August 10, 1998

What follows when indology meets feminism? Something readable.

By Rupert Snell

This engaging and illuminating collection of essays is an anshavatar or partial reincarnation of the same editors' collection entitled The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India, which was published a decade ago. But the overlap is small: most of the essays appear here for the first time. The title Devi: Goddesses of India, with its teasing juxtaposition of the singular and the plural, accurately indicates the "unity in diversity" aspect of the goddess, or goddess in Hinduism; and the essays map out an impressive range of material, ranging from Radha, Shri and Bhagavati on the one hand to Santoshi Ma, Bharat Mata and "the western Kali" on the other.

The new title is to be contrasted with that of the earlier collection: the goddess is no longer viewed as a mere consort, but is given a more individual status which may often elevate her much above the mere male of the divine species. Many of the papers are themselves informed by a perspective which, although not necessarily or overtly "feminist", clearly derives much intellectual strength from the articulations of feminism made over recent years, particularly in India. The Kali impress, as it were.

A full list of the dozen essays and their authors would overflow this brief column. Let us look instead at just one of them: Diana Eck's excellent piece on Ganga: the Goddess Ganges in Hindu Sacred Geography. Like many of the other essays, Eck's piece blends the methodology of textual Indology with an anthropological attitude. This powerfully flowing sangam is joined by a more abstract third source, that of a sympathetically interpretative consideration of meanings and images.

The texts drawn on extend from the Mahabharat and the Puranas to such streams of popular consciousness as the deliciously undulating Ganga Lahari of the 17th century poet Jagannatha. Quoting from the translated text and contextualising it within the legends about its author (a prot g of Shah Jehan and Dara Shukoh), Eck leads the reader towards an almost tangible sense of the significance of the Ganga in the minds and hearts of people for whom the river's divinity is virtually an article of faith.

With a clarity denied to the waters of her subject, Eck transmits her own evident fascination for this cultural history to the reader. A rigorously intellectual poise ensures that her enthusiasm does not burst the banks of scholarship.

This book was first published by the University of California Press in 1996 and now comes to India in a handsome Motilal Banarsidass edition. How has it travelled? For the most part, without any grave damage to any likely sensibilities (though a reviewer equally remote from India has little authority to make such a judgement).

Yet there is a sense in which this book is marked as a work by and for outsiders: Indian readers hardly need to be told what a rath or a tirtha is; and one wonders what cultural game is being played by Lise McKean in her (otherwise fascinating) piece on Bharat Mata when she repeatedly points out, rather scoffingly, to the poor English used in a temple guidebook. Such irritations aside, Professors J.S. Hawley and D.M. Wulff are to be congratulated for producing a very useful collection.

Finally, readers hoping for darshan of the Devi of American Indology, Wendy Doniger, will not be disappointed. Her essay on Saranyu/Samjna: the Sun and the Shadow is one of the book's high points.

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