Woman and Goddess in Hinduism

Woman and Goddess in Hinduism PDF Author: T. Pintchman
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230119921
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Offering multilayered explorations of Hindu understandings of the Feminine, both human and divine, this book emphasizes theological and activist methods and aims over historical, anthropological, and literary ones.

Woman and Goddess in Hinduism

Woman and Goddess in Hinduism PDF Author: T. Pintchman
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230119921
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Offering multilayered explorations of Hindu understandings of the Feminine, both human and divine, this book emphasizes theological and activist methods and aims over historical, anthropological, and literary ones.

The Goddess in India

The Goddess in India PDF Author: Devdutt Pattanaik
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594775370
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
The first exhaustive collection of goddess mythologies from India. • Explores the evolution of goddess worship in India over 4,000 years. • Stunning color photographs illustrate many stories of goddess lore never before available in one collection. In India it is said that there is a goddess in every village, a nymph in every lake. Demonesses stand guard on village frontiers, ogresses howl on crossroads, and untamed forests resound with the laughter of celestial virgins. It is a land of mysterious Apsaras and seductive Yakshinis, of terrifying Dakinis and wise Yoginis--each with a story to tell. In this wide-reaching exploration of ancient Hindu lore and legends, author Devdutt Pattanaik discovers how earth, women and goddesses have been perceived over 4,000 years. Some of the tales recounted are revered classics, others are common and folklorish, often held in disdain by priests. Until now, most have remained hidden, isolated in distant hamlets or languishing in forgotten libraries, overwhelmed by the din of masculine sagas. As the tales come to light through word and stunning color imagery, the author identifies the five faces given to the eternal feminine as man sought to unlock the mysteries of life: the female half of existence is at first identified with Nature, gradually deified and eventually objectified. She comes to be seen as the primal mother, fountainhead of life and nurturance. The all-giving mother then transforms into the dancing nymph, a seductress offering worldly pleasures that bind man in the cycle of life. As this nymph is domesticated, the dominant image of woman becomes the chaste wife with miraculous powers. Finally the submissive consort redefines herself as the wild and terrifying goddess who does battle, drinks blood, and demands appeasement. Exploring mysteries of gender and biology, and shedding light on the roots of taboos and traditions practiced in India today, the author shows how the image of the Mother Goddess can be both worshipped and feared when she carries the face of mortal woman.

Hindu Goddesses

Hindu Goddesses PDF Author: David Kinsley
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
ISBN: 9788120803947
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Hindu Goddesses is a valuable sourcebook and reference work for students and scholars of Hindu goddesses and of Hinduism in general. Each goddess is dealt with as an independent deity with a coherent mythology, theology and, in some cases, cult of her own. Within the complex, diverse, and rich goddess traditions of Hinduism, one can find suggestions of nearly every important theme in the Hindu religion. In many ways, this book is as much a study of the Hindu tradition itself as it is a study of one aspect of that tradition. No other living religious tradition has displayed such an ancient, continuous, and diverse history of goddess worship.

The Goddess in Hindu-Tantric Traditions

The Goddess in Hindu-Tantric Traditions PDF Author: Anway Mukhopadhyay
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351063529
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
The Great Goddess, in her various puranic and tantric forms, is often figured as sitting on a corpse which is identified as Shiva-as-shava (God Shiva, the consort of the Devi and an iconic representation of the Absolute without attributes, the Nirguna Brahman). Hence, most of the existing critical works and ethnographic studies on Shaktism and the tantras have focused on the theological and symbolic paraphernalia of the corpses which operate as the asanas (seats) of the Devi in her various iconographies. This book explores the figurations of the Goddess as corpse in several Hindu puranic and Shakta-tantric texts, popular practices, folk belief systems, legends and various other cultural phenomena based on this motif. It deals with a more intricate and fundamental issue than existing works on the subject: how and why is the Devi – herself - figured as a corpse in the Shakta texts, belief systems and folk practices associated with the tantras? The issues which have been raised in this book include: how does death become a complement to life within this religious epistemology? How does one learn to live with death, thereby lending new definitions and new epistemic and existential dimensions to life and death? And what is the relation between death and gender within this kind of figuration of the Goddess as death and dead body? Analysing multiple mythic narratives, hymns and scriptural texts where the Devi herself is said to take the form of the Shava (the corpse) as well as the Shakti who animates dead matter, this book focuses not only on the concept of the theological equivalence of the Shava (Shiva as corpse) and the Shakti (Energy) in tantras but also on the status of the Divine Mother as the Great Bridge between the apparently irreconcilable opposites, the mediatrix between Spirit and Matter, death and life, existence-in-stasis and existence-in-kinesis. This book makes an important contribution to the fields of Hindu Studies, Goddess Spirituality, South Asian Religions, Women and Religion, India, Studies in Shaktism and Tantra, Cross-cultural Religious Studies, Gender Studies, Postcolonial Spirituality and Ecofeminism.

