Mukhopadhyay - The Goddess in Hindu-Tantric Traditions: Devi as Corpse

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The Goddess in Hindu-Tantric Traditions

Devi as Corpse

Anway Mukhopadhyay

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My friend, Dr. Sagnik Dasgupta, first told me about the book by Nigurananda on the Sati pithas . This book has helped me a lot in my research on the Shakti pithas . Prof Vanashree, Professor Emerita, Dept of English, Banaras Hindu University, who was my PhD supervisor and my colleague at BHU, is always a source of inspiration for me. My thanks go to my former colleagues and acquaintances in BHU and Varanasi at large, who have been a steady source of support and inspiration. Thanks are also due to my colleagues at the University of Burdwan, who have intellectually stimulated me in various ways.

My student, Sri Utkarsh Chaubey, a Shakta devotee himself, has always inspired me in this project and hence deserves my thanks. My heartfelt thanks also go to the priests and other people in various Shakti pithas who have given me significant information on the pithas and the pitha deities. Special thanks go to Dr Michael Paraskos who made it possible for me to visit the birthplace of Aphrodite in Pafos, the famous Petra tou Romiou, while I was in Cyprus for the Othellos Island Conference in 2017. I received a lot of information on Aphrodite Kypris from Dr Rita Severis at CVAR, Nicosia, Cyprus. Thanks go to her for allowing me to read some books on Aphrodite and Cyprus in the library at CVAR. I deeply thank Ruth Keshishian, the owner of the Moufflon Bookshop in Nicosia, who gave me a lot of information on Aphrodite and introduced me to important books on Aphrodite. Thanks go to Dr Sukanya Dasgupta as well, who introduced me to Ruth Keshishian.

I must thank the staff of the libraries of the University of Burdwan and Banaras Hindu University, and also the shopkeepers of various bookshops in Varanasi selling books on tantras, puranas and Shaktism, for the patience with which they entertained my queries about books on Shaktism and supplied me with necessary books without which this book could not have been written.

I must acknowledge the constant support I have received from my parents and sister, and also from the members of my extended family.

And finally, my heartfelt thanks go to Dr Dorothea Schaefter and Dr Lily Brown, who, on behalf of Taylor & Francis, provided all kinds of support to me during the entire process of the publication of this book. In the same vein, I thank the peer reviewer (whose name I dont know) for his/her valuable suggestions, and especially for the suggestion that this book might be useful for certain areas and disciplines which I myself did not think of.

Anway Mukhopadhyay

The Mahabhagavta Upapurana is a Hindu mythological text grounded in a very strong Shakta ideology. Like the more celebrated Devi Bhagawatam , it places the Mother Goddess at the heart of the universe and presents Her as the Formless Absolute who, out of Her own desire, creates the world of relativity, that of phenomena. It is She who gives birth to the Hindu Trinity: Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshvara.

I will summarize the relevant chapters or the relevant segments of certain chapters from this text so that the reader may get an idea of the way in which this text radically alters the patriarchal construction of Sati merely as an imitable model of wifely virtue. This outline, I hope, will effectively uphold the Shakta version of the Sati myth in which Sati is not just the docile wife of Shiva but rather the avatar of the Creatrix of Shiva himself.