Shashthi

Shashthi is the goddess who protects children and grants offspring, honoured on the sixth day of the lunar fortnight and on the sixth day after a child's birth. She is shown as a fair mother seated on a cat with a child in her lap, in the folk and Shakta traditions, and is regarded as the sixth part of Prakriti, the primal nature. Across Odisha and Bengal she is worshipped at birth rites.

According to the Prakriti Khanda of the Brahma Vaivarta Purana, Shashthi is the sixth part of Prakriti, the primal nature, and is also called Devasena. The text calls her the consort of Kartikeya and says she is the mother-goddess who watches over children, who is worshipped on the sixth day after...