Daughters of the Goddess

Daughters of the Goddess PDF Author: Linda Johnsen
Publisher: Yes International Publishers
ISBN: 9780936663098
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
This book takes us along on a search for the feminine face of God. We travel with Linda Johnsen for a fascinating investigation of the great women saints of India who manifest the divine in their lives. Together with her we comb the scriptures, meet the holy ones, and are led, step by step, to sit in awe at the feet of six remarkable, contemporary women.

Divine Mother, Blessed Mother

Divine Mother, Blessed Mother PDF Author: Francis X. Clooney
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 0195170377
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
The Virgin Mary has long been the object of both devotional and scholarly interest, and recent years have seen a proliferation of studies on Hindu goddess-worship traditions. Despite the parallels between the two, however, no one has yet undertaken a book-length comparison of these traditions. In Divine Mother, Blessed Mother, Francis Clooney offers the first extended comparative study of Hindu goddesses and the Virgin Mary. Clooney is almost unique in the field of Hindu studies as a Christian theologian with the linguistic and philosophical expertise necessary to produce sophisticated comparative analyses. Building on his previous work in comparative theology, he sheds new light not only on these individual traditions but also on the nature of gender and the divine.

Devī

Devī PDF Author: John Stratton Hawley
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
ISBN: 9788120814912
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have severely limited the portrayal of the divine as feminine. But in Hinduism "God" very often means "Goddess." This extraordinary collection explores twelve different Hindu goddesses, all of whom are in some way related to Devi, the Great Goddess. They range from the liquid goddess-energy of the River Ganges to the possessing, entrancing heat of Bhagavati and Seranvali. They are local, like Vindhyavasini, and global, like Kali; ancient, like Saranyu, and modern, like "Mother India." The collection combines analysis of texts with intensive fieldwork, allowing the reader to see how goddesses are worshiped in everyday life. In these compelling essays, the divine feminine in Hinduism is revealed as never before--fascinating, contradictory, powerful.

Inventing and Reinventing the Goddess

Inventing and Reinventing the Goddess PDF Author: Sree Padma
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739190024
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Popular religion in village India is overwhelmingly dominated by goddess worship. Goddesses can be nationally well-known like Durga or Kali, or they can be an obscure deity who is only known in a particular rural locale. The origins of a goddess can be both ancient—with many transitions or amalgamations with other cults having occurred along the way—and very recent. While some have tribal origins, others sprout up overnight due to a vivid dream. Inventing and Reinventing the Goddess: Contemporary Iterations of Hindu Divinities on the Move looks at the nature of how and why goddesses are invented and reinvented historically in India and how social hierarchy, gender differences, and modernity play roles in these emerging religious phenomena.

Is the Goddess a Feminist?

Is the Goddess a Feminist? PDF Author: Alf Hiltebeitel
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 9780814736197
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
American and Indian scholars of religion, anthropology, women's studies, and psychology look at the complex relationship between the living worship of female divinities and women in India. In keeping with the multiplicity, especially of Hinduism but also Buddhism and Jainism, the anthology presents a number of sometimes conflicting views rather than a consistent account. Only authors are indexed. c. Book News Inc.

Goddesses And Women In The Indic Religious Tradition

Goddesses And Women In The Indic Religious Tradition PDF Author: Arvind Sharma
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004124667
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
Following the lead of a "hermeneutics of surprise" the book identifies, indeed, surprising new material, and offers unexpected new insights essential to the debate on the position of goddesses and women in ancient India.