A Goddess is a female deity. In some cultures Goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, Goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing. They can be figureheads of religions and can be accessed in modern times by religious statues.
In some religions, a sacred feminine archetype can occupy a very central place in prayer and worship. In Hinduism, Sacred Feminine or Shaktism is one of the three major Hindu denominations of worship along with Vishnu and Shiva. In Tibetan Buddhism, the highest achievement any person can achieve is to become like the "great" female Buddhas (e.g. Arya Tara) who are depicted as being supreme protectors, fearless and filled with compassion for all beings.
The primacy of a monotheistic or near-monotheistic "Great Goddess" is advocated by some modern matriarchists as a female version of, preceding, or analogue to, the Abrahamic God associated with the historical rise of monotheism in the Mediterranean Axis Age.
Some currents of Neopaganism, in particular Wicca, have a bitheistic concept of a single Goddess and a single God, who in hieros gamos represent a united whole. Polytheistic reconstructionists focus on reconstructing polytheistic religions, including the various goddesses and figures associated with indigenous cultures.
The noun goddess is a secondary formation, combining the Germanic god with the Latinate -ess suffix. It is first attested in Middle English, from about 1350.
Read more about Goddess: Hinduism, Metaphorical Use
Famous quotes containing the word goddess:
“Vulgarity is, in reality, nothing but a modern, chic, pert descendant of the goddess Dullness.”
—Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)
“Men who care passionately for women attach themselves at least as much to the temple and to the accessories of the cult as to their goddess herself.”
—Marguerite Yourcenar (1903–1987)
“Well, if it isn’t Aurora Ratchett, goddess of the dawn, a sight for sore eyes.... I always think of Ebenezer Pritchett, the day he led that last charge at Shiloh. There was a gallant trooper, your father. You know, there went a man of quality. There went the flower of the South.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)