Goddesses of Kathmandu Valley

Grace, Rage, Knowledge
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8153-9313-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 204 Seiten, Format (B × H): 138 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 408 g

Reihe: Nepal and Himalayan Studies

In South Asia goddesses are conceptualized and worshipped in a fascinating range of forms — from cosmic beings to bacterial manifestations, from human-like appearances to creatures with animal and insect semblances. This book maps the diverse identities of goddesses through metaphors of grace, rage and knowledge, and offers an in-depth insight into femininity, sexual politics, ritual worships, religion, ecology and gender. Grace manifests as motherly sublimity, warring protectors, and varying personifications of sexuality. Rage encapsulates the fearful aspects of goddesses and independent identities of women. Knowledge evokes associations with order, reason and intellect in conflating gendered binaries of body/mind and nature/culture. The volume explores how these deity attributes are expressed and embedded through anthropomorphic as well as inorganic forms of nature, beautiful women, multi-legged and many-armed animals, epistemic selves, demonic beings, glamorous personifications as also grotesque sub-humans.

A methodological combination of critical theory, mythological and philosophical concepts, along with popular ethnographic narratives and lived experiences, this monograph will greatly interest scholars and researchers of religious studies, cultural studies, folklore, art, literature, sociology and gender studies, especially those interested in Nepal and Hinduism.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gupto, Arun

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Künstlerische Stoffe, Motive, Themen Künstlerische Stoffe, Motive, Themen: Religiöse Themen
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Hinduismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunststile Indigene Kunst, Volkskunst

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures. Foreword. Preface. Acknowledgements. Introduction 1. Grace, Rage, Knowledge 2. Devi and Overlapping Metaphors of Grace, Rage, and Knowledge 3. Representations of Grace, Rage, and Knowledge in Valley Art 4. Epistemology of The Feminine and Psychological Posture 5. Afterword: Goddesses and Beauty Glossary. Bibliograpy. Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Arun Gupto is Principal at the Institute of Advanced Communication, Education and Research, Kathmandu, Nepal. He has been part of the faculty at the Central Department of English, Tribhuvan University. His areas of study are literary theory, postcolonial studies and South Asian studies, and his current research is on South Asian art and religion, culminating in a documentary project entitled ‘The Art of the Lake’.