Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls: Popular Goddess Worship in West Bengal

by June McDaniel

The Indian state of West Bengal is home to one of the world's most vibrant traditions of goddess worship. The year's biggest holidays are devoted to the goddesses Durga and Kali, with lavish rituals, decorated statues, fireworks, and parades. In Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls , June McDaniel provides a broad, accessibly written overview of Bengali goddess worship. McDaniel identifies three major forms of goddess worship, and examines each through its myths, folklore, songs, rituals, sacred texts, and practitioners. In the folk/tribal strand, which is found in rural areas, local tribal goddesses are worshipped alongside Hindu goddesses, with an emphasis on possession, healing, and animism. The tantric/yogic strand focuses on ritual, meditation, and visualization as ways of experiencing the power of the goddess directly. The devotional or bhakti strand, which is the most popular form, involves the intense love and worship of a particular form of the goddess. McDaniel traces these
strands through Bengali culture and explores how they are interwoven with each other as well as with other forms of Hinduism. She also discusses how these practices have been reinterpreted in the West, where goddess worship has gained the values of sexual freedom and psychological healing, but lost its emphases on devotion and asceticism. Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls takes the reader inside the lives of practicing Shaktas, including holy women, hymn singers, philosophers, visionaries, gurus, ascetics, healers, musicians, and businessmen, and offers vivid descriptions of their rituals, practices, and daily lives. Drawing on years of fieldwork and extensive research, McDaniel paints a rich, expansive portrait of this fascinating religious tradition.

Genres: Hinduism, Anthropology, Nonfiction, Religion, History, Spirituality, India

368 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2004

About the author

June McDaniel, Ph.D. (History of Religions, The Divinity School at the University of Chicago, 1986; M.T.S., Candler Seminary at Emory University, 1980; B.A., Studio Art, SUNY Albany, 1974) is Professor Emerita in the Department of Religious Studies at the College of Charleston.

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the main secondary sources I used for writing a paper on Bengali Shakti religion. This talks about all kinds of Shakti religion, and plays close attention to the more rural, even adivasi forms of Goddess worship. Covers Tantra, Bhakti, and all sorts of forms of worship. Supplies copious amounts of interview material, and is incredibly thorough and scholarly, yet also very readable. She divides Shakti worship up into numerous distinct categories. Folk shakti, folk shakti bhakti, folk shakti tantra, town/urban shakti tantra, town/urban shakti bhakti etc. Those probably arent the exact categorizations but you get the drift. And she focuses most on the "folk" end of things obviously as the title implies. It describes practice, belief, and theory and this sort of thing. The one thing I think it is weak on, is drawing all these strands together into a cohesive historical theory as to what Shakti religion really IS. But I guess that might be a bit controversial or rely on more anthropological work of digging into archeology and theories about how populations organize over long periods of time, than she is willing to do. Its really more of a straightforward anthropological study of how these rural communities practice their Shaktism in the present.

I think there is a lot of evidence here to support the idea that Bengali shakti worship is essentially an urban adaptation of what was originally a purely tribal or rural type of religion. June doesnt say this, but I'm saying it. Additionally, I think it seriously undercuts the significance of the "aryan origins" question. If huge swathes of Hindu religion are indisputably indigenous in origin, then whether or not the Aryans migrated into India or not is rendered much less important.

[Ashley Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is (thus far) the best book I have read on goddess culture in India. It focuses only on West Bengal, an area well worth the focus due to it's famous connections with Kali and Durga worship (particularly the glamorous/large Durga Puja held there every year). West Bengal is also home to the culturally significant Dakshineshwar Kali temple (which is connected with Ramakrishna, a very influential religious/cultural figure who is well known for blending Kali worship with the more mainstream Bhakti Yoga philosophy).
This book covers practically every possible representation of goddess worship to be found in this area of the world....topics range from indigenous Adivasi folk traditions, medieval Tantric practices, more modern (*ahem* "socially acceptable") Bhakti/Vaishnav influenced and New Age paths.
I particularly enjoyed the early chapters regarding folk and Tantric paths. In the modern era where India has been putting a heavy focus on universalism (which often comes off as an attempt to neutralize all of it's cultures under a safe unified umbrella...with a heavy leaning towards western friendly patriarchal style religion) it is refreshing to see that individuality still thrives to some extent.

[Stonelands · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are interested in learning about the Goddess tradition(s) in West Bengal and India then you should definitely read this.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sure it’s a very academic read but ITS SO GOOD. Really fascinating no frills look at Kali in her correct cultural context and also does a good job at pointing out New Age appropriation without making that the focus.

Understanding the proper history and context of Kali is itself an act of devotion.

The goddess hiding in a rock in the bottom of a river was a highlight.

Also the mystical vision Bhagavan Das had of Kali in the cremation grounds was fascinating.