Search Results

This introduction to the book has five sections. These cover discussion of: the pathways to Bengali Hindu Śākta poetry (sources, precedents, and influences); the 164 compositions by 37 representative poets for the goddesses Kālī and Umā that are included in the book; family resemblances — the Śākta Padavali (collected poems to the goddess — a genre of poetry focussed on Kālī and Umā) as bhakti (devotional attitude) poetry; the challenges and choices in designing an anthology; and notes on transliteration, translation, and word definition.

Translations of ten Bengali Hindu Śākta poems are presented, each prefaced by an explanatory introduction. The poems are: Kālī among the corpses: poems of battle; The cosmic goddess of transformation; The magician's daughter and her playful deceptions; “What kind of mother are you?” Cries of complaint; Petitioning the compassionate; “Oh my mind!”: instructing the self; Prioritizing paths: Tantra, devotion, and ritual; The experience of Kuṇḍalinī yoga; In defiance of death; and Adoring the daughter: Āgamanī and Vijayā poems for Umā.

The central concern of this book is the influence of bhakti, or the devotional attitude, in transforming perceptions of Hindu deities and their famous poet‐saints. Methodologically, this study combines textual, historical, and anthropological approaches: transformations in the presentation of the goddesses Kālī and Umā, and their poets are charted through historical reconstructions of textual history and augmented, for the modern period, by fieldwork carried out in West Bengal, India, in 1988–90, 1991, 1995, 1996, 1998, and 1999. The book has three principal aims: the first is to introduce the life stories and contexts of Śākta poet‐devotees who, though not much known outside Bengal, represent an important three‐hundred year literary and spiritual tradition centered around Hindu goddesses; the second is to provide the material necessary for the Bengali Śākta padas (short poems written according to a particular meter and rhyme) to be noticed, discussed, and recognized within the larger field of bhakti literary studies; and the third is to contribute to a “history of ideas” about Bengali goddesses.

An assessment is made of Rāmprasād Sen's poetic contributions to the Bengali Hindu Śākta literature in the light of the textual precedents examined in the last chapter. The first part of the chapter looks briefly at the texts, editions, and musical notations. The remainder is mostly devoted to the Kālī‐centered poetry, with a short section following it on the Umā‐centered poetry, and a brief roundup. Many quotations are included.

An assessment is made of Kamalākānta Bhaṭṭācārya's poetic contributions to the Bengali Hindu Śākta literature in the light of the textual precedents examined in Ch. 5. The first part of the chapter looks briefly at the texts, editions, and musical notations. The remainder is devoted to the Kālī‐centered poetry, examining in turn the Śākta padas, and a Tantric meditation manual, Sādhak Rañjan (which is treated more briefly). Many quotations are included. A short conclusion assesses Kamalākānta's role in evolving trends in the goddesses Kālī and Umā.

The discussion of Rāmprasād Sen's and Kamalākānta Bhaṭṭācārya's poetic contributions to the Bengali Hindu Śākta literature in the last two chapters is brought up to the present by referring comparatively to the literary output of other important Śākta poets, so as to gauge trends and themes in the poetic genre as a whole. The first part of the chapter discusses the intersection of nineteenth‐century and twentieth‐century literature with interest in the goddesses Kālī and Umā, and the rest (the main part) examines in chronological order the poetry to the two goddesses of several major eighteenth‐century to twentieth‐century poets. The underlying interpretative questions are the ways in which and degrees to which these depart from the examples and trends set by Rāmprasād and Kamalākānta. Many quotations are included.

This concluding chapter has three aims. These are: to recapitulate and comment upon the nuances of the relationship between bhakti (or the devotional attitude) and Tantra as it is expressed in Bengal; to offer some conceptual and theoretical models that may help to explain the rise of this poetry tradition and its (at least partial) success in taming, humanizing, and universalizing Kālī and Umā; and finally to place these softened goddesses of the Bengali Śākta poets in an all‐India context by highlighting similarities and differences between their travels and those of other Hindu and Buddhist deities.

This chapter focuses on Durgā and describes the many ways in which she is identified with a little girl, for she is at once the martial demon-slayer and Umā, the humble wife of Śiva, whose festival resonates with details of the mother–daughter relationship as experienced in Bengali cultural history. Umā, Śiva's gentle wife and the daughter of Menakā and Himālaya, stands in for the missed daughters of youth as she evokes real longing. The mother–daughter bond expounds on this nostalgia by associating the “Mother” with “home.” Many urban Bengalis still speak of home as the village of their forebears, even as they ache for the rural, truly “authentic” festivals in remembered villages. In new environments, joining in or even initiating the Pūjā celebrations is one way of adjusting, as these still provoke feelings of bittersweet nostalgic craving.