The iconic female : goddesses of India, Nepal, and Tibet / edited by Jayant Bhalchandra Bapat and Ian Mabbett.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Bapat, Jayant Bhalchandra, 1938-

Mabbett, Ian W.

Monash Asia Institute.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Goddesses--India.

Goddesses.

Goddesses--China--Tibet Autonomous Region.

China--Tibet Autonomous Region.

Goddesses--Nepal.

Women and religion.

Nepal.

India.

Physical Description:

xiv, 230 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

Clayton, Vic., Australia : Monash University Press, [2008]

Summary:

The energy of the goddess fills every facet of Indian life. To her devotees, the goddess appears in myriad forms: a mother, boon-giver, destroyer of evil, a divine lover, a protector and/or a bloodthirsty ogress. The more we discover about her, the more teasingly complex and multivalent the Devi appears. She is both constant and changing, loved and feared, worshipped and forgotten only to be re-discovered and worshipped. In this book, for the first time, ten Australian researchers working on many aspects of the Devi have come together to offer new research on the divine female. This book is the beginning of a renewed quest for the iconic Devi who continues to emerge in her many unpredictably powerful forms.

Contents:

Contextualising the goddess / Ian Mabbett and Jayant Bhalchandra Bapat

Archaeology of the goddess: an Indian paradox / Angelo Andrea Di Castro

Pārvatī as creator of māyā or victim of māyā: the role of Gaṇeśa's mother in the Gaṇeśapurāṇa / Greg Bailey

When Reṇukā was not a goddess / Rashmi Desai

The Lajjāgaurī: mother, wife, or yoginī / Jayant Bhalchandra Bapat

Devī and tantric practice / John R. Dupuche

The ḍākinī in Tibetan hagiography / David Templeman

Devī's lion herders: bards and bardic goddesses and the moral regulation of power in late-medieval Rajasthan / Max Harcourt

Songs in the presence of Mammai Mātājī / Effy George

The Khāḍādevī Temple of modern Mumbai: communal harmony and the Koḷī goddess / Marika Vicziany and Jayant Bhalchandra Bapat.

Notes:

"Monash Asia Institute"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-224) and index.

ISBN:

9781876924669

1876924667

OCLC:

271824983