- 268 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
While Hindus recognize and revere a variety of different goddesses, they also tend to speak of one Great Goddess, Mahadevi, as a singular divine being who is the unity underlying all female deities. In this book, ten scholars reflect on both the diverse depictions of Mahadevi found in textual and devotional environments and the ways that the singularity and multiplicity of the divine Hindu feminine are negotiated. Seeking Mahadevicovers various geographical locations, from the Punjab and Bengal in North India to Kerala and Tamilnadu in the South, and makes use of evidence from ancient texts and contemporary interviews, male-authored documents and women's possession experiences, myth, ritual, and folklore. Arguing that Mahadevi has multiple, context-dependent identities that are constructed through human interpretive activity, this book highlights the great diversity of ways that those who worship Mahadevi conceive of and portray her. Contributors include C. Mackenzie Brown, Sarah Caldwell, Thomas Coburn, Elaine Craddock, Kathleen M. Erndl, Jeffrey J. Kripal, Usha Menon, Tracy Pintchman, Andhra Pradesh, and Mark Edwin Rohe.
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Table of contents
- Seeking Mahadevı
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- A Note on Transliteration and Pronunciation
- Introduction. Identity Construction and the Hindu Great Goddess by Tracy Pintchman
- 1. The Tantric and Vedantic Identity of the Great Goddess in the Devi Gita of the Devi-Bhagavata Purana by C. Mackenzie Brown
- 2. Mahadevi as Mother: The Oriya Hindu Vision of Reality by Usha Menon
- 3. Ambiguous and Definitive: The Greatness of Goddess Vaisno Devi by Mark Edwin Rohe
- 4. The Goddess as Fount of the Universe: Shared Visions and Negotiated Allegiances in Puranic Accounts of Cosmogenesis by Tracy Pintchman
- 5. Waves of Beauty, Rivers of Blood: Constructing the Goddess in Kerala by Sarah Caldwell
- 6. From Village to City: Transforming Goddesses in Urban Andhra Pradesh by Sree Padma
- 7. Reconstructing the Split Goddess as Sakti in a Tamil Village by Elaine Craddock
- 8. Perfecting the Mother’s Silence: Dream, Devotion, and Family in the Deification of Sharada Devi by Jeffrey J. Kripal
- 9. Goddesses and the Goddess in Hinduism: Constructing the Goddess through Religious Experience by Kathleen M. Erndl
- 10. What Is a “Goddess” and What Does It Mean to “Construct” One? by Thomas B. Coburn
- Glossary
- References
- Contributors
- Index