Description
Book SynopsisHadimba is a primary village goddess in the Kullu Valley of the West Indian Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, a rural area known as the Land of Gods. As the book shows, Hadimba is a goddess whose vitality reveals itself in her devotees'' rapidly changing encounters with local and far from local players, powers, and ideas. These include invading royal forces, colonial forms of knowledge, and more recently the onslaught of modernity, capitalism, tourism, and ecological change. Hadimba has provided her worshipers with discursive, ritual, and ideological arenas within which they reflect on, debate, give meaning to, and sometimes resist these changing realities, and she herself has been transformed in the process.Drawing on diverse ethnographic and textual materials gathered in the region from 2009 to 2017, The Many Faces of a Himalayan Goddess is rich with myths and tales, accounts of dramatic rituals and festivals, and descriptions of everyday life in the celebrated but remote Kullu Valley. The book employs an interdisciplinary approach to tell the story of Hadimba from the ground up, or rather, from the center out, portraying the goddess in varying contexts that radiate outward from her temple to local, regional, national, and indeed global spheres. The result is an important contribution to the study of Indian village goddesses, lived Hinduism, Himalayan Hinduism, and the rapidly growing field of religion and ecology.
Trade ReviewThis is an outstanding book: very well written, with clear arguments and lively examples. It makes an important contribution to religious studies, to the anthropology of Hinduism and to the ethnography of the western Himalayas. * William Sax, European Bulletin of Himalayan Research *
This book's effortless balance of personal anecdotes; translations from Sanskrit, colonial, and local texts; and thick descriptions of rituals devoted to the goddess places it among the best of contemporary ethnographic work. * Michael Baltutis, International Journal of Hindu Studies *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments A Word on Transliteration Illustrations Introduction Chapter 1. Getting There: The Land of the Gods Chapter 2. Assembling the Ritual Core: Hadimba as a Complex Agent Chapter 3. Narrating the Local Web of Associations: The Goddess of Many Faces Chapter 4. Encountering Epic India: Hadimba and the Mahabharata Chapter 5. Negotiating National Hinduism: The Controversy over Blood Sacrifice Chapter 6. Confronting the Global: Hadimba and Climate Change Conclusion Notes References Index
