By Swami Harshananda
Sasṭhi literally means ‘sixth aspect of the Divine Mother’.
Saṣṭhī is a minor goddess. She is the sixth among the sixteen mātṛkās.[1] She guards a newborn baby on the sixth day of its birth and also on the twenty-first day. She is worshiped in the delivery room itself. She is the deity who can cause or cure the maladies of children. Sometimes she is identified with Devasenā, the spouse of Skanda or Subrahmaṇya. She is worshiped along with him on the Skandaṣaṣthī day.
References[edit]
- ↑ Mātṛkās means minor goddesses.
- The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore