Description: This multidisciplinary collection presents 11 essays ranging from the pre-Vedic to the modern era and incorporating research on Hindu, Buddhist and tribal cultures. Authors ask whether the worship of goddesses, strongly linked to fertility rituals, might have mitigated the ecological decline of South Asia in the pre-British and post-colonial eras.
Brief description:
Jayant Bapat holds doctorates in Organic Chemistry and Indology and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Monash University. He is also a Hindu Priest. Jayant's research interests include Hinduism, Goddess Cults, Koli fishers in Mumbai, and Diaspora Studies. He is the co-editor with Ian Mabbett of The Iconic Female: Goddesses of India, Nepal and Tibet (Monash University Press, 2008), Conceiving the Goddess: Transformation and Appropriation in Indic Religions (Monash University Publishing, 2016) and a co-author of Indian Diaspora: Hindus and Sikhs in Australia (DK Printworld, 2015, Second Edition, Manticore Press, 2019). His latest book, The Lajjāgaurī and Ᾱnandanāyakī, is a translation of R. C. Dhere's pioneering work in Marathi on the primordial mother goddess (Monash University Publishing, 2020). Recently, Jayant has published a book in Marathi about his experiences as a migrant to Australia. He is a member of Monash University's Koli Research Project.
Review Quotes:
The Australia-based scholars who have produced this volume have spent decades researching and thinking about Hindu goddesses. Their many previous publications have contributed richly to our understanding of the meanings of these goddesses to their worshipers. This new volume asks a crucially important question about those Hindu goddesses that are identified with forces of nature: does their worship have a beneficial effect on the environment? An influential volume published a quarter century ago asks, "Is the Goddess a Feminist?" This volume asks an analogous question: "Is the Goddess an environmentalist?" - Anne Feldhaus, Distinguished Foundation Professor of Religious Studies Emerita, Arizona State University