Santeri

Shantadurga
Shantadurga in the Shitaladevi temple complex in Mumbai
Mount	Lion

Shantadurga (Devanagari:शांतादुर्गा, Śāntādurgā) is the most popular form of the Hindu goddess Durga revered in Goa, India. She is a Brahminical form of the ancient Mother goddess known as Santeri. She is worshipped in almost all villages of Goa as an ant-hill. This is seen in some temples dedicated to Shantadurga.

The second chapter of the Sanskrit Nāgavya Mahātmya, Śāntādurgā prādurbhāvaḥ, is a part of Sahyādrikhaṇḍa which is the chapter of Skanda Purana gives detail about this. Only the title of the chapter mentions the goddess Shantadurga and no where else is this epithet of the goddess mentioned. This section refers to a certain sage Śāntāmuni, a resident of Nagavya (modern Nagoa). The goddess appeared before Shantamuni and hence she may have been called Shantadurga. No other justification has been furnished in this chapter. Durga is portrayed in her ferocious nature; therefore the adjective Shanta ("peaceful") is contradictory to the nature of Durga. Only in verses 16,19,34 of Sahyadrikhanda, the goddess is called Śāntādevi (Shanta-devi). The verse 18 of this section mentions about the disappearance of the goddess into ant-hill. These ant-hills symbolically represent goddess Shantadurga as well as goddess Santeri. The worship of ant-hills may have originated among aboriginal tribes of Konkan and they may have associated ant-hills with goddess Santeri by this is just a perspective of some authors. Therefore, the Sahyadrikhanda furnishes the evidence of Sanskritisation of the folk deity, by the upper castes who followed Vedic, Puranic and Tantric religions, and adopted the deities of the primitive settlers of Konkan by introducing Brahminical form of worship and Sanskrit names. With the advent of Tantrism, many folk-deities were absorbed into Brahminical fold. In due course, these goddesses were associated with the god Shiva.