Description

In the winter of 1980, a team of Indian, American, and Australian archeologists  and anthropologists uncovered what may be the oldest evidence of religious
practice on the Indian subcontinent. Dating as far back as 9,000 sce, the site is in the Son valley, below the nearby Vindhya mountains-a region that will play an important part in the story of the Devīmāhātmya. There, the researchers excavated what appears to be a circular shrine, measuring about three feet across and made of sandstone blocks. In the center lay another sandstone block, measuring about 12 by 6 by 4 inches. Its weathered surface reveals harder layers that stand out in relief to form a natural pattern of concentric triangles. Tribal villagers assisting in the excavation
immediately recognized the stone as a sacred emblem of Sakti, the Goddess. Such stones, they confirmed, are still sought out today and installed in the local villages,in both individual and communal shrines. According to the archeologists, this dramatic evidence of cultural continuity indicates that the veneration of Śakti in the mountains of north central India stretches back at least 10,000 years.The early history of India remains a highly contentious field of study, where there are more questions than answers. Many pieces of the past are irretrievably lost,and attempts to form a comprehensive picture are complicated by nationalistic,ethnic, and religious feelings and the legacy of pioneering European scholars, who frequently injected the prejudices of a ‘ foreign worldview into an area where they
clearly do not belong. At the heart of the conflict lies the problematic chronology,
identity, and relationship of two peoples: those who created the great Indus Valley
civilization in the third millennium BCE and the Indo-European-speaking Aryas,who composed the Vedas, India’s oldest surviving sacred texts.