The essays contained in this book traverse new ground in the literature of religion, for they are the first attempts to give an authenticated understanding, from the Indian standpoint rather than the western, of the chief features of the doctrine and practice of those Indian worshippers, who are known as ??ktas, or those who worship the Divine Power, or Mah??akti.

The ??ktas are prominent all over India, but are largely predominant in Bengal and Assam. The ??kta Tantra is a S?dhana ??stra of monistic Ved?nta and is considered by the author the most profound and powerful system, and its doctrine of ?akti, one of the greatest, evolved through spiritual intuition by the human mind, which, according to its teachings, is a manifestation of the Divine Consciousness itself.