Books on Hindu Goddesses

One of the most unconventional yet immensely popular deities in the Hindu pantheon, goddess Kali essentially represents the dark and contrary aspects of the cosmos. Her naked form and association with violence, blood and gore challenge the very concept of divinity. Yet, over the centuries, she has come to represent a whole gamut of conflicting images—from bloodthirsty ogress to benign goddess. So today while she is venerated as Chamunda, a deity who verges on the macabre and grotesque, she is also adored in household shrines in one of her milder forms, Dakshina-Kali. It is this evolution of Kali—from her origin as a tantric goddess to her metamorphosis into a divinity in mainstream religion—that Seema Mohanty captures brilliantly in this book. Drawing upon a variety of sources—rituals associated with the worship of Kali, tales from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Puranas, the Tantras and Agamas, folklore and films—she has succeeded in portraying in engrossing detail the myriad manifestations of the enigmatic deity that is Kali.

History matters in contemporary debates on nationalism,' Sugata Bose contends in The Nation as Mother. In this interconnected set of deeply researched and powerfully argued essays and speeches Bose explores the relationship between nation, reason and religion in Indian political thought and practice. Offering a subtle interpretation of the ways of imagining the nation as mother, the book illuminates different visions of India as a free and flexible federal union that have acquired renewed salience today. Breaking out of the false dichotomy between secular nationalism and religious communalism, the author provides incisive analyses of the political legacies of Tagore and Gandhi, Nehru and Bose, Aurobindo and Jinnah, and a range of other thinkers and leaders of the anti-colonial movement. The essays question assumptions about any necessary contradiction between cosmopolitanism and patriotism and the tendency among religious majoritarians and secularists alike to confuse uniformity with unity. The speeches in Parliament draw on a rich historical repertoire to offer valuable lessons in political ethics. In arguing against the dangers of an intolerant religious majoritarianism, this book makes a case for concepts of layered and shared sovereignty that might enable an overarching sense of Indian nationhood to coexist with multiple identities of the country's diverse populace. The Nation as Mother delves into history on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of freedom to evoke an alternative future of a new India based on cultural intimacy among its different communities.

Language: hindi Pages: 2209 Introduction Ever since the dawn of Hindu civilisation and culture the Hindu mind has been busy in making assiduous efforts to find various means for the obtainment of Sreyah and Preyah-v-spiritual greatness and worldly prosperity. The former, it has come to the conclusion, is not achievable unless the unification is reached with the highest Reality as forming the causeless cause of the universe. For this, approach is advised of the two possible aspects of the highest Reality-un-qualified and qualified. The unqualified is difficult of access to the man as is declared in the Bhagavadgita. The qualified has reference either to the male conception or the female. It is therefore that the highest Reality is described in the sacred texts whether Agamas or Tantras as a personal God or Goddess always engaged in creating, sustaining and dissolving the world, both admitting their affiliation more or less with the Vedas. Agamas refer to the highest Reality through the male aspect calling it by Siva and the Tantras through both, male and female. Those of the latter which stress the importance of the female aspect are designated by the term Sakta Tantras. From their standpoint the highest Reality is known by the name of Mahatripurasundari. She is recognised and contemplated upon as constituting the quintessence of the female Trinity corresponding to that of Brahma, Visnu and Rudra, i.e., the male Trinity. In this way the female Trinity is known popularly by Mahasarasvati, Mahalaksmi and Mahakali. Worship of these two aspects seems to have been simultaneously going on from the earliest times. The episode of the appearance of Uma to Indra and other Vedic Gods, appearing as it does in the Kenopanisad, supports this view. The first founder of the Recognitive School Sornananda of the ninth century A.D. tells in clear terms that the highest Reality was being worshipped a