saktism be perversions
and corruptions of an ancient and higher faith? In support of this it
may be urged that the Buddhist goddess Tara is as a rule a beautiful
and benevolent figure, though she can be terrible as the enemy of evil
and has clear affinities to Durga. Yet the history of Indian thought
does not support this view, but rather the view that Hinduism
incorporated certain ancient ideas, true and striking as ancient ideas
often are, but without purging them sufficiently to make them
acceptable to the majority of educated Indians.

The Yajur Veda[687] associates Rudra with a female deity called Ambika
or mother, who is however his sister, not his spouse. The earliest
forms of