Conceiving the Goddess : Transformation and Appropriation in Indic Religions

Conceiving the Goddess is a sequel to The Iconic Female: Goddesses of India, Nepal and Tibet (2008), an exploration of goddess cults in South Asia, and it embodies further researches on South Asian goddesses in various disciplines. The theme running through all the contributions, with their multiple approaches and points of view, is the concept of appropriation, a notion prominent in recent scholarship. In the present case of goddess worship, appropriation can be recognised when one religious group adopts a religious belief or practice not formerly its own. What is the motivation behind these actions? Are such actions attempts to dominate, or to resist the domination of others, or to adapt to changing social circumstances, or simply to enrich the religious experience of a group’s members? Conceiving the Goddess seeks the answers to such questions in a variety of settings – a Jain goddess lurking in a Brahminical temple, a village goddess who turned into the patroness of the powerful Peshwa lords, the millennia-long story of the goddess Ekveera who was adopted by a fishing community, the mythology of Parvati, consort of the great god Siva, the fraught relationship between the humble Camar caste and the river goddess Ga?ga, the changing political roles of Durga in the annual celebrations of her cult, the mutual appropriation of disciple and goddess in the tantric exercises of Kashmiri Saivism, and the alarming self-decapitation of the fierce goddess Chinnamasta.