Offering flowers, feeding skulls [[electronic resource] ] : popular goddess worship in West Bengal / / June McDaniel

• Autore: McDaniel June
• Pubblicazione: New York, : Oxford University Press, 2004
• Descrizione fisica: x, 356 p
• Disciplina: 294.5/514/095414
• Soggetto topico: Kali (Hindu deity) - Cult - India - West Bengal; Shaktism - India - West Bengal
• Soggetto geografico: West Bengal (India) Religious life and customs
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. [341]-352) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Intro -- Contents -- Notes on Transliteration -- Introduction -- 1. Folk Shaktism: Life with the Goddess -- 2. Tantric and Yogic Shaktism: Knowledge of the Goddess's Ways -- 3. Shakta Bhakti: Devotion to the Goddess -- 4. The Great Bhakti Goddesses of West Bengal: Durga and Kali -- 5. Shaktism and the Modern West: Kundalini Vacations and Tantric Honeymoons -- 6. Conclusions -- Notes -- Diacritical List -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y.
• Sommario/riassunto: 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.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 ofsexual 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 theirrituals, practices, and daily lives. Drawing on years of fieldwork and extensive research, McDaniel paints a rich, expansive portrait of this fascinating religious tradition.
• Titolo autorizzato: Offering flowers, feeding skulls
• ISBN: 9780195347135; 0195347137; 0-19-516791-0; 9786610560356; 1-4237-5659-2; 0-19-029056-0; 1-280-56035-5; 0-19-534713-7; 0-19-984997-8
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910814058703321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II