At the Feet of the Goddess embraces ritual, worship and iconography, rather than philosophy and metaphysics, in two communities. In each of these sites, as is common within many local communities across India, it is female deities that predominate. Although local worship is based on ritual and grounded in a tradition that may not be fully comprehended by its adherents, it is also partly based in, and is a reflection of, a more complex metaphysical undercurrent. Local goddesses, in particular, while representing anthropomorphized figures for the majority of their devotees, are concurrently the personifications of the abstract concept of sakti female divine energy.
Reviews
"...Foulston's work stands out through its great attention to local details and differences between individual Indian goddesses, details relating to their diverse locations, their rich phenomenology, here documented by new visual evidence, their presence and power in people's lives, and the joyous celebration of their existence and influence through numerous rituals and festivities. It is joy to read this book..." -- Professor Ursula King, University of Bristol.
"...Foulston has succeeded in putting together extensive textual and ethnographic research that elegantly testifies to the complexity of not only local goddess traditions in India but broader Hindu traditions as well." -- The Journal of Asian Studies
"...A meticulous and colourful description which details not only the variety of goddesses in the two settlements but also their attendant origin myths as told by informants and these myths' relation, when applicable, to texts." -- The Journal of Religion.



Book Information
ISBN 9781902210445
Author Lynn Foulston
Format Hardback
Page Count 242
Imprint Liverpool University Press
Publisher Liverpool University Press
Weight(grams) 551g