Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls
Popular Goddess Worship in West Bengal
mcdaniel june
Disponibilità:
Non disponibile o esaurito presso l'editore
Lingua: Inglese
Editore: Oxford University Press
Trama
In Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls, June McDaniel provides an exhaustive, accessibly written overview of Bengali goddess worship or Shakti. McDaniel identifies three major forms of goddess worship, and examines each through its myths, folklore, songs, rituals, sacred texts, and practitioners.<BR>She traces these strands through Bengali culture and explores how they are interwoven with each other as well as with other forms of Hinduism and other forms of religion. McDaniel also discusses how Shakti practices have been reinterpreted in the West, where goddess worship has gained the values of<BR>sexual freedom and psychological healing, but lost its emphases on devotion and asceticism. She takes the reader inside the lives of practicing Shaktas, including religious professionals, hymn singers, philosophers, visionaries, gurus, and even a businessman, and offers vivid descriptions of their<BR>rituals, practices, and daily lives. Drawing on years of fieldwork and extensive research, McDaniel paints a rich, expansive portrait of this fascinating religious tradition.
Note Editore
In Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls, June McDaniel provides an exhaustive, accessibly written overview of Bengali goddess worship or Shakti. McDaniel identifies three major forms of goddess worship, and examines each through its myths, folklore, songs, rituals, sacred texts, and practitioners. Drawing on years of fieldwork and extensive research, McDaniel paints a rich, expansive portrait of this fascinating religious tradition.
Altre Informazioni
ISBN: 9780195167900
Dimensioni: 235x158 mm.
Formato: Hardback
Pagine Arabe: 366