Search results for ""Author Narasingha Sil""

This study examines the nexus between sexuality and religiosity in the career of nineteenth-century Calcutta's famous Bengali saint Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836-86). Dr. Sil's pioneering psychological study (""Ramakrishna Paramahamsa: A Psychological Profile"", 1991) of this personality was followed by another book on Ramakrishna, published in 1998, which strongly argued against the saint's widely publicized homosexual orientation in the Anglo-American academe. The present book argues that he was not a homo spiritualis, in the strict sense of the term but a homo religious par excellence, and that, far from being a Shakta/Tantrika devotee of the Goddess Kali, he was essentially a bhakta (devotee) in the Vaishnava tradition - his cultural and family inheritance. His idea of the divine and his life and teachings as a mystic and saint provide ample justification to consider him essentially a Vaishnava whose spiritual battle cry was to demand to have a mystical dalliance with God. Narasingha P. Sil is Professor of History at Western Oregon University.

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Saradamani's reputation as the Holy Mother of the Ramakrishna Order was due to two factors: Her devotees and disciples loved her as their own mother and worshiped her as a goddess because she was the widow of the late Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who had been considered a god. Second, and more important, Sarada's character and conduct endeared her to everybody who came in contact with her. Treating all her associates as her own children she not only compensated for her deprivation of biological motherhood but by appropriating the values of the Calcutta middle class she discovered sources of empowerment in a preeminently male monastic order of a patriarchal society. Thus the success of Sarada's holy motherhood owed largely to her personal qualities, but its historical significance must be comprehended in the context of the evolving concept of Hindu (especially Bengali) motherhood. This pioneering study, based primarily on vernacular sources, explores the transition of Sarada's life of missed motherhood to a career of holy motherhood. Narasingha P. Sil is a Professor of History at Western Oregon University.

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