Reciting the Goddess

Narratives of Place and the Making of Hinduism in Nepal

Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz

The first detailed study of the Hindu goddess Svasthani, her mythology, and her iconographic transformations
Provides a comprehensive history of the Svasthanivratakatha textual tradition and the first English translation of one of its oldest texts
Offers a new perspective of the history of the Sanskrit, Newar, and Nepali languages and literary cultures in Nepal

Reciting the Goddess

Narratives of Place and the Making of Hinduism in Nepal

Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz

Description

Reciting the Goddess is the first book-length study of Nepal's goddess Svasthani and the popular Svasthanivratakatha textual tradition. In the centuries following its origin as a simple local legend in the sixteenth century, the Svasthanivratakatha developed into a comprehensive Purana text that is still widely celebrated today among Nepal's Hindus with an annual month-long recitation. Jessica Birkenholtz uses the Svasthanivratakatha as a medium through which to view the ways in which political and cultural shifts among Nepal's ruling elite were taken up by the general public.

Drawing on both archival and ethnographic research, the book examines Svasthani and the Svasthanivratakatha within the shifting literary, linguistic, religious, cultural, and political contexts of medieval and modern Nepal from the sixteenth century to the present. It also explores both the complementary and contentious relationships between Nepal's heterogeneous Newar Hindu and high-caste hill Hindu communities, and those of Nepal as a Hindu kingdom vis-à-vis Hindu India. Reciting the Goddess brings the Svasthani devotional tradition to light as a new case study in the discussion of the making of Hindu religious identity and practice in Nepal and South Asia.

Reciting the Goddess

Narratives of Place and the Making of Hinduism in Nepal

Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz

CHAPTER ONE Text, Ritual, Goddess: Hinduisms and Histories in Nepal
CHAPTER TWO The Goddess of Place, Place of the Goddess
CHAPTER THREE An Unexpected Archive: The Svasthanivratakatha
CHAPTER FOUR The Making of Modern Hinduism in Medieval Nepal
CHAPTER FIVE A Women's Tradition
CHAPTER SIX Conclusion
APPENDICES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Reciting the Goddess

Narratives of Place and the Making of Hinduism in Nepal

Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz

Author Information

Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz, Assistant Professor of Religion, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Jessica Birkenholtz is an Assistant Professor of Religion at University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.

Reciting the Goddess

Narratives of Place and the Making of Hinduism in Nepal

Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz

Reviews and Awards

Winner of the AAR Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Textual Studies

"Overall, this is a well-written and well-researched volume that offers much to those interested in Nepali Hinduism, the Hindu goddess tradition, ritual studies, and the sociocultural dynamics of a staunchly Hindu Nepal. While Birkenholtz thoroughly explains and contextualizes her arguments, this work is best suited for those familiar with the goddess traditions of the Bhakti movement and their manifestations across the Hindu diaspora." - Ajay Dave, The University of Texas at Dallas, Journal of Dharma Studies

"a well-written and well-researched volume that offers much to those interested in Nepali Hinduism, the Hindu goddess tradition, ritual studies, and the sociocultural dynamics of a staunchly Hindu Nepal." - Ajay Dave, Journal of Dharma Studies

"Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz presents the first critical study of the Svasthānīvratakathā (SVK), the textual tradition of the Hindu goddess Svasthānī. Birkenholtz provides both a textual-historical as well as an ethnographic study, encompassing the many faces of one of the most popular religious traditions in Nepal This careful critical study deserves all the attention it can get." - Dolores Zoé Bertschinger, Reading Religion