The Indian Mother Goddess

Making the case for a new kind of visual history, The Goddess and the Nation charts the pictorial life and career of Bharat Mata, “Mother India,” the Indian nation imagined as mother/goddess, embodiment of national territory, and unifying symbol for the country’s diverse communities. Soon after Mother India’s emergence in the late nineteenth century, artists, both famous and amateur, began to picture her in various media, incorporating the map of India into her visual persona. The images they produced enabled patriotic men and women in a heterogeneous population to collectively visualize India, affectively identify with it, and even become willing to surrender their lives for it. Filled with illustrations, including 100 in color, The Goddess and the Nation draws on visual studies, gender studies, and the history of cartography to offer a rigorous analysis of Mother India’s appearance in painting, print, poster art, and pictures from the late nineteenth century to the present. By exploring the mutual entanglement of the scientifically mapped image of India and a (Hindu) mother/goddess, Sumathi Ramaswamy reveals Mother India as a figure who relies on the British colonial mapped image of her dominion to distinguish her from the other goddesses of India, and to guarantee her novel status as embodiment, sign, and symbol of national territory. Providing an exemplary critique of ideologies of gender and the science of cartography, Ramaswamy demonstrates that images do not merely reflect history; they actively make it. In The Goddess and the Nation, she teaches us about pictorial ways of learning the form of the nation, of how to live with it—and ultimately to die for it.

Takes readers through Shakta imagery, philosophy, beliefs, customs, history, folklore and myth. This book includes tales of Adi-Maya-Shakti, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvati, Kali, Durga as well as several village-goddesses such as Kanyakumari, Vaishnav-devi, Bahucharmata and heroines such as Anasuya, Arundhati and Savitri.

Dr. Agrawala S Present Work Largely Represents His Ph.D. Thesis (Approved By The Banaras Hindu University) In A Revised Up-To-Date Form. He Has Brought Out A Most Comprehensive And Thorough Analysis Of The Material On The Worship Of Goddesses In The Proto-Historic And Vedic Periods Of India. A Vast Amount Of Archaeological Evidence Is Carefully Sifted And Analysed By Him In A Truer Cultic Perspective As Throwing New Light On The Role Of Mother-Goddesses In The Protohistoric Cultures Ranging From Small Agricultural Communities Of Baluchistan Foothills To The Highly Developed Harappans. Dr. Agrawala Has Also Identified And Discussed In A Systematic Manner Varied Motifs And Concepts Of Fertility Cultus In The Rgveda And Later Vedic Texts Which Were Subsequently Formulated Into Definite Images, Personifications And Attributes. He Has Marshalled In A Fully Objective Treatment All Those References In The Vedic Literature That Go Now To Reveal Numerous Fresh Aspects Of This Hitherto Unexplored Subject. One Is Able Indeed To See Through The Present Work How The Rgvedic Goddesses,Mostly Abstractions, Later On Assumed Mythical Definitions In The Pantheon And How The Folk Culture Of India Exercised Its Far-Reaching Influences On Higher Priestly Religion Not Only By Contributing Its Own Share Of Goddesses But Also Through Their More Concrete Identification With The Already Existing Ones In Myths And Cult Rituals.

The first exhaustive collection of goddess mythologies from India. •Explores the evolution of goddess worship in India over 4,000 years. •Stunning color photographs illustrate many stories of goddess lore never before available in one collection. In India it is said that there is a goddess in every village, a nymph in every lake. Demonesses stand guard on village frontiers, ogresses howl on crossroads, and untamed forests resound with the laughter of celestial virgins. It is a land of mysterious Apsaras and seductive Yakshinis, of terrifying Dakinis and wise Yoginis--each with a story to tell. In this wide-reaching exploration of ancient Hindu lore and legends, author Devdutt Pattanaik discovers how earth, women and goddesses have been perceived over 4,000 years. Some of the tales recounted are revered classics, others are common and folklorish, often held in disdain by priests. Until now, most have remained hidden, isolated in distant hamlets or languishing in forgotten libraries, overwhelmed by the din of masculine sagas. As the tales come to light through word and stunning color imagery, the author identifies the five faces given to the eternal feminine as man sought to unlock the mysteries of life: the female half of existence is at first identified with Nature, gradually deified and eventually objectified. She comes to be seen as the primal mother, fountainhead of life and nurturance. The all-giving mother then transforms into the dancing nymph, a seductress offering worldly pleasures that bind man in the cycle of life. As this nymph is domesticated, the dominant image of woman becomes the chaste wife with miraculous powers. Finally the submissive consort redefines herself as the wild and terrifying goddess who does battle, drinks blood, and demands appeasement. Exploring mysteries of gender and biology, and shedding light on the roots of taboos and traditions practiced in India today, the author shows how the image of the Mother Goddess can be both worshipped and feared when she carries the face of mortal woman.