The Feminine Sacred in South Asia

South Asia is the only major region where the 'Great Goddess is still a living reality for believers, but its society remains male-dominated. Contributors discuss the place of the feminine within the sacred sphere of South Asian religion, highlighting contradictions and the religious status of these powers. The feminine pole in religious thought cannot be equated with human womanhood, but its presence in the sacred sphere offers women a mode of religious expression in an idiom where gender is a central paradigm of thought.

Format: Hardback
Length: 147 pages
Publication date: 15 January 2024
Publisher: Manohar Publishers and Distributors

South Asia is the only major region where the ‘Great Goddess’ is still a living reality for believers – yet its society remains male-dominated. Drawing their examples from ritual practices, myths, and sacred texts the contributors to this volume discuss the place of the feminine within the sacred sphere of South Asian religion. The theme is full of contradictions, for the impurity of woman must be held against the powers she incarnates, and the religious status of these powers is an old theme of debate among Hindu and Buddhist thinkers. Finally, the feminine pole in religious thought cannot simply be equated with human woman- hood. . . . Yet the very presence of feminity in the sacred sphere contrasts with its exclusion from scriptural Islam or from protestantism, and offers, perhaps, to women, a mode of religious expression in an idiom where gender is a central paradigm of thought.

Dimension: 215 x 146 x 10 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9788173042461