000			01594nam a22001817a 4500
999			_c346083 _d346083
003			0
005			20220207214826.0
020			_a9780195069792
082			_a294.52114 SAX
100			_aSax, William S.
245			_aMountain Goddess: gender and politics in a himalayan polgrimage
260			_aNew York _bOxford _c1991
300			_a235p.
520			_aEvery few decades, thousands of Hindu villagers in the Central Himalayas of North India carry their regional goddess Nandadevi in a bridal palanquin to her husband Shiva's home, walking barefoot over icebound mountain passes to a lake surrounded by human bones. This Royal Pilgrimage of Nandadevi is a ritual dramatization of the post-marital journeys of married women from their natal homes to their husbands' homes. _Mountain Goddess_ is an anthropological study of this pilgrimage and the cult of Nandadevi, especially as they relate to local women's lives. The author shows how Nandadevi's appeal stems from the fact that her mythology parallels the life-courses of the local peasant women, and that her ritual procession imitates their annual journey to the village of their birth. Drawing on formal Indian theories, verbal commentaries, songs, interviews, articles, propaganda, legends, pan-Indian Sanskrit liturgies, historical documents, and the author's remarkable personal account of the pilgrimage, this gripping narrative is a unique resource for courses in the anthropology of religion, Hinduism, and folklore, ritual, and gender studies.
650			_aIndia--Uttarakhand
650			_aNandadevi (Hindu deity)
942			_cB