num_pages: 268
description: 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 Mahadevi covers 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.The creativity of these essays as well as their ability to point to possible future paths of study will be greatly welcome to general scholars of Indology as well as those interested in gender and religion and South Asia. After reading them one wants to continue to seek Mahadevi in all her changing forms.  Journal of the American Oriental SocietyI like the way the book addresses the issue of unity and diversity (is there one Goddess or several) which is done explicitly in a few chapters and implicitly in others. -- David Kinsley author of The Goddesses' Mirror: Visions of the Divine from East and WestThere is great popular and scholarly interest in the topic of the imaging of feminine divinity in general and Hindu goddesses in particular. Many of the contributors present material on contemporary religious practices as well as 'images' and such material is always welcome in the field of the study of Indian religion. -- Leslie C. Orr author of Donors Devotees and Daughters of God: Temple Women in Medieval TamilnaduContributors 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.Tracy Pintchman is Associate Professor of Hindu Studies at Loyola University Chicago. She is the author of The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition also published by SUNY Press.
language: English
title: Seeking Mahadevi: Constructing the Identities of the Hindu Great Goddess
publisher: State University of New York Press