Description
Book SynopsisThis book explores the tantric concept of Shakti, or the principal female cosmic entity and her pilgrimage sites. It offers a first-hand view of the multidimensional ways in which Shakti asserted its supremacy over existing Vaishnava and orthodox Brahmanical traditions in post mediaeval Bengal and India. The interdisciplinary chapters pave the way to understanding the intra-textual relationships between philosophical and conceptual ideas in literary texts and their oral transmission. Divided into three thematic sections: Cult Inclusiveness, Śakti Pithas, and the Śākta Philosophy, the book invites readers to explore a contested area of scholarship from unique perspectives, offering rich insights into the nature of negotiations between diverse religious streams. It also urges readers to examine the many innovative approaches and theoretical models on the goddess culture of East India. The book is of interest to students and scholars of religious textual studies, anthropology, pilgrimage studies, comparative religion, Sanskrit and Bengali languages, regional studies, South Asian cultures, goddess traditions and cultural history of mediaeval Bengal.
Table of ContentsSection I: Cult Inclusiveness: Tantric Śākta and Vaiṣṇava Synthesis
1. The Making of Tāntric Rādhā: A Reading from the Śrī-Krṣṇayāmala
Madhu Khanna
2. Prema and Śakti: VaiṣṇavaSahajiyā Appropriations of GauḍīyaVaiṣṇavism and Śāktism in the Ānandabhairava of Prema-dāsa
Glen Hayes
3. Tantra from Below: Inclusivity, Secrecy and Non-Conceptual Yogas in the Bāul-Sahajiyā Traditions
Kaustabh Das
Section II: Śakti Pithas
4. Weaving the Body and the Cosmos: Yantric Homologies at a Goddess Temple in Northeastern India
Frederique Appfel Marglin, Julia A. Jean
5. The Metamorphosis of the “Gāchh Tar Vālī ” and the Making of a Śakti-Pīṭha in Mithila (Pages: 27)
Kamal Mishra
6. Power and Desire in the worship of the Goddess Kāmākhyā (Pages: 32)
Brenda Dobia
Section III: Śākta Philosophy
7. Gynocentric Cosmogony in the DevībhāgavataPurāṇa
Arghya Dipta Kar
8. The Monistic Śākta Philosophy in the Guhyopaniṣad
Sthaneshvar Timalsina
