Description: Rebecca J. Manring offers a hagiographical treatment of Advaita Acarya, a fifteenth century leader in a new devotional school of Vaisnavism. She uses the Bengali material as a case study of how to read and understand hagiographical literature.
Review Quotes: "Advaita Acarya, one of the two most significant disciples of Caitanya, stood at the intersection of ecstatic Vaisnava devotionalism and the strict demands of orthodox Brahmanism. Rebecca Manring's lucid translations of the hagiographies of Advaita tell the story of his resuscitation in late nineteenth-century Bengal by what she identifies as 'the religious right of its day.' The intrinsic fascination of these texts is compounded by the underlying political narrative." ---Ralph W. Nicholas, William Rainey Harper Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago