The Devī Gītā

The Devī Gītā PDF Author: C. Mackenzie Brown
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791497739
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 422

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book provides a translation, with introduction, commentary, and annotation, of the medieval Hindu Sanskrit text the Devi Gita (Song of the Goddess). It is an important but not well-known text from the rich SAakta (Goddess) tradition of India. The Devi Gita was composed about the fifteenth century C.E., in partial imitation of the famous Bhagavad Gita (Song of the Lord), composed some fifteen centuries earlier. Around the sixth century C.E., following the rise of several male deities to prominence, a new theistic movement began in which the supreme being was envisioned as female, known as the Great Goddess (Maha-Devi). Appearing first as a violent and blood-loving deity, this Goddess gradually evolved into a more benign figure, a compassionate World-Mother and bestower of salvific wisdom. It is in this beneficent mode that the Goddess appears in the Devi Gita. This work makes available an up-to-date translation of the Devi Gita, along with a historical and theological analysis of the text. The book is divided into sections of verses, and each section is followed by a comment explaining key terms, concepts, ritual procedures, and mythic themes. The comments also offer comparisons with related schools of thought, indicate parallel texts and textual sources of verses in the Devi Gita, and briefly elucidate the historical and religious background, supplementing the remarks of the introduction.

The Devī Gītā

The Devī Gītā PDF Author: C. Mackenzie Brown
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791497739
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 422

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book provides a translation, with introduction, commentary, and annotation, of the medieval Hindu Sanskrit text the Devi Gita (Song of the Goddess). It is an important but not well-known text from the rich SAakta (Goddess) tradition of India. The Devi Gita was composed about the fifteenth century C.E., in partial imitation of the famous Bhagavad Gita (Song of the Lord), composed some fifteen centuries earlier. Around the sixth century C.E., following the rise of several male deities to prominence, a new theistic movement began in which the supreme being was envisioned as female, known as the Great Goddess (Maha-Devi). Appearing first as a violent and blood-loving deity, this Goddess gradually evolved into a more benign figure, a compassionate World-Mother and bestower of salvific wisdom. It is in this beneficent mode that the Goddess appears in the Devi Gita. This work makes available an up-to-date translation of the Devi Gita, along with a historical and theological analysis of the text. The book is divided into sections of verses, and each section is followed by a comment explaining key terms, concepts, ritual procedures, and mythic themes. The comments also offer comparisons with related schools of thought, indicate parallel texts and textual sources of verses in the Devi Gita, and briefly elucidate the historical and religious background, supplementing the remarks of the introduction.

The Song of the Goddess

The Song of the Goddess PDF Author:
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791488519
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 159

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Devi Gita, literally the "Song of the Goddess," is an Eastern spiritual classic that appeared around the fifteenth century C.E. C. Mackenzie Brown provides a reader-friendly English translation of this sacred text taken from his well-regarded previous book The Devi Gita: The Song of the Goddess, A Translation, Annotation, and Commentary. Here the translation is presented uninterrupted, without the scholarly annotations of the original version, and in its entirety for the pleasure of all readers who wish to encounter this treasure from the world's sacred literature. Often neglected, the Devi Gita deserves to be better known for its presentations of one of the great Hindu visions of the divine conceived in feminine terms. The work depicts the universe as created, pervaded, and protected by a supremely powerful, all-knowing, and wholly compassionate divine female. It also describes the various spiritual paths leading to realization of unity with the Goddess. The author of the Devi Gita intended for the work to supplant the famous teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita (the "Song of the Lord") from a goddess-inspired perspective.

The Devi Gita

The Devi Gita PDF Author: Cheever Mackenzie Brown
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791439395
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 422

Get Book Here

Book Description
This translation and commentary on an important Hindu text on the Great Goddess envisions a universe created and protected by a compassionate female deity.

Encountering the Goddess

Encountering the Goddess PDF Author: Thomas B. Coburn
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791404454
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Get Book Here

Book Description
Coburn provides a fresh and careful translation from the Sanskrit of this fifteen-hundred-year-old text. Drawing on field work and literary evidence, he illuminates the process by which the Devī-Māhātmya has attracted a vast number of commentaries and has become the best known Goddess-text in modern India, deeply embedded in the ritual of Goddess worship (especially in Tantra). Coburn answers the following questions among others: Is this document "scripture?" How is it that this text mediates the presence of the Goddess? What can we make of contemporary emphasis on oral recitation of the text rather than study of its written form? One comes away from Coburn's work with a sense of the historical integrity or wholeness of an extremely important religious development centered on a "text." The interaction between the text and later philosophical and religious developments such as those found in Advaita Vedanta and Tantra is quite illuminating. Relevant here are the issues of the writtenness and orality/aurality of 'scripture,' and the various ways by which a deposit of holy words such as the Devī-Māhātmya becomes effective, powerful, and inspirational in the lives of those who hold it sacred.

The Devi Gita

The Devi Gita PDF Author: Veda Vyasa
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781514218938
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 60

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Devi Gita is a dialogue between Parvati and her father Himavat. It deals with the universal form of the Devi, meditations on the major texts of Upanishads, ashtanga-yoga, the yogas of jnana, karma and bhakti, locations of the temples dedicated to the Devi and the rituals pertaining to her worship.

