Description
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHING GROUP Kali in Bengali Lives by Suchitra Samanta Susan McKinnon
In Kali in Bengali Lives, Suchitra Samanta examines Bengalis' personal narratives of Kali devotion in the Bhakti tradition. These personal experiences, including miraculous encounters, reflect on broader understandings of divine power. Where the revelatory experience has long been validated in Indian epistemology, the devotees' own interpretive framework provides continuity within a paradigm of devotion and of the miraculous experience as intuitive insight (anubhuti) into a larger truth. Through these unique insights, the miraculous experience is felt in its emotional power, remembered, and reflected upon. The narratives speak to how the meaning of a religious figure, Kali, becomes personally significant and ultimately transformative of the devotee's self._x000D_ _x000D_
Part I: Framing Religious Experience in Theory and Indigenous Belief_x000D_
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Chapter 1: Interpreting Kali: A History, and Western Perspectives _x000D_
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Chapter 2: Indigenous Epistemology: Revelatory Knowledge as Valid _x000D_
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Chapter 3: On Narrative: Autobiographical Recollection, Interpreting the Miraculous Experience_x000D_
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Part II: Narratives of experience_x000D_
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Chapter 4: Devotional Practices and Experiences_x000D_
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Chapter 5: Alokebabu, Kali Devotee: A Guru as His Disciples see Him_x000D_
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Chapter 6: Bani's Many Gurus: Her Spiritual Journey to Receiving Kali _x000D_
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Chapter 7: Experiences Associated with Devotional Practices _x000D_
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Chapter 8: Sacrificial Offering to Kali, Experiences of Well-being and Calamity_x000D_