01 Introduction

  1. In a list of fifty-one goddesses in the *Mahakala-samhita, *nine of the ten Mahavidyas are mentioned, Dhumavati alone being absent. This text has been dated as early as the tenth century C.e. and may be the earliest mention of the Mahavidyas as a group. *Mahdkdla-samhita *(Allahabad: Ganganath Jha Research Institute, 1974), Kamakala-khanda, pp. 65-66. Six of the ten Mahavidyas—Kali, Tārā, Matarigi, Bhairavl, Chinnamasta, and Dhumavati—are described in *upa **tantras, *small sections dealing with each goddess, in the *Sammoha-tantra, *which was probably written in the fifteenth century. Prabodh Chandra Bagchi, *Studies **in **the **Tantras *(Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1975), p. 101.

  2. See David Kinsley, *Hindu **Goddesses: **Visions **of **the **Divine **Feminine **in **the **Hindu **Religious **Tradition *(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), chap. 9: “The Mahadevi.”