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At the Feet of the Goddess
The Divine Feminine in Local Hindu Religion

Lynn Foulston
Author text to follow

“Lynn Foulston is the first to compare ‘goddess collectives’ (the word ‘pantheon’ is too hierarchical, she argues) of two settlements in different geographical areas of India from the perspective of religious studies… A meticulous and colourful description which details not only the variety of goddesses in the two settlements but also their attendant origin myths as told by informants and these myths’ relation, when applicable, to texts.” The Journal of Religion

“This book makes important contributions to the increasingly rich and complex portrait of Indian goddesses. Foulston has succeeded in putting together extensive textual and ethnographic research that elegantly testifies to the complexity of not only local goddess traditions in India but broader Hindu traditions as well.” The Journal of Asian Studies

“Her close study and comparison of two cultic communities is innovative. Foulston has amassed considerable (local) data on shrine construction and management, healing goddesses, firewalking, possession, and types of offerings (vegetarian, flesh, intoxican). Recommended.” Religious Studies Review

“One of the biggest advantages of this work for the beginning student is its stylistic simplicity. The author is deeply aware that unfamiliar technical language can be an enormous obstacle for beginning students of theology and church history … the other major advantage for this work has to do with its contents and organization. From beginning to end, there is a consistent pattern of presentation … Finally, while this work is ideally suited for beginning college and seminary students, there is much in it to commend it to the more advanced student as well as to the professional theologian and church historian … In these and other respects, this work is at once a highly accessible and subtly provocative summary of the beliefs and practices constitutive of the Protestant Reformation.” Teaching Theology and Religion

“Foulston argues convincingly that previous scholars’ characterization of goddesses as malevolent was based on prejudice and theological misunderstanding… Jewels of description abound on every page, making the goddesses and their devotees come alive.” From the Foreword by Kathleen M. Erndl, The Florida State University

“Nowhere is the feminine dimension of the Divine more omnipresent, vibrant and alive than in Hinduism. Lynn Foulston’s work stands out through its great attention to local details and differences between individual Indian goddesses, details relating to their diverse locations, their rich phenomenology, here documented by new visual evidence, their presence and power in people’s lives, and the joyous celebration of their existence and influence through numerous rituals and festivities.
It is joy to read this book, and it is a challenge to ponder its evidence, for many of its nuanced observations and conclusions raise questions about earlier goddess research and invite us to a new evaluation of the significance of dynamic goddess beliefs and practices in Indian culture.” Professor Ursula King, University of Bristol

At the Feet of the Goddess embraces ritual, worship and iconography, rather than philosophy and metaphysics, in two communities. In each of these sites, as is common within many local communities across India, it is female deities that predominate. Although local worship is based on ritual and grounded in a tradition that may not be fully comprehended by its adherents, it is also partly based in, and is a reflection of, a more complex metaphysical undercurrent. Local goddesses, in particular, while representing anthropomorphized figures for the majority of their devotees, are concurrently the personifications of the abstract concept of sakti – female divine energy.

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