The Oxford History of Hinduism: The Goddess

Edited by Mandakranta Bose

The Oxford History of Hinduism

Provides a history of the idea of the goddess in Hindu thought and worship practice
Represents scholarly scrutiny of particular approaches to thinking about the Feminine Divine and modes of worship
Encourages readers to look back through time to widen the view of goddesses in Hinduism beyond theology and ritual practice to situate them in the human world of their times

The Oxford History of Hinduism: The Goddess

Edited by Mandakranta Bose

The Oxford History of Hinduism

Description

The Oxford History of Hinduism: The Goddess provides a critical exposition of the Hindu idea of the divine feminine, or Devī, conceived as a singularity expressed in many forms. With the theological principles examined in the opening chapters, the book proceeds to describe and expound historically how individual manifestations of Devī have been imagined in Hindu religious culture and their impact upon Hindu social life. In this quest the contributors draw upon the history and philosophy of major Hindu ideologies, such as the Purāṇic, Tāntric, and Vaiṣṇava belief systems. A particular distinction of the book is its attention not only to the major goddesses from the earliest period of Hindu religious history but also to goddesses of later origin, in many cases of regional provenance and influence. Viewed through the lens of worship practices, legend, and literature, belief in goddesses is discovered as the formative impulse of much of public and private life. The influence of the goddess culture is especially powerful on women's life, often paradoxically situating women between veneration and subjection. This apparent contradiction arises from the humanization of goddesses while acknowledging their divinity, which is central to Hindu beliefs. In addition to studying the social and theological aspect of the goddess ideology, the contributors take anthropological, sociological, and literary approaches to delineate the emotional force of the goddess figure that claims intense human attachments and shapes personal and communal lives.

The Oxford History of Hinduism: The Goddess

Edited by Mandakranta Bose

The Oxford History of Hinduism

Abbreviations
Notes on the Contributors
Series Introduction, Gavin Flood
1:Introduction, Mandakranta Bose
2:Cosmological, Devotional, and Social Perspectives on the Hindu Goddess, Tracy Pintchman
3:From Magic to Deity, Matter to Persona: The Exaltation of Māyā, Bihani Sarkar
4:Lalitā, the Graceful and Enchanting Goddess of Kāncipuram, Sanjukta Gupta
5:Sri/Laksmi: Goddess of Plenitude and Ideal of Womanhood, Mandakranta Bose
6:The Elusive Sarasvati: A Goddess, a River, and the Search for the Universal in the Particular, Elizabeth Rohlman
7:Radha: Lover and Beloved of Krsna, Tracy Coleman
8:Sītā: Enduring Example for Women, Heidi Pauwels
9:Here are the Daughters: Reclaiming the Girl Child 'Kanyā, Bālā, Kumārī' in the Empowered Tales and Rituals of Śākta Tantra, Madhu Khanna
10:Becoming a Living Goddess, Brenda Beck
11:Bathukamma: The Folk Song Tradition of the Flower Goddess of Telangana in South India, Prabhavati Reddy
12:A Goddess from Bengal: Devī Manasā, Goddess of Serpents, Krishna Datta
13:Domestication of the Disorderly Devī: the Caṇ ḍī Maṅgalakāvya of Bengal, Saswati Sengupta
14:A 'Muslim' Poet in the Lap of the 'Hindu' Mother: The Freedoms and Burdens of Kazi Nazrul Islam and the Hindu Goddess Kālī in Modern Bengal, Rachel Fell McDermott
15:The Divine Mother Comes to Michigan, Tracy Pintchman
Afterword, Mandakranta Bose

The Oxford History of Hinduism: The Goddess

Edited by Mandakranta Bose

The Oxford History of Hinduism

Author Information

Edited by Mandakranta Bose, Professor Emerita, Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia

Mandakranta Bose is Professor Emerita, Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia, Canada. She studied Sanskrit and Hindu religious texts in Calcutta, comparative literature in Vancouver, and holds a doctorate from Oxford in textual studies in the classical performing arts of India. Bose is the editor of The Ramayana Revisited (2004) and Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern India (2000).

Contributors:

Gavin Flood
Tracy Pintchman
Bihani Sarkar
Sanjukta Gupta
Elizabeth Rohlman
Tracy Coleman
Heidi Pauwels
Madhu Khanna
Brenda Beck
Prabhavati Reddy
Krishna Datta
Saswati Sengupta
Rachel Fell McDermott
Tracy Pintchman
Mandakranta Bose

The Oxford History of Hinduism: The Goddess

Edited by Mandakranta Bose

The Oxford History of Hinduism

Reviews and Awards

"one of the best anthologies of essays on its subject that I have come across in a long academic career spanning the study of Hinduism. The fourteen essays that comprise the substance of this book (all of which are attached to female names) are uniformly informative, well-researched, and scholarly, and, bookended as they are by the editor's Introduction and Afterword which give a useful overview of the book's contents and argument, they provide an excellent treatment, necessarily in limited compass, of what the Hindu Goddess is about from inception to current times. For this, we are indebted indeed to the acumen of Mandakranta Bose, the editor." - Julius Lipner, Religion