About this Book

Rachel Fell McDermott has used extensive research from primary historical texts as well as from secondary Bengali and English source materials. She places the advent of the Sakta lyric in its historical context and charts the vicissitudes over time of this form of goddess worship, including the nineteenth-century resurgence of Saktism in the cause of Nationalist politics. The main theme of the book is the way in which the images of the two goddesses evolved over the centuries. Kali is sweetened and democratized over time.