New Age Purohit Darpan Satyanarayana Puja

This book is compiled with the goal of explaining the hidden history, significance, and meaning of the mantras used in common Hindu puja rituals performed by the Bengalis to the Bengali immigrants.

This book is compiled with the goal of explaining the hidden history, significance, and meaning of the mantras used in common Hindu puja rituals performed by the Bengalis to the Bengali immigrants.

This book is compiled with the goal of explaining the hidden history, significance, and meaning of the mantras used in common Hindu puja rituals performed by the Bengalis to the Bengali immigrants.

This book is compiled with the goal of explaining the hidden history, significance, and meaning of the mantras used in common Hindu puja rituals performed by the Bengalis to the Bengali immigrants.

This book is compiled with the goal of explaining the hidden history, significance, and meaning of the mantras used in common Hindu puja rituals performed by the Bengalis to the Bengali immigrants.

This book is compiled with the goal of explaining the hidden history, significance, and meaning of the mantras used in common Hindu puja rituals performed by the Bengalis to the Bengali immigrants.

This book is compiled with the goal of explaining the hidden history, significance, and meaning of the mantras used in common Hindu puja rituals performed by the Bengalis to the Bengali immigrants.

This book is compiled with the goal of explaining the hidden history, significance, and meaning of the mantras used in common Hindu puja rituals performed by the Bengalis to the Bengali immigrants.

During a nine-day period every autumn, Hindus in India and throughout the world worship the Great Goddess, Durgā--the formidable deity who is loved like a mother. One of the most dramatic and popular of these celebrations is the Durgā Pūjā, a rite noted for its visual pageantry, ritual complexity, and communal participation. In this book, Hillary Peter Rodrigues describes the Bengali style of Durgā Pūjā practiced in the sacred city of Banaras from beginning to end. A romanization of the Sanskrit litany is included along with an English translation. In addition to the liturgical description, Rodrigues provides information on the rite's component elements and mythic aspects. There are interpretive sections on puja, the Great Goddess, women's roles in the ritual, and the socio-cultural functions of the ritual. Rodrigues maintains that the Durgā Pūjā is a rite of cosmic rejuvenation, of empowerment at both the personal and social levels, and a rite that orchestrates manifestations of the feminine, both Divine and human.

The main focus of this study is the Kali temple of Kalighat, one of the most sacred pilgrim centres of Hindus in India. It is an effort to weigh the radiating influence of a traditional religious centre over the contemporary social life. The temple, devotees and all sacred performances at Kalighat have been discussed in detail with emphasis on the changing pattern of religious practices, the utility of pilgrimage for the promotion of trade and market complex, diversified role of sacred specialists, evolution and new perspective in sacred tradition. The work is the outcome of intensive fieldwork. Here the main considerations is Kali Puja, an act of reverence towards the power goddess Kali which is an ancient, most popular, complex as well as simple form of Hindu religious rite involving critical preparation and widespread participation. The detailed description and subsequent interpretation of the rituals at Kalighat presents a view regarding the sentiments of present-day Hindu society as it emerges through different patterns of worship and different modes people s involvement into it. The basic elements which have been highlight in the analysis are social configuration, human disposition, changing value system and rules of conduct in an age-old society. On a broader theoretical level she intends to discuss the problems of myths and religion, ideology and social structure- a microcosm of Indian civilization. The work not only provides an elaborate ethnographic account in the perspective of socio-religious study, this can also serve as model in the study of a civilization.