Sweetening and Intensification

Amy L. Allocco is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Multifaith Scholars Program at Elon University in North Carolina. She is the coeditor, with Brian K. Pennington, of Ritual Innovation: Strategic Interventions in South Asian Religion, also published by SUNY Press. Xenia Zeiler is Professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Helsinki. She is the editor of Digital Hinduism and the coeditor of several volumes on digital culture and religion in Asia and beyond.

• Introduction: Sweetening and Intensification Processes in Hindu TraditionsXenia Zeiler and Amy L. AlloccoPart 1: Temples, Localities, and Deities1. A Divine Dust-Up: Diverging Trajectories of Local Gods in GarhwalBrian K. Pennington2. Your Friendly, Neighborhood Bhairava: Understanding the Role of a Terrifying God in the Form of an Adorable Little Boy (Batuk)Seth Ligo3. This Is a Place Where Shakti Dances: Intensifying the Goddess's Power in MichiganTracy PintchmanPart 2: Ritual and Possession Performances4. Insistence, Persistence, and Resistance in Tamil Hindu Rituals to Call the DeadAmy L. Allocco5. Developing Danda: Aspirations and Transformations of Divine Presence in UttarakhandAftab S. Jassal6. Feral Gods: Inklings of a Mercurial Sacrality in Village Tamil NaduIndira ArumugamPart 3: Pilgrimage and Festival Practices7. The Changing Flavors of Gogaji WorshipCarter Hawthorne Higgins8. Sleep Sweetly, Fierce Goddess: Rituals of Intensification and Sweetening of the Goddess Chamundeshwari of Mysore in Navaratri/Dasara and Her MahotsavaCaleb Simmons9. The Sweetening of Bhairav as a Merchants' Miracle DeityR. Jeremy SaulPart 4: Narrative and Visual Spaces10. Envisioning Kameshvari and the Mahavidyas in Women's Nam of the Kamakhya Temple and Pilgrimage SitePatricia Dold11. Sanskritizing and Saffronizing the Rabies Goddess: Sweetening and Intensification in the Folklore of Hadkai MataDarry Dinnell12. Sensational Poetics: The Modern Visual Contextualities of Tiruvalluvar's TirukkuralAmy-Ruth Holt13. Kali in a Time of Hurt SentimentsRachel Fell McDermottList of ContributorsIndex

"This volume is distinguished not just by its geographical and linguistic diversity but also by its variety of disciplinary approaches—textual, historical, literary, visual, and anthropological. All of the chapters take pains to showcase Hinduism's lived and living traditions as they adapt and change. Further, they expand how we understand the sweetening/intensification dialectic within the context of several current impulses, including globalization and the rise of Hindu majoritarianism in India." — Archana Venkatesan, University of California, Davis"The driving theme of this book opens into fascinating twists and turns in the study of Hindu traditions while poking important holes in scholarly assumptions. Against the backdrop of long-observed processes of Sanskritization, or sweetening, we find these processes to be far from inevitable or unidirectional. Through this collection's vivid explorations of how deities, rituals, and traditions sweeten and intensify over time and space, we find a new appreciation for the dynamism of Hindu traditions." — Corinne G. Dempsey, Nazareth University