Goddess

[1] In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave.

This includes themes of spinning, weaving, beauty, love, sexuality, motherhood, domesticity, creativity, and fertility (exemplified by the ancient mother goddess cult).

Many major goddesses are also associated with magic, war, strategy, hunting, farming, wisdom, fate, earth, sky, power, laws, justice, and more.

For example, Shaktism (one of the three major Hindu sects), holds that the ultimate deity, the source of all reality, is Mahadevi (Supreme Goddess) and in some forms of Tantric Shaivism, the pair of Shiva and Shakti are the ultimate principle (with the goddess representing the active, creative power of God).

They have been depicted as beautiful or hideous, old hags or young women, and at times may transform their appearance from one state to another, or into their associated creatures such as crows, cows, wolves or eels, to name but a few.

In Irish mythology in particular, tutelary goddesses are often associated with sovereignty and various features of the land, notably mountains, rivers, forests and holy wells.

The Germanic peoples had altars erected to the "Mothers and Matrons" and held celebrations specific to these goddesses (such as the Anglo-Saxon "Mothers-night").

Female deities also play heavily into the Norse concept of death, where half of those slain in battle enter Freyja's field Fólkvangr, Hel's realm of the same name, and Rán who receives those who die at sea.

Other female deities such as the valkyries, the norns, and the dísir are associated with a Germanic concept of fate (Old Norse Ørlög, Old English Wyrd), and celebrations were held in their honour, such as the Dísablót and Disting.

[12] Goddess Amaterasu is the chief among the Shinto gods (kami), while there are important female deities Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto, Inari and Konohanasakuya-hime.

The earliest Hindu source, the Rigveda, contains many goddesses such as Prithvi (earth), Aditi (cosmic moral order), Vāc (sound), Nirṛti (destruction) and Saraswati.

Important Hindu goddesses today include Lakshmi, Saraswati, Durga, Kali, Tripurasundari, Parvati, and Radha.

Some theologies (e.g. Advaita) see all gods and goddesses as emanations of a single formless impersonal source called Brahman.

Widely celebrated Hindu festival Navaratri is in the honour of the divine feminine Devi (Durga) and spans nine nights of prayer in the autumn, also referred as Sharada Navratri.

[20] Some of these figures remain important in Theravada Buddhism today, including Maya and Prthivi (known as Phra Mae Thorani in Southeast Asia).

Indian Mahayana Buddhism revered several female deities, including Prajñāpāramitā Devi, Cunda, Marici, Sitātapatra, Tārā, Uṣṇīṣavijayā and Vasudhārā.

[19] The most important Buddhist female deities in East Asian Buddhism are the bodhisattva Guanyin and the "mother of Buddhas" Cundi.

[26] The Zohar tradition has influenced Jewish folklore, which postulates God created Adam to marry a woman named Lilith.

In time, as stated in the Old Testament, the Hebrew followers continued to worship "False Idols", like Asherah, as being as powerful as God.

The following female deities are mentioned in prominent Hebrew texts: More commonly, modern Judaism acknowledges Shekhinah as the feminine aspect of God.

Sophia is identified by some as the wisdom imparting Holy Spirit of the Christian Trinity, whose names in Hebrew—Ruach and Shekhinah—are both feminine, and whose symbol of the dove was commonly associated in the Ancient Near East with the figure of the Mother Goddess.

In mysticism, Gnosticism, as well as some Hellenistic religions, there is a female spirit or goddess named Sophia who is said to embody wisdom and who is sometimes described as a virgin.

Within the Protestant tradition in England, the 17th-century mystic universalist and founder of the Philadelphian Society Jane Leade wrote copious descriptions of her visions and dialogues with the "Virgin Sophia" who, she said, revealed to her the spiritual workings of the universe.

Leade was hugely influenced by the theosophical writings of 16th-century German Christian mystic Jakob Böhme, who also speaks of Sophia in works such as The Way to Christ.

[33] Jakob Böhme was very influential to a number of Christian mystics and religious leaders, including George Rapp and the Harmony Society.

Robert Graves popularised the triad of "Maiden" (or "Virgin"), "Mother" and "Crone", and while this idea did not rest on sound scholarship, his poetic inspiration has gained a tenacious hold.

Considerable variation in the precise conceptions of these figures exists, as typically occurs in Neopaganism and indeed in pagan religions in general.

At least since first-wave feminism in the United States, there has been interest in analysing religion to see if and how doctrines and practices treat women unfairly, as in Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Woman's Bible.