REL292: Goddess Religions (Roam)

In The Buddhist Goddess Marishiten, David A. Hall provides an in-depth exploration of the Buddhist cult of the warrior goddess Mārīcī, its evolution, and its efficacy and psychological impact on the Japanese warrior.

Worshipped for over three-fifths of recorded history, Egypt's gods and goddesses are among the most fascinating of human civilization. The lives of pharaohs and commoners alike were dominated by the need to honor, worship, and pacify the huge pantheon of deities, from the benevolent to the malevolent. The richness and complexity of their mythology is reflected in countless tributes throughout Egypt, from lavish tomb paintings and imposing temple reliefs to humble household shrines.This book examines the evolution, worship, and eventual decline of the numerous gods and goddesses--from minor household figures such as Bes and Tawaret to the all-powerful deities Amun and Re--that made Egypt the most theocratic society of the ancient world, and made Egyptians, according to Herodotus, "more religious than any other people."Now available in paperback, with hundreds of illustrations and specially commissioned drawings, this title remains the most comprehensive and authoritative guide to the deities that lay at the heart of Egyptian religion and society.

The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia contains essays written by established scholars in the field that trace the multiplicity of Asian goddesses: their continuities, discontinuities, and importance as symbols of wisdom, power, transformation, compassion, destruction, and creation. The essays demonstrate that while treatments of the goddess may vary regionally, culturally, and historically, it is possible to note some consistencies in the overall picture of the goddess in Asia. The book provides a comprehensive treatment of the goddess, culminating in the selections that draw from research on Indian, Nepali, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese traditions, seldom found in other works of similar subject. The volume will be useful for students in religious studies, gender studies, Asian studies, and women's studies. With the intent of making the volume truly broad in scope, an effort has been made to include works written by art historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and religious studies scholars. Culture cannot be separated from religion; they are intertwined as an organic whole, and variations manifest themselves in the rituals and daily lives of the people. In this sense, all the essays are interconnected: the goddess manifests in many forms and appeals to differing aspects of a particular culture as a paradigm of the divine feminine.

More Than 1,000 Goddesses and Heroines from around the World Groundbreaking scholar Patricia Monaghan spent her life researching, writing about, and documenting goddesses and heroines from all religions and all corners of the globe. Her work demonstrated that from the beginning of recorded history, goddesses reigned alongside their male counterparts as figures of inspiration and awe. Drawing on anthropology, folklore, literature, and psychology, Monaghan's vibrant and accessible encyclopedia covers female deities from Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, Asia and Oceania, Europe, and the Americas, as well as every major religious tradition.

Many are familiar with Joseph Campbell's theory of the hero's journey, the idea that every man from Moses to Hercules grows to adulthood while battling his alter-ego. This book explores the universal heroine's journey as she quests through world myth. Numerous stories from cultures as varied as Chile and Vietnam reveal heroines who battle for safety and identity, thereby upsetting popular notions of the passive, gentle heroine. Only after she has defeated her dark side and reintegrated can the heroine become the bestower of wisdom, the protecting queen and arch-crone. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Drawing on myth, religious beliefs, and a revealing selection of iconography from the Paleolithic Venus of Willendorf and ancient Egyptian images of Isis to medieval Madonnas and contemporary visions of female Hindu deities, psychotherapist and folklorist Shahrukh Husain offers readers a comprehensive, cross-cultural panorama of goddess worship through the ages. Using a wealth of examples from every era and tradition, she traces a long and primal struggle that over the course of millennia saw originally female deities usurped by male-dominated priestly hierarchies, a process reflected both in myth and in actual religious practice, which saw the goddess principle attacked, diminished, and eclipsed, but never entirely eliminated. Husain examines cosmic concepts of creation and seasonal fertility, the mythic rivalries and partnerships between male and female divinities, and the explicitly sexual duality personified in the West by the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene (but common to cultures all over the world), as well as such other aspects as the warrior, the queen, and the witch or crone who snips the threads of Fate. Finally, she reviews contemporary attitudes, values, and rites, finding a new vitality after centuries of suppression: the goddess is today a subject of renewed interest to feminist theorists, cultural historians, Wiccans and Paganists, and even environmentalists, for whom the Gaia hypothesis offers a powerful metaphor reconciling modern science with ancient wisdom. Filled with vivid full-color illustrations and dozens of informative sidebars on subjects as diverse as the Vestal Virgins of Rome, the Matronit of the Kabbala, and the almost universal association of the planet Venus with goddess figures, this is a book that will appeal to a wide audience, from scholars in women's studies, anthropology, folklore, and ancient history to more general readers interested in the female influence on cultural evolution and the antecedents to modern New Age thought. Shahrukh Husain is a psychotherapist, folklorist, and storyteller. She has lectured extensively and has worked as a consultant on TV documentaries and in an advisory role to members of Parliament on cultural matters ranging from marriage and race to religion and language issues. Her publications include Daughters of the Moon: Witch Tales from around the World (1993) and Handsome Heroines (1996).

Nanno Marinatos explores the role of the naked goddess and mistress of animals in Greek religion. She examines their eastern origins and discusses their dissemination throughout the mainland and Crete. She also analyses their function as magical devices which ward off evil and questions why a female god was the protectress of men rather than women." "The Goddess and the Warrior is illustrated with photographs and drawings of the naked goddess and mistress of animals in her various guises.