In Praise of the Goddess

In Praise of the Goddess PDF Author:
Publisher: Nicolas-Hays, Inc.
ISBN: 0892546166
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 407

Get Book Here

Book Description
About 16 centuries ago, an unknown Indian author or authors gathered together the diverse threads of already ancient traditions and wove them into a verbal tapestry that today is still the central text for worshippers of the Hindu Devi, the Divine Mother. This spiritual classic, the Devimahatmya, addresses the perennial questions of the nature of the universe, humankind, and divinity. How are they related, how do we live in a world torn between good and evil, and how do we find lasting satisfaction and inner peace? These questions and their answers form the substance of the Devimahatmya. Its narrative of a dispossessed king, a merchant betrayed by the family he loves, and a seer whose teaching leads beyond existential suffering sets the stage for a trilogy of myths concerning the all-powerful Divine Mother, Durga, and the fierce battles she wages against throngs of demonic foes. In these allegories, her adversaries represent our all-too-human impulses toward power, possessions, and pleasure. The battlefields symbolize the field of human consciousness on which our lives' dramas play out in joy and sorrow, in wisdom and folly. The Devimahatmya speaks to us across the ages of the experiences and beliefs of our ancient ancestors. We sense their enchantment at nature's bounty and their terror before its destructive fury, their recognition of the good and evil in the human heart, and their understanding that everything in our experience is the expression of a greater reality, personified as the Divine Mother.

The Triumph of the Goddess

The Triumph of the Goddess PDF Author: C. Mackenzie Brown
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791403648
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book Here

Book Description
The authors of the Devī-Bhāgavata Purāna endeavored to demonstrate the superiority of the Devī over competing masculine deities, and to articulate in new ways the manifold nature of the Goddess. Brown's book sets out to examine how the Purana pursues these ends. The Devī-Bhāgavata employs many ancient myths and motifs from older masculine theologies, incorporating them into a thoroughly "feminized" theological framework. The text also seeks to supplant older "masculine" canonical authorities. Part I of Brown's study explores these strategies by focusing on the Purana's self-conscious endeavor to supersede the famous VaisBhagavata Purana. The Devī-Bhāgavata also re-envisions older mythological traditions about the Goddess, especially those in the first great Sanskritic glorification of the Goddess, the Devi-Mahatmya. Brown shows in Part II how this re-envisioning process transforms the Devī from a primarily martial and erotic goddess into the World-Mother of infinite compassion. Part III examines the Devi Gita, the philosophical climax of the Purana modeled upon the Bhagavad Gita. The Devi Gita, while affirming that ultimate reality is the divine Mother, avows that her highest form as consciousness encompasses all gender, thereby suggesting the final triumph of the Goddess. It is not simply that She is superior to the male gods, but rather that She transcends Her own sexuality without denying it.

Shakti

Shakti PDF Author: Vanamali
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594777853
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Get Book Here

Book Description
Presents the mystery of the Divine Mother in all her manifold aspects • Explores more than 30 different goddess aspects of the Shakti force, both beneficial and malefic • Includes Sanskrit hymns and classic verses by Sri Auribindo for each of the goddesses Shakti is synonymous with the Devi, the Divine Mother or divine power that manifests, sustains, and transforms the universe. She is the womb of all creatures, and it is through her that the One becomes the many. Our first and primary relationship to the world is through the mother, the source of love, security, and nourishment. Extending this relationship to worship of a cosmic being as mother was a natural step found not only in the Shakti cult of Hinduism but also in ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Babylonian cultures. Shakti presents more than 30 goddess incarnations of the Divine Mother that represent both the beneficial and malefic aspects of the Shakti force. From Lakshmi, Parvati, and Saraswati to Durga, Chandika, and Kali--each of the different functions of the female goddesses in the Hindu pantheon is revealed, accompanied by traditional Sanskrit hymns, classic verses by Sri Auribindo, and discussions of tantric philosophy. The author draws from the Devi Bhagavatham, which describes all the stories of Shakti, and the Devi Mahatmyam, the most powerful scriptural text that glorifies Shakti in her form as Durga. Using these texts she shows that through the power and grace of the Divine Mother we may be released from the darkness of ignorance and taken to the abode of knowledge, immortality, and bliss--the source from which we have come.

Ritual Worship of the Great Goddess

Ritual Worship of the Great Goddess PDF Author: Hillary Rodrigues
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791488446
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

Get Book Here

Book Description
During a nine-day period every autumn, Hindus in India and throughout the world worship the Great Goddess, Durgā--the formidable deity who is loved like a mother. One of the most dramatic and popular of these celebrations is the Durgā Pūjā, a rite noted for its visual pageantry, ritual complexity, and communal participation. In this book, Hillary Peter Rodrigues describes the Bengali style of Durgā Pūjā practiced in the sacred city of Banaras from beginning to end. A romanization of the Sanskrit litany is included along with an English translation. In addition to the liturgical description, Rodrigues provides information on the rite's component elements and mythic aspects. There are interpretive sections on puja, the Great Goddess, women's roles in the ritual, and the socio-cultural functions of the ritual. Rodrigues maintains that the Durgā Pūjā is a rite of cosmic rejuvenation, of empowerment at both the personal and social levels, and a rite that orchestrates manifestations of the feminine, both Divine and human.

Devi Gita

Devi Gita PDF Author: Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781877795565
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Devi Gita presents the magnificent dialogue between Himalaya and the Divine Mother. She explains the principles of Yoga, which include directions for how to sit, how to breathe, and how to please the Goddess through acts of devotion. Presented in the original Sanskrit, the Roman phonetic transliteration and an exquisite English translation.