Bhagavati

For the film, see Bagavathi. For the town, see Bhagavathi, Nepal. For the Jain Prakrit work, see Vyākhyāprajñapti.
Statue of Lakshmi, one of the primary bearers of the epithet Bhagavati, Kashmir

Bhagavatī (Devanagari: भगवती, IAST: Bhagavatī), is an Indian epithet of Sanskrit origin, used as an honorific title for goddesses in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is primarily used to address the goddesses Lakshmi and Parvati. In Buddhism, it is used to refer to several Mahayana Buddhist female deities, like Cundā.[1]

The male equivalent of Bhagavatī is Bhagavān.[2][3] The term is an equivalent of Devi and Ishvari.

  1. ^ Gimello, Robert (2004). ″Icon and Incantation: The Goddess Zhunti and the Role of Images in the Occult Buddhism of China." In Images in Asian Religions: Texts and Contexts ed. Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara: pp. 71-85.
  2. ^ Friedhelm Hardy (1990), The World's Religions: The Religions of Asia, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415058155, page 84
  3. ^ Sarah Caldwell (1998), Bhagavati, in Devi: Goddesses of India (Editors: John Stratton Hawley, Donna Marie Wulff), Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-8120814912, pages 195-198