Table Of ContentOffering Flowers,
Feeding Skulls:
Popular Goddess
Worship in West Bengal
JUNE McDANIEL
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Offering Flowers,
Feeding Skulls
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Offering Flowers,
Feeding Skulls
Popular Goddess Worship in West Bengal
june mcdaniel
1
2004
1
Oxford NewYork
Auckland Bangkok BuenosAires CapeTown Chennai
DaresSalaam Delhi HongKong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata
KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Mumbai Nairobi
Sa˜oPaulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto
Copyright(cid:1)2004byOxfordUniversityPress,Inc.
PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress,Inc.
198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NewYork10016
www.oup.com
OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,
storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,
electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,orotherwise,
withoutthepriorpermissionofOxfordUniversityPress.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
McDaniel,June.
Offeringflowers,feedingskulls:populargoddessworshipinWest
Bengal/JuneMcDaniel.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferences.
ISBN0-19-516790-2;ISBN0-19-516791-0(pbk.)
1. Kali(Hindudeity)—Cult—India—WestBengal.
2. Shaktism—India—WestBengal. 3. WestBengal(India)—
Religiouslifeandcustoms. I. Title.
BL1225.K33W362003
294.5'514'095414—dc21 2003009828
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
onacid-freepaper
Acknowledgments
Thanks go to the Fulbright Program and its representatives, whose
SeniorScholarResearchFellowshipmadeitpossibleformetodothis
research in West Bengal, and to the College of Charleston, who
granted me a year’s leave for field research. Thanks also to USIS in
India, who were very helpful, especially in New Delhi and Calcutta.
Twoofmybestinformantswereanthropologists,SatyakamSengupta
andPashupatiMahato.Bothspentweeksandmonthsinlongdiscus-
sion with me about Bengali folk religion, and they were wonderful
sourcesofinformationandgossip.I’mgladthatIhadtheopportunity
to know them. Thanks also go to Narendranath Bhattacharyya and
DebabrataSenSharmafortheirdetailedinformationonBengaliand
otherformsoftantra,andtoProbhalSen,AshaandBijoyMukherjee,
Ranjit and Kumkum Bhattacharya, Tushar Niyogi, George Matthew,
SurajitandPurnimaSinha,AmitandMandiraSen,D.D.Mukherjee
andSwamiLokeshwarananda,andAshokMukherji.
ThanksgoalsotoJayashriMa,GauriMa,ArchanapuriMa,Tapan
Goswami, Amiya Kumar and Mrs. Sinha, M. Chattopadhyaya, A.K.
Chakraborty, Parvati Soren, Bacchu Ghosh, the Andul Kali-kirtan
Samiti, and the priests, local healers, sadhus, tantrikas,holywomen,
artists, patuas, story-tellers, merchants, waiters, gardeners, farmers,
taxidrivers,doctors,engineers,housewives,grantadministrators,and
Shaktadevoteesofallsorts,whokindlygavemetheiropinionsabout
everything imaginable. Thanks also to the British Library, for access
tosomeveryoldbooks,andtoJillYarnall,forherstory.
Special thanks to my husband, Jim, photographer and support
system extraordinaire, and Constantina Rhodes Bailly, for inspiring
vi acknowledgments
discussions. Also special thanks to Cynthia Humes, who went through this
manuscript in its original, thousand page form, and gave useful suggestions
forcuttingitdowntovirtuallyhalfitslength—thisistrueacademicfortitude.
SomepassagesinthisbookarerevisionsofarticlesthatIhavepreviously
published. The introductory section of folk Shaktism in chapter 1 was pub-
lished in a similar fashion in my book Making Virtuous Daughters and Wives:
AnIntroductiontoWomen’sBrataRitualsinBengaliFolkReligion(Albany:State
University of New York Press, 2003), pp.1–11. The biography of Tapan Gos-
wamiinchapter2mayalsobefoundinsimilarfashionin“Interviewswitha
TantricKaliPriest:FeedingSkullsintheTownofSacrifice”inTantrainPrac-
tice, edited by David Gordon White (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2000),pp.72–80.
Contents
NotesonTransliteration,ix
Introduction,3
1. FolkShaktism
LifewiththeGoddess,27
2. TantricandYogicShaktism
KnowledgeoftheGoddess’sWays,67
3. ShaktaBhakti
DevotiontotheGoddess,145
4. TheGreatBhaktiGoddessesofWestBengal
DurgaandKali,209
5. ShaktismandtheModernWest
KundaliniVacationsandTantricHoneymoons,265
6. Conclusions,295
Notes,305
DiacriticalList,331
Bibliography,341
Index,353
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Notes on Transliteration
There is something ironic about a book on Indian popular religion
thatisinaccessibletoapopularaudiencebecauseoftheuseofBengali
and Sanskrit diacritical marks, whose symbolism is only understood
by specialists. Therefore, in this book I have minimized the use of
diacriticals. They appear only in direct quotations, and bibliographic
information—andinalistofterms,wherefulldiacriticsaregiven.
Transliteration is alwaysa difficultissue,especiallyinbooksthat
are strongly regional and use a large number of foreign terms. Most
of the terms used in this book are Bengali, and there are two major
issues involved. One is diacritical marks. Should the standard San-
skrit spelling and diacriticals be used, which will please the classical
Sanskrit scholars but may alienate the non-Indologist readers?
Or should terms be spelled phonetically, which will allow non-
Indologistsgreateraccesstothematerial,butmayalienateSanskritist
readers?ThesecondquestionistheuseoftheSanskritv,whichisthe
Bengali b (and the Hindi w) and the general question of whether to
SanskritizetheBengaliorwriteitinthecolloquialstylethatisactually
used.
This book will try to compromise on these issues. In the text,
Sanskrit and Bengali terms will be spelled phonetically and without
diacriticals. The letters s´ and i. will be written sh, and both c and ch
willbewrittench.Theletterr. istransliteratedri.BengaliandSanskrit
terms will appear in the list of terms, which will not include place
names or the names of historical or living individuals. Thus the text
will be easier for non-Indologists to read, but diacritical information
will be accessible. The documentation will include full diacritical
