Nilima Chitgopekar is Associate Professor of History in the Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University. She has written books dealing with the Shaiva pantheon which include, Encountering Sivaism: The Deity, the Milieu, the Entourage (Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers), and The Book of Durga (Penguin), and edited Invoking Godesses: Gender Politics in Indian Religion (Shakti Books). Her forthcoming title, Rudra:The Idea of Shiva (Penguin), a fictionalised biography of Shiva, will be released in June 2005.
Lectures on Goddesses
Hindu goddesses and Christian theology: With special attention to two Tamil hymns in the antati style
Professor Francis X. Clooney, SJ
25 Feb 2003
Related: Christianity, Comparative Theology, Goddesses
What do we learn from the iconography of the goddess
Majewski Lecture
Dr Sanjukta Gupta
19 May 2004
Related: Goddesses, Iconography
The devotion to and puissance of beauty: The case of the Saundaryalahari
Shivdasani Seminar
Dr Nilima Chitgopekar
2 Jun 2005
Related: Goddesses
Images and ideas of the goddess in the Hindu tradition
Shivdasani Seminar
Professor Mandakranta Bose
2 May 2006
Prof. Mandakranta Bose (Emeritus Professor, Centre for India and South Asia Research, University of British Columbia, Canada)
The idea of Devi, the goddess on whom all creation depends for both protection and nurture, is fundamental to the Hindu way of life. This profound philosophical idea found powerful expression in Hindu myths from early times, influencing both religion and culture in South Asia. This lecture will take note of the intensely emotional impact of the idea of the goddess figure in Hindu thought and trace how through the ages it has been reworked into the rich fabric of South Asian literature, art and the performing arts.
Related: Goddesses, Iconography
Making room for the goddess: A theology of Sri in fourteenth-century South India
Majewski Lecture
Professor Francis X. Clooney, SJ
18 May 2007
While Vedanta Desika (fourteenth century, South India), as a Srivaisnava Hindu, was a member of a tradition with the greatest respect for the Goddess Sri, in his era there was still lively debate about her precise status in relationship to the supreme deity, Narayana.
In his Srimad Rahasyatrayasara, Desika pushes for a complete acceptance of Sri as the eternal consort of Narayana, an indispensable equal participant in the divine work of enabling human salvation.
Though in many ways a theological conservative and defender of traditional orthodoxy, Desika here shows himself to be radical and innovative in his defense of Sri. Comparison and contrast with debates over the identity of Jesus in early Christian theology and over the role of Mary, mother of Jesus, as co-mediatrix of redemption, clarify Desika's theological method and contribution to the theology of Sri.
Professor Frank Clooney, SJ, is Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at Harvard. Prof. Clooney is the author of numerous articles and books in the area of Hindu Studies and comparative theology, including Fr. Bouchet's India: An 18th-Century Jesuit's Encounter With Hinduism (2005), Divine Mother, Blessed Mother (2005), and Hindu God, Christian God (2001).
Related: Goddesses, Hindu Theology, Vaisnava
The power of divine beauty: A study of the Saundaryalahari
Wahlstrom Lecture
Dr Nilima Chitgopekar
31 May 2007
Among the varied ways of worshipping a goddess, the chanting of her eulogy is favoured by many a devotee and the existence of a wide range of such litanies are part of India’s religious tradition.
The Saundaryalahari, of the 9th–10th century, probably falsely attributed to Shankaracharya, is one such grand prayer. Can the explicit delineation of beauty, rampant in this text, be a path to mukti? In this case what are the ramifications for the worshipper? The Saundaryalahari deals with esoteric cults such as Srividya and its technicalities. However despite the Tantric nature of this text, it has been ‘appropriated’ by large numbers of city dwelling self-confessedly, ‘non-tantric’ women, who chant it regularly.
Besides embarking on an exegetical study, this talk will share some of the explorations the speaker has been able to make through interviews held in major cities in India. The lecture will examine the way beauty has been delineated in this text and how it has been entwined with bhakti, both from the view of the goddess herself as well as the worshipper.
Nilima Chitgopekar is Associate Professor of History in the Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University. She has written books dealing with the Shaiva pantheon which include, Encountering Sivaism: The Deity, the Milieu, the Entourage (Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers), and The Book of Durga (Penguin), and edited Invoking Godesses: Gender Politics in Indian Religion (Shakti Books). Her forthcoming title, Rudra:The Idea of Shiva (Penguin), a fictionalised biography of Shiva, will be released in June of this year.
Related: Goddesses
The "Hindu" Goddess and Indian modernity
Professor Sumathi Ramaswamy
15 May 2008
Related: Gender, Goddesses, Grammarians, Hindu Theology, Iconography, Modern India
The Lion of Durga
Dr Jim Robinson
30 Oct 2008
Dr Robinson did his D.Phil. research on the Worship of Clay Images in West Bengal. An important part of this was the study of Hindu iconography and the festivals of West Bengal, including Durga puja. Recently he has become a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and is working on an article on an ivory figure of Durga in the V&A which was part of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Photographs taken during fieldwork in Bengal and amongst the Bengali community in the UK are now in the British Museum Asia collection and in the archives of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. Items such as pata paintings and saras collected during my research in Bengal are also in the Asia collection of the British Museum. He is currently a teacher of Religious Education in Oxfordshire. His fascination with Durga started from a very early age in India where he was born and brought up and he is now particularly interested in researching Durga puja in Calcutta during the British period from 18th–20th centuries.
Related: Goddesses, Iconography
The origins and development of Shaktism
Bjarne Wernicke Olesen
21 May 2009
This seminar will explore traditions focused on the Goddess and examine the boundaries of Shakta traditions. The seminar will examine different kinds of Shakta tradition, those within the boundary of Brahmanical orthodoxy and those outside of that boundary. The seminar will raise critical questions about tradition, about etic and emic accounts, and about the relation of Indology to Anthropology. Bjarne Wernicke Olesen has a degree in Classical Indology and the Study of Religions from the University of Aarhus where he now teaches Sanskrit and Hinduism in the Department of the Study of Religions. He is currently undertaking doctoral research in the area of Shaktism.
Related: Goddesses