Sree Padma is executive director of the Inter-Collegiate Sri Lanka Education (ISLE) Program and research assistant professor in Asian studies at Bowdoin College.

• Chapter 1: Goddesses That Dwell On Earth: A Folk Paradigm of Divine Female MultiplicityBrenda BeckChapter 2: Constructing Goddess Worship: Colonial Ethnographic and Public Health Discourses in South IndiaPerundevi SrinivasanChapter 3: From Local Goddess to Locale Goddess: Karumariamman as Divine Mother at a North American Hindu TempleTracy PintchmanChapter 4: An Indentured Goddess: Displacement of a Village Deity from Colonial India to CeylonSasi Kumar BalasundaramChapter 5: Creating Realities, Communicating Dreams, Constructing Temple Lore: Anklets for the Goddess’ feet at ThirumeeyachurVasudha NarayananChapter 6: Traveling Goddess– A Study of Uppalamma in Andhra PradeshSree PadmaChapter 7: The Leap of the Limping Goddess: Aai Khodiyar of GujaratNeelima Shukla-BhattChapter 8: Tantric Visions, Local Manifestations: The Cult Centre of Chinnamasta at Rajrappa, JharkhandR. MahalakshmiChapter 9: The Goddess on the Hill: The (Re)invention of a local goddess as Camun?d?iCaleb Simmo

In this edited volume, Sree Padma brilliantly introduces the comparative study of contemporary local goddesses as a crucial window on India today that has previously been underrepresented in scholarship. Worship of the goddess in many forms in India is one of the world’s oldest continuous traditions, and Inventing and Reinventing the Goddess shows how and why, by providing lucid discussion of the many ways in which communities have invested and reinvested local goddesses with a diversity of contemporary concerns. Each chapter’s detailed case study breaks new theoretical ground in our understanding of the vital synergy that emerges wherever and whenever people connect local and global in the figure of the goddess.

Sree Padma is executive director of the Inter-Collegiate Sri Lanka Education (ISLE) Program and research assistant professor in Asian studies at Bowdoin College.

• Chapter 1: Goddesses That Dwell On Earth: A Folk Paradigm of Divine Female MultiplicityBrenda BeckChapter 2: Constructing Goddess Worship: Colonial Ethnographic and Public Health Discourses in South IndiaPerundevi SrinivasanChapter 3: From Local Goddess to Locale Goddess: Karumariamman as Divine Mother at a North American Hindu TempleTracy PintchmanChapter 4: An Indentured Goddess: Displacement of a Village Deity from Colonial India to CeylonSasi Kumar BalasundaramChapter 5: Creating Realities, Communicating Dreams, Constructing Temple Lore: Anklets for the Goddess’ feet at ThirumeeyachurVasudha NarayananChapter 6: Traveling Goddess– A Study of Uppalamma in Andhra PradeshSree PadmaChapter 7: The Leap of the Limping Goddess: Aai Khodiyar of GujaratNeelima Shukla-BhattChapter 8: Tantric Visions, Local Manifestations: The Cult Centre of Chinnamasta at Rajrappa, JharkhandR. MahalakshmiChapter 9: The Goddess on the Hill: The (Re)invention of a local goddess as Camun?d?iCaleb Simmo

In this edited volume, Sree Padma brilliantly introduces the comparative study of contemporary local goddesses as a crucial window on India today that has previously been underrepresented in scholarship. Worship of the goddess in many forms in India is one of the world’s oldest continuous traditions, and Inventing and Reinventing the Goddess shows how and why, by providing lucid discussion of the many ways in which communities have invested and reinvested local goddesses with a diversity of contemporary concerns. Each chapter’s detailed case study breaks new theoretical ground in our understanding of the vital synergy that emerges wherever and whenever people connect local and global in the figure of the goddess.

Sree Padma is executive director of the Inter-Collegiate Sri Lanka Education (ISLE) Program and research assistant professor in Asian studies at Bowdoin College.

• Chapter 1: Goddesses That Dwell On Earth: A Folk Paradigm of Divine Female MultiplicityBrenda BeckChapter 2: Constructing Goddess Worship: Colonial Ethnographic and Public Health Discourses in South IndiaPerundevi SrinivasanChapter 3: From Local Goddess to Locale Goddess: Karumariamman as Divine Mother at a North American Hindu TempleTracy PintchmanChapter 4: An Indentured Goddess: Displacement of a Village Deity from Colonial India to CeylonSasi Kumar BalasundaramChapter 5: Creating Realities, Communicating Dreams, Constructing Temple Lore: Anklets for the Goddess’ feet at ThirumeeyachurVasudha NarayananChapter 6: Traveling Goddess– A Study of Uppalamma in Andhra PradeshSree PadmaChapter 7: The Leap of the Limping Goddess: Aai Khodiyar of GujaratNeelima Shukla-BhattChapter 8: Tantric Visions, Local Manifestations: The Cult Centre of Chinnamasta at Rajrappa, JharkhandR. MahalakshmiChapter 9: The Goddess on the Hill: The (Re)invention of a local goddess as Camun?d?iCaleb Simmo

In this edited volume, Sree Padma brilliantly introduces the comparative study of contemporary local goddesses as a crucial window on India today that has previously been underrepresented in scholarship. Worship of the goddess in many forms in India is one of the world’s oldest continuous traditions, and Inventing and Reinventing the Goddess shows how and why, by providing lucid discussion of the many ways in which communities have invested and reinvested local goddesses with a diversity of contemporary concerns. Each chapter’s detailed case study breaks new theoretical ground in our understanding of the vital synergy that emerges wherever and whenever people connect local and global in the figure of the goddess.