Includes bibliographical references and index.

Goddesses that dwell on earth : a folk paradigm of divine female multiplicity / Brenda Beck -- Constructing goddess worship : colonial ethnographic and public health discourses in South India / Perundevi Srinivasan -- From local goddess to locale goddess : Karumariamman as divine mother at a North American Hindu temple / Tracy Pintchman -- An indentured goddess : displacement of a village deity from colonial India to Ceylon / Sasi Kumar Balasundaram -- Creating realities, communicating dreams, constructing temple lore : anklets for the goddess' feet at Thirumeeyachur / Vasudha Narayanan -- Traveling goddess : a study of Uppalamma in Andhra Pradesh / Sree Padma -- The leap of the limping goddess : Aai Khodiyar of Gujarat / Neelima Shukla-Bhatt -- Tantric visions, local manifestations : the cult centre of Chinnamasta at Rajrappa, Jharkhand / R. Mahalakshmi -- The goddess on the hill : the (re)invention of a local goddess as Cāmuṇḍi / Caleb Simmons -- Communicating the local discursively : devi, the divine feminine as a contemporary symbol for grassroots feminist politics / Priya Kapoor.

Print version record.

The volume investigates two related processes: First, it underscores the manner in which the religious cultures of goddesses are reflexes of larger social processes occurring historically in local contexts. Second, it illustrates transformations in how these same goddesses are understood when they migrate from indigenous social and cultural contexts to destinations with their devotees.

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