Goddess traditions have for long fascinated scholars, believers, writers and artists across South Asia. In the academic field, the diversity and complexity of goddess worship, and indeed the conceptualization of the goddess, have been illuminated through interdisciplinary methodologies and broad frameworks. This volume comprising thirteen chapters presents original research across a wide chronological and regional span, drawing on a range of literary, epigraphical, visual, archaeological, archival and ethnographic sources. With a focus on major early Indian religious traditions-Vedic, Buddhist, Jaina, Puranic, Tantric-while also giving prominence to lesser-studied traditions, such as village goddesses and so-called “minor deities,” Goddesses in South Asia draws attention to the different temporal contexts that have a bearing on the prescriptions and practices around goddess worship. It also examines the interactions between goddess worship and other religious traditions, including Islam and Christianity, raising important questions about cross-religious engagements with the divine feminine. The book invites the reader to ask: Is goddess worship indicative of the status of women in society? What do the multiplicity of goddess forms and worship indicate? How do female deities' function within patriarchal societies? How are goddess figures represented across literary, oral, and visual media? In what way have academic and public discourses around the goddesses contributed to our understanding of goddess worship? How do goddess traditions continue to influence gender roles and social structures? The role of royal and other patronage, the institutionalizing of ritual practices, the legitimation of authority, and the construction of normative social values have been closely examined to elucidate these questions. With its critical and interdisciplinary approach, the volume offers fresh perspectives and makes a significant contribution to the study of goddess traditions in South Asia.

As India faced multiple waves of the pandemic, religious responses arose to accommodate and make sense of the situation. In the face of uncertainty, disease and death, people turn not just towards the medical sciences but also religion. The emergence of a new Hindu goddess, Corona Mātā/Coronavirus Mardhinī encapsulates people’s fear, faith, and devotion. Although the goddess is new, the tradition of disease goddesses is ancient. The Indian Subcontinent has a long history of mother goddesses who have been protecting their devotees from diseases such as smallpox, fever, plague, etc. This paper attempts to examine the emergence of Corona Mātā in the historical context of these ‘protective mothers’. On one hand, historically, these goddesses have emerged as a result of interaction between Brahmanical religion and regional practices. On the other hand, these disease-centred goddesses can also be seen as the result of fear and faith. This paper will analyse the location of Corona Mātā in the ever-evolving pantheon of Hindu deities in the context of a 21st-century pandemic.

Scholars have long debated the woman question in Buddhism, in terms of the social spaces and gendered attitudes revealed by texts and traditions. In the opinion of some, Buddhism in its essence does not discriminate between male and female forms. It is the cultural baggage of the practitioners that has led to discriminatory behaviour based on the body. But others have questioned this understanding as being too simplistic and essentializing. The discourse around gender has multiple layers and contexts corresponding to developments (both philosophical and sectarian) within Buddhism. This article attempts to look at the evolution of this discourse from Early Buddhism to the early stages of Mahāyāna Buddhism and, subsequently, within Mahāyāna Buddhism. To do so, this article utilizes Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtras, and Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, juxtaposing them to analyse the evolution of the gender discourse in the philosophical world as well as in the narrative world. This study reveals that while Mahāyāna Buddhism philosophically stands upon the concept of Śūnyatā, that is, emptiness, which extends to include the illusory nature of the human body, the narrative literature carries reservations about the female body. Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra employs a narrative device of ‘sex transformation’ as part of the show of the enlightened state of the female practitioner. Despite the claims made by all these practitioners about the emptiness of the body, all these stories end with female practitioners acquiring a male body and immediately receiving their Buddhahood. This study reveals a more complex picture of conversations and interactions between Early Buddhism and Mahāyāna Buddhism.