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Seeking Mahidevi: Constructing the Identities of the Hindu Great Goddess. Edited by TRACY PINTCHMAN. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 244 pp. $65.50 (cloth); $21.95 (paper).
When I first heard about a book on the Mahadevi, I wondered what could be said, simply and rather uninterestingly, beyond a few philosophical abstracts. Seeking Mahddevi- is the answer: a delightfully nuanced, provocative volume of ten strong essays that explicates the meanings, continuities, and discontinuities of "the Goddess," Mahadev, or Sakti. There is no better study of this metacategory, and Seeking Mah,iddevi should interest scholars, teachers, and general readers.
Tracy Pintchman has succeeded admirably in choosing essays covering a wide methodological and geographical terrain. Some authors focus on textual and philosophical conceptualizations of the Goddess, particularly in the Puranas (C. Mackenzie Brown analyzes her Tantric and Vedantic identity in the Devi-Bhagavata Pura.na's "Devi Gita," and Pintchman compares Mahadevi in early and late Pura.nic accounts of cosmogenesis); some highlight fieldwork (Usha Menon in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa; Marl Edwin Rohe at the Vaisno Dev shrine in Jammu; Kathleen Erndl in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh; Sree Padma in larger Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh; and Elaine Craddock in Periyapalaiyam, near Madras); one author examines Goddesstexts and songs of varied caste and gender groupings (Sarah Caldwell in...