The Living Goddess Traditions
Archaic Goddess cults existed in different parts of our planet since our Homind
pasts (e.g. Venus of Berekhat Ram, Venus of Tan Tan), and they can be found in
the stone age of Homo sapiens as well (e.g. Venus of Hohle Fels), down to the
copper age (various ancient civilizations including the Harappans). But
following the descent of the iron age, goddess cults seemed to have receded in
most parts of the world, while mighty cults of powerful male Gods replaced or
eclipsed the Goddesses. Today, the Bengali-speaking Hindus remain the only large
community on earth, who celebrate their thriving Goddess traditions, where the
Goddess is not relegated to the curiosity of a museum, or does not play a
secondary fiddle to some other almighty male Gods, like certain other parts of
South Asia (i.e. north India or south India), but where the Supreme Goddess is
very much at the core of the contemporary experience of a large people
(numbering 10 crore or more, and it is only for political reasons we desist from
calling the Bengali-speaking Hindus a nation on their own).
The theme of this
upcoming issue of Journal of Bengali Studies attempts to trace the existing,
living traditions of the Goddess cults of Bengal back to the hoary antiquities
of its (mostly forgotten) past, and aims to map the trajectory of the evolution
of such Goddess cults from past to present. This issue intends to interrogate
the possible connections of Bengal’s history and prehistory with a largely
rootless present, which, in spite of all the modern, colonial, communist and
communal upheavals, still manages to celebrate the Goddess cults which form one
of the most important markers, if not the most important marker of Bengali
identity. So, we invite articles which will inspect the existing popular cults
and religious practices of the worship of the various goddesses amidst the
backdrop of the kernels of history which form the foundations to such living
goddess traditions.
The topics for contribution will include the following (but
will not be limited to the same):
★ Goddess and goddesses: The supreme Creatrix
and the many manifestations of attendant goddesses.
★ Goddess and Tantra.
★ The
Folk Goddess Cults: From antiquity to contemporaneity.
★ Goddess Kālī: Primeval
Invocations (the Dark Goddess of the Night), Medieval Inventions (Kṛṣṇānanda
Āgambāgīśa etc), Modern Inferences (from early modern Ramprasad & Kamalakanta to
the twentieth century devotional songs of Pannalal Bhattacharya).
★ Goddess
Durgā: Autumnal invocation of Goddess Ūṣā in Ṛgveda, Buffalo Sacrifice of
Harappa, Chandraketugarh Goddesses, Post-Gupta Period and Śrī Śrī Caṇḍī, Pala
Period Goddess Cults, Medieval Bengal and Caṇḍīmangala, Contemporary Durgā Pujo
of public and private dispensations (Bonedi/elite and Baroari/collective).
Festivity, Economics, Heritage and Popular Culture.
★ Goddess Tārā: The rise of
the Great Goddess in Buddhist Tantra and Hindu Tantra to modern day Tarapith of
Birbhum.
★ Pala Period Goddess Vajrayoginī and the contemporary Goddess
Chinnamastā.
★ Sena cataloguing of the Ten Mahāvidyās in Bṛhaddharmapurāṇa and
their lasting legacies of Tantric Goddess worship to this day. The other
Mahāvidyās in the Goddess pantheon beyond Daśamahāvidyā.
★ Local Guardian
Goddesses like Mṛṇmayī of Mallabhum, Kalyāṇeśvarī of Shikharbhum, Sarvamangalā
of Bardhaman: Past lores and lived traditions.
★ Goddess Viśālākṣī: Local
variations in iconology, ritual, styles of worship in the past lores and lived
traditions.
★ Goddesses Lakṣmī and Sarasvatī: The evolution of their cults from
antiquity to modernity within the domestic sphere, within the public sphere,
respectively as the disburser of wealth and as the disseminator of knowledge,
with reference to their iconographies and archaeomythologies.
★ Suggested Yakṣī
cults and Chandraketugarh: The latent trajectory from the ancient to the
medieval to the modern ages.
★ Śākta Rāsa (of Nabadwip and elsewhere).
★
Antiquarian Goddess Cults like the Bird Goddess and the Snake Goddess and their
sublimations into various existing goddess cults like Mahāvidyā Bagalā and
Goddess Manasā/Mahāvidyā Tvaritā).
★ The curious continuity of the early
medieval Goddess Cāmuṇḍā/Carcikā to various lived traditions of Goddesses
Petkati and Kankāleśvarī.
★ The lived traditions of Kuladevī or the Clan Goddess
or the Family Deity: Past narratives and present practices.
★ The continuous
serendipity of the discoveries of ancient and medieval goddess idols from
obscure corners of Bengal: How the past communicates with the present.
★ The
Śakti pīīthas of Bengal: Lores from the past, and lived traditions of the
present.
★ Eponymous Guardian Goddesses of Settlements and the simultaneously
rooted but floating identities of Bengali space (e.g. Kālī and Kalighat, Jessore
and Yaśoreśvarī).
★ The lived traditions of Goddess worshippers: accomplished
Sādhakas like Bamakhyapa of Tarapith, and their lasting legacies.
★ Evolution of
Sākta theologies: Past moorings and contemporary traditions.
★ Last but not the
least, the various non-Śākta worship of the Goddess in Bengal (including but not
limited to the Vaiṣṇava worship of Kātyāyanī Durgā started by Nityananda Prabhu,
or the Chinese Kali worship).
The minimum word limit of articles would be 3000
words, and maximum word limit would be 15000 words. Writers need to follow MLA
format. Articles complete with bibliography and author’s bio-note should be
submitted as email attachments in docx form by 05 October 2025 for this upcoming
issue (expected to be published on the occasion of Kalipujo).
For any query,
feel free to email shoptodina@gmail.com and/or whatsapp/telegram 9717468046. The
editorial board of JBS remains the sole and final authority on the decisions
regarding the publication or non-publication of any submitted article in
original or modified forms.
Editor: Dr Rituparna Koley
Check out our past issues
at https://bengalistudies.blogspot.com and www.bengalistudies.com
