Customer Reviews

Water and Womanhood: Religious Meanings of Rivers in Maharashtra

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The subject of rivers in India may sound a little old hat. But this book really brings something new and valuable.

Unfortunately I read it over a year ago, so I don't remember every detail. But it was a book I was quite impressed with and lent to friends who were writing related papers at the time, so when I saw that no one else had written a review, I thought that I'd better.

To begin with, the author makes the simple point that rivers aren't primarily about purity/pollution, a typical dichotomy through which their religious significance is understood, but also about fertility/lack. That's new but not really a big surprise. But she goes on to talk about the Seven Sisters, goddesses who are present in certain water bodies, and who have the power to give a child and also to take one away.

She goes into them in a bit of detail, based on her interviews. They're often depicted as seven stones, or simply strokes of paint on stones near the water. Some people are loathe to talk about them, but she found a number of stories of rituals to the Sisters inducing them to give a child, or allow a sick child to live, or protect the children of a town from drowning.

If you're a bumbling student of Hinduism, as I've been, and you need all the help you can get finding information on what to write intelligent papers about, this book is not only highly interesting, but I believe it also marches into a subject area which is somewhat unexplored...of the really minimal symbols and representations of some small goddesses. I wish I could say more, but I'm not omniscient and I'm also a bit out of the field nowadays.

And for people who aren't struggling to write papers, it's just a very fine and readable book.