This landmark work presents the most illuminating portrait we have to date of goddesses and sacred female imagery in Western culture--from prehistory to contemporary goddess movements. Beautifully written, lucidly conceived, and far-ranging in its implications, this work will help readers gain a better appreciation of the complexity of the social forces-- mostly androcentric--that have shaped the symbolism of the sacred feminine. At the same time, it charts a new direction for finding a truly egalitarian vision of God and human relations through a feminist-ecological spirituality. Rosemary Radford Ruether begins her exploration of the divine feminine with an analysis of prehistoric archaeology that challenges the popular idea that, until their overthrow by male-dominated monotheism, many ancient societies were matriarchal in structure, governed by a feminine divinity and existing in harmony with nature. For Ruether, the historical evidence suggests the reality about these societies is much more complex. She goes on to consider key myths and rituals from Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Anatolian cultures; to examine the relationships among gender, deity, and nature in the Hebrew religion; and to discuss the development of Mariology and female mysticism in medieval Catholicism, and the continuation of Wisdom mysticism in Protestanism. She also gives a provocative analysis of the meeting of Aztec and Christian female symbols in Mexico and of today's neo-pagan movements in the United States.

This collection of accessible essays relates the stories of individual goddesses from around the world, exploring their roles in the cultures from which they came, their histories and status today, and the controversies surrounding them. * 63 essays cover more than 100 goddesses and goddess-like figures from world culture, with volumes organized by geographic area * Many original translations of prayers, sagas, and other sources not otherwise readily available in English * 60 illustrations include ethnographic photographs, depictions of ancient artifacts, and original artwork * An extensive list of bibliography of sources about the figure and culture discussed accompanies each essay

This title explores the many gods, goddesses, and mythological figures that have pervaded human culture from prehistoric times through today.

Providing a comprehensive examination of the traits and areas of authority Ancient Babylonians attributed to their healing goddess, this book draws on a wide range of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform sources, including god lists, literary compositions, lexical lists, prognostic texts, incantations, and prescriptions. Analysing the use of selected metaphors associated with the goddess, a new perspective is offered on the explanation for disease as well as the motivation for particular treatments. Special chapters deal with the cuneiform handbook on prognosis and diagnosis of diseases, medical incantations appealing to the healing goddess, and the medicinal plants attributed to her. For the first time a body of evidence for the use of simple drugs is brought together, elaborating on specific plant profiles. The result is a volume that challenges many long-held assumptions concerning the specialized cuneiform medical literature and takes a fresh look on the nature of Ancient Babylonian healing.

An illuminating, erudite, lively search for the real Helen of Troy–a chronicle that combines historical inquiry and storytelling élan–from one of Britain’s most widely acclaimed and popular historians. As soon as men began to write, they made Helen of Troy their subject; for close to three thousand years she has been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty and a reminder of the terrible power that beauty can wield. Because of her double marriage to the Greek king Menelaus and the Trojan prince Paris, Helen was held responsible for an enduring enmity between East and West. For millennia she has been viewed as an exquisite agent of extermination. But who was she? Helen exists in many guises: a matriarch from the Age of Heroes who ruled over one of the most fertile areas of the Mycenaean world; Helen of Sparta, the focus of a cult that conflated Helen the heroine with a pre-Greek fertility goddess; the home-wrecker of theIliad; the bitch-whore of Greek tragedy; the pin-up of Romantic artists. Focusing on the “real” Helen–a flesh-and-blood aristocrat from the Greek Bronze Age–Bettany Hughes reconstructs the context of life for this pre-historic princess. Through the eyes of a young Mycenaean woman, Hughes examines the physical, historical, and cultural traces that Helen has left on locations in Greece, North Africa, and Asia Minor. Vivid and compelling, this remarkable book brilliantly unpacks the facts and myths surrounding one of the most enigmatic and notorious figures of all time. From the Hardcover edition.

A multi-faceted portrait of Lakshmi, Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity. Includes translations of verses used to invoke this goddess.

The Goddess is the most potent and persistent feature in the archaeological records of the ancient world, a symbol of the unity of life in nature and the personification of all that was sacred and mysterious on earth. In this pioneering and provocative volume, Marija Gimbutas resurrects the world of the Goddess-worshipping, earth-centered cultures, bringing ancient matriarchal society vividly to life. She interweaves comparative mythology, early historical sources, linguistics, ethnography, and folklore to demonstrate conclusively that Goddess-worship is at the root of Western civilization. Illustrated with nearly 2,000 symbolic artifacts, Gimbutas' magnum opus is at once a "pictorial script" of the prehistoric Goddess religion and an authoritative work that takes these ancient cultures from the realm of speculation into that of documented fact. Over 500 illustrations.

When the first Europeans arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778, the volcano goddess Pele was the central deity of a complex religion in the volcano districts of Hawai'i Island. While native Hawaiians were quickly converted to Christianity, Pele remained remarkably relevant as a deity. This book is a critical biography of the volcano goddess, as well as a history of her religion. Topics covered include the ongoing belief in Pele, her popular manifestations, her ceremonies, her new cultural roles and her current status in Hawai'i.

The Virgin of Guadalupe is a brilliant art book that celebrates a popular cultural icon, a venerable symbol of compassion, hope, and humility--and one of the most popular pieces of ancient art ever created. Featuring color photographs, bilingual English and Spanish captions, and an evocative essay, the book includes lyrical quotes from Aztec legends, miraculous apparitions, storied histories, and colorful folklore.