Devi Mahatmya (The Crystallization of The Goddess Tradition)

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ITEM CODE: NAT941

AUTHOR: THOMAS B. COBURN

PUBLISHER: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS PVT. LTD.

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

EDITION: 1997

ISBN: 9788120805576

PAGES: 360

COVER: HARDCOVER

OTHER DETAILS 9.00 X 6.00 INCH

WEIGHT 570 GM

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The Devi-Mitheitmya is well-known to both devotees and scholars of the Indian Great Goddess. Composed some 1500 years ago, it is the first comprehensive account of the Goddess in Sanskrit, and it has maintained its centrality in the Goddess (Sakta) tradition to the present day. Like so much in that tradition, however, the text has until now resisted careful study from an historical perspective. It is this study that the present volume accomplishes.

The central task here is to explore how an anonymous Sanskrit text articulates a view of ultimate reality as feminine when there is virtually no precedent in the Sanskrit tradition for such a view. To accomplish this task, an appropriate method of scriptural analysis is developed. This involves an examination of Hindu understanding of the Puranas in general, and of the Devi-Melhatmya in particular, along with consideration of several recent scholarly discussions, in India and elsewhere. Subsequently, a comprehensive inquiry into the Goddess's epithets in this text is undertaken, followed by examination of the earlier history of the ~myths that the Devi-Mdhatmya associates with her. The study culminates in translations of the text's hymns, which are annotated so as to indicate the synthesis that is here being accomplished. The resulting illumination of Sanskritized form of Goddess worship is what Daniel H. H. Ingalls calls in his Foreword "anotable scholarly achievement."

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