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Alain Danielou – While the Gods Play 

The mother goddess is the source and principle of life itself. It is thus in her role as mother that woman gains divinity and is worshiped. The mother is without artifice, without makeup (niranjana).

She is the comfort of man wandering in the deserts of the world. She is forgiveness, charity, and limitless compassion.  As the image Prakriti, woman is the incarnation of the nutritive principle, which is the basis of material reality.

She is the guardian of the hearth,- the priestess of Agni, god of fire. It is she who maintains the home, the centre of family life. She is the axis of society, the centre of each of society's cells, and hence is at the centre of the social unit’s stability.

The original Shaiva society was matriarchal: women ruled in the home, the interior and concealed social cell, the sanctuary, of which she was the goddess. The father may have performed the rites of initiation for his sons, but it was the mother's blessing which was needed before he could enter the secret path of Sannyasa, or renunciation.