Śākta Purāṇas in Hindu Religious Practice, Text, and History

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Humanities/Philosophies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2024) | Viewed by 622

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Religious Studies, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John’s, NL A1C 5S7, Canada
Interests: representations of females in Hindu Sanskrit texts
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

In 1963, Dr. Rajendra Chandra Hazra published the second volume of his Studies in the Upapurāas (Principal Sanskrit College, Calcutta). Subtitled Śākta and Non-Sectarian Upapurāas, it remains the single most comprehensive scholarly study of the Śākta Purāṇas. Hazra’s tremendously detailed consideration of questions of provenance, linguistic features, summaries of diverse contents (from sacred narrative to descriptions of geography, flora, and fauna), and his critical analyses of the religious and broader cultural character and contributions of the Devī, the Kālikā, the Mahābhāgavata and the Devī-bhāgavata Purāas have for decades served as a foundation for the scholarly study of these and other Śākta texts and traditions.

This Special Issue, to be published almost 60 years after Hazra’s pioneering work, is intended to document the current state, concerns, innovations, and breadth of scholarship on Śākta Purāṇas and how these texts connect with people, places, and practices of Śāktism itself as well as more broadly within South Asian and diaspora communities. The issue aims to present scholarship on the texts themselves, their language and diverse contents, their original contexts and composition history, and the ongoing “lives” of these texts in Hindu religious traditions and communities.

I am pleased to invite contributions with a focus on:

  1. Any one or more of the Śākta Purāṇas, their contents, in whole or in part, and including ritual studies, narrative or literary analysis, linguistic analysis, critical-historical and theological studies, considerations of provenance and/or locations, and dynamic processes in history and/or at temple/pilgrimage sites;
  2. The place of one or more of the Śākta Purāṇas (or their contents) in lived religious practice, in relation to vernacular textual traditions, artistic expressions, social or political conflicts, movements or campaigns, contemporary media, etc., in South Asia or diaspora communities;
  3. Critical textual work on any portion or portions of a Śākta Purāṇa, including critically edited text accompanied by translation and commentary;
  4. Critical reviews of extant scholarship on Śākta Purāṇas, whether literature reviews on a single Śākta Purāṇa or examinations of theoretical issues in the study of these texts such as constructions of gender and divinity; scholarly and traditional textual classifications; decolonization of the study of Śākta Purāṇas, synchronic versus text-historical approaches; and reconsiderations of the category of Śākta Purāṇas as limited to the four Sanskrit “upapurāṇas”

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome from expert scholars at all career stages. Please consider making a contribution yourself, but please also pass this call for submissions to colleagues and graduate students who might be contributors. If you have doubts or questions about a potential submission, feel free to contact me via email. As this is a Special Issue, MDPI waives the article processing charge.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Patricia Dold
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Śākta Purāṇas
  • Devī Purāṇa
  • Devī Bhagavata Purāṇa
  • Kālikā Purāṇa
  • Mahābhāgavata Purāṇa
  • Upapurāṇas
  • Śākta texts
  • Śākta narrative
  • Śāktism
  • Hindu Goddesses

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Published Papers

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