The Mahāvidyās are a group of ten goddesses recognised together in the Śākta traditions. The group is enumerated in Tantric and Purāṇic sources — among them the Toḍala Tantra, the Mahā Bhāgavata Purāṇa and the Bṛhaddharma Purāṇa — and the standard modern scholarly treatment is David Kinsley’s Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahāvidyās (1997).
Adiveda publishes the mantras and the ashtottara shatanamavali (108 names) for all ten, and further texts for several. This page is a guide to who they are and what Adiveda publishes for each. It describes how the sources present each goddess; it does not interpret them, and it makes no claim about outcomes of worship.
Two streams
Śākta practice is often described as running in two broad streams: the Kālī-kula, in which Kālī is the supreme deity, and the Śrī-kula, in which Tripura Sundarī is. The ten are held in common; the emphasis differs.
The ten
1. Kālī (Kalika, Dakshina Kalika)
Described in the tradition as the ultimate form of Brahman and the devourer of time. She is the supreme deity of the Kālī-kula stream of Śākta practice.
Read on Adiveda: Dakshina Kalika Stotram · Kali Mantras · Kali Ashtottara Shatanamavali (Mahavidya) · Shri Kalikaashtakam · Kali Chalisa
Cosmic Tales: Kali Emerges from Durga · Kali and Raktabija
2. Tārā
Described as a guide and protector who offers the knowledge that leads to liberation.
Read on Adiveda: Tara Mantras · Tara Ashtottara Shatanamavali (Mahavidya)
3. Tripura Sundarī (Shodashi, Lalitā)
Her name is rendered as “beauty of the three worlds”. She is the supreme deity of the Śrī-kula stream, and is described as the ruler of Maṇidvīpa.
Read on Adiveda: Shodashi (Tripurasundari) Mantras · Shodashi (Tripurasundari) Ashtottara Shatanamavali · Lalita Chalisa
4. Bhuvaneśvarī
Described as the world mother, whose body is said to comprise all fourteen lokas.
Read on Adiveda: Bhuvaneshvari Mantras · Bhuvaneshvari Ashtottara Shatanamavali (Mahavidya)
5. Bhairavī (Tripura Bhairavi)
Described as the fierce goddess, and as the feminine counterpart of Bhairava.
Read on Adiveda: Bhairavi Mantras · Bhairavi Ashtottara Shatanamavali (Mahavidya)
6. Chhinnamastā (Chinnamasta)
Described in the sources as the self-decapitated goddess, who severed her own head in an episode involving her attendants Jayā and Vijayā. Her iconography is unusually graphic and is read very differently across traditions; this page reports how the sources describe her and does not interpret it.
Read on Adiveda: Chhinnamasta Mantras · Chhinnamasta Ashtottara Shatanamavali (Mahavidya)
7. Dhūmāvatī
Described in the tradition as the widow goddess. Some sources treat her as inauspicious in specific ritual contexts; that is a statement about how the texts classify her, not about anyone who reveres her.
Read on Adiveda: Dhumavati Mantras · Dhumavati Ashtottara Shatanamavali (Mahavidya)
8. Bagalāmukhī (Baglamukhi, Valgamukhi)
Described as the goddess who stills or paralyses opposition.
Read on Adiveda: Bagalamukhi Mantras · Bagalamukhi Ashtottara Shatanamavali (Mahavidya) · Baglamukhi Chalisa
9. Mātaṅgī (Shyamala)
Described as the prime minister of Lalitā, and sometimes called the “Tantric Sarasvatī”. Scholarship notes that her narratives engage themes of ritual purity and social boundary; this page reports that scholarship without taking a position on it.
Read on Adiveda: Matangi Mantras · Matangi Ashtottara Shatanamavali (Mahavidya)
10. Kamalā (Kamalātmikā)
Her name is rendered as “she who dwells in lotuses”. She is sometimes called the “Tantric Lakṣmī”.
Read on Adiveda: Kamala Mantras · Kamala Ashtottara Shatanamavali (Mahavidya)
The ten together, and the nine they are not
Two collections in the reading library treat the ten as a single set rather than one at a time. Das Mahavidya Mantras gathers the seed and invocation mantras of all ten in order; Das Mahavidya Shatanamavali does the same for the name-litanies. Either is the better starting point if you want the shape of the whole group before choosing one form to sit with.
One distinction is worth making plainly, because it is the commonest confusion in this area. The ten Mahavidyas are not the nine Navadurga forms recited at Navratri. They come from different literatures, they are counted differently, and they do different work. The Navadurga names are given in the Devi Kavacham and are attached in later practice to the nine nights of the autumn festival. The Dasha Mahavidya is a Tantric enumeration, and its logic is not calendrical at all — it is a map of ten distinct approaches to the same goddess, several of them deliberately uncomfortable. Kālī appears in both traditions, which is part of why they get run together, but she is doing a different job in each.
Sources
- Toḍala Tantra; Mahā Bhāgavata Purāṇa; Bṛhaddharma Purāṇa — Tantric and Purāṇic sources in which the group of ten is enumerated.
- Kinsley, David R., Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahāvidyās, University of California Press, 1997 — the standard scholarly treatment.
- Brown, C. Mackenzie, The Devī Gītā: The Song of the Goddess, 1998.
Descriptions on this page report how the cited sources present each goddess. Individual iconography and narrative vary between texts and between traditions. Reviewed 19 August 2026.