The worship of the female principle started long before the Christian era, but its development was in the Gupta and post-Gupta ages.

The Tantra aspect of the Sakta cult included her worship, a development that came late in the opinion of the scholars. Anyway, the Sakta cult was well- formulated during the Gupta age and its Tantric learings contributed to the development of rival Brahmanical sectaries like Saivism and Vaishnavism.

The Sakta cult flourished in the Kanarese and Tamil-speaking south as is evident from archaeologi­cal finds from Badami, Mahabalipuram, etc. A relief in a Mahabalipuram Ratha shows a person about to cut his own head off., much in the manner recommended in the Siraschcheda Tantra. Inscriptions also show that kings had become the followers of the Shakta creed. “The copper-plate grant of the Gurjara-Pratihara King Vinayakapaladeva (dated ad 931) counts as many as three Shaktas among his predecessors.

These were Paramabhagavatibhaktas Nagabhata, Bhojadeva and Mahendrapaladeva. It would be of interest to note that some of his predecessors were Parama-Vaishnavas, one at least Parama-Mahesvara, and he himself and one at least of his predecessors (Rama-bhadradeva) were Sauras (Paramaditya bhakta). It shows individuals are free to chose each his own creed according to his own religious bent of mind” (J.N. Baneijea, A Compre­hensive History of India.