This Special Issue is dedicated to Hindu holy women past and present and the ways that they have influenced society [...]

While the warriors of India through the centuries have been primarily male, the great deities of war have been female. This chapter examines two of the most important war goddesses of India: Durga and Kali.

In this paper, we shall examine some major religious roles for women in West Bengal, India, and the challenges they must face. Among the Santals, an Adivasi group, religious women must avoid being called witches, for women’s power is seen as dangerous and religious social roles are traditionally forbidden to them. Some women have been called by deities to become trance mediums, colloquially known as ‘bhar ladies’, and this role is generally not accepted by family members. Girls have had to undergo exorcisms by male healers to get them to renounce the gods that have called them to this role, while married women must deal with husbands who do not want their wives going into public trances. Many such women have learned tantric practices to control the trance possession. In rural areas, the combination of ascetic practices and stories known as bratas (vratas) are taught to young girls by female leaders called ayes. However, in more urban areas, this role has been taken over by male brahmin priests. We also see women in the bhakti tradition, who run ashrams and lead worship and who must deal with male devotees who question a woman’s leadership abilities. All of these involve challenges, and many of these women have developed strategies to deal with the difficulties of being a religious influencer in their societies.

The burning ground is both a place and a metaphor in the religion of Shaktism or goddess worship in West Bengal, India. As a place, it is where corpses are cremated. As a metaphor, it refers to the human heart, which has been left as a wasteland through sorrow and tragedy. It is when the soul loses its attachment to this world, when the heart is desolate and alone, that the dark goddess Kali descends from the heavens. She may bring the gift of salvation, bringing the soul to her paradise, or she may save it from unhappy rebirth by bringing a new and better life. She may also bring the universal consciousness that is moksha or liberation. Transcendence from the bondage of worldly attachments, which are left behind amid the ashes of the burning ground, brings divine vision and realization. This paper explores the roles of negation and desolation in ritual practice and religious experience in Bengali Shaktism.

On the island of Bali in Indonesia, the traditional Hindu religious leaders are the pedandas, or brahmin high priests. Their religious status is largely based on their mystical states, during which they create the highest and most valuable form of holy water, which is needed for all religious rituals on the island. It is one of the rare examples in world religions where mysticism is not only integrated into the daily life of the community but is vital to it. These are the religious authorities who maintain the ancient forms of Indonesian Hinduism, standing against the encroachment of Westernization, Islamization and modernization. Little ethnographic research has been done on them—there are no books about their lives and experiences in any Western languages, and only a few biographies in Indonesian. In this paper, we examine the lives of some Shiva pedandas, discussing their mystical experiences, and the ways that their states fit in with other sorts of mystical experiences in Bali. These other sorts of experiences include those of Buddhist priests, local healers or balians, and the debatably mystical experiences of possession trance.

This special issue of Religions brings together a talented group of international scholars who have studied and written on the Hindu tradition. The topic of religious experience is much debated in the field of Religious Studies, and here we present studies of Hindu religious experience explored from a variety of regions and perspectives. They are intended to show that religious experience has long been an important part of Hinduism, and we consider them to be important and relevant. As a body of scholarship, these articles refine our understanding of the range and variety of religious experience in Hinduism. In addition to their substantive contributions, the authors also show important new directions in the study of the third-largest religion in the world, with over one billion followers. This introduction will discuss some relevant issues in the field of Indology, some problems of language, and the difficulties faced in the study of religious experience. It will also give a brief sketch of the religious experiences described by our authors in some major types of Hinduism.