The Worship of the Goddess of Language: Ram Mani Acharya Dixit’s Efforts in Standardization of the Nepali Language in Benares

This paper will focus on a 20th century Nepali intellectual, Ram Mani Acharya Dixit (1883–1972), and his trans-border activities for the promotion of the vernacular by investigating his integration of the progress of a language with his nation, his apotheosis of the vernacular and his devotion in strengthening prose writing for the sake of the development of the divine mother tongue. Foregrounding his linguistic activities such as writing, publishing and printing in Nepal and India, with Benares in particular, it will try to answer questions such as: What was the motivating factor that inspired him to write and publish in the Nepali language? Was he in any way influenced by the Hindi language movement that was at its peak in North India of the time? How influential was Dixit’s role in standardizing Nepali? Besides this Nepali language standardization concern, the paper will also examine Dixit’s idea of serving mother, motherland, mother tongue and [Hindu] religion through service to a language.

The nature and significance of the Hindu Divine Mother in embodied thealogical perspective

The Hindu Divine Mother is revered by millions of religious practitioners in India and elsewhere, yet this goddess rarely receives attention in Western philosophy of religion. Focusing especially (though not exclusively) on her form as Kālī, this article utilizes sources from Hindu goddess traditions to explicate her contrasting characteristics, which include benign maternality and martial aggression. By adapting an embodied theological (or thealogical) approach derived from feminist discourse, the intelligibility of worshipping such a goddess is expounded; connections are delineated between the conceptualizing of divinity as radically ambivalent or multivalent and the lived experience of inhabiting an often hostile world.

The Influence of Mother Wisdom on Augustine

The Book of Ben Sira was popular in the early Christian church and influenced the Church Father Augustine (354–430). He adopts the person of Wisdom as a divine mother and adapts her within the context of the early Christian church. He links to Mother Wisdom a wisdom theology, in which Jesus is her envoy. Augustine describes Mother Wisdom as an eternal nourishing divine mother. She has a permanent revelatory status by continuously giving life-giving power, which she mediates through Jesus of Nazareth. He presents her grace which she has prepared for the competentes (the candidates for Baptism), who are working towards initiation into Christian Faith. Mother Wisdom serves as hostess in biblical Wisdom literature. For Augustine, Jesus Christ has taken this place. Mother Wisdom serves instead the angels and the spiritual persons as a representative of divine nourishment.

Explaining the Character “jin 銫” in Zi Gao 子羔: with a Discussion Concerning Shang Obtaining the Virtue of Metal

This paper proposes that the character in the sentence 生乃呼曰 “was born and called out: ‘Jin!’” in the Shanghai Museum manuscript Zi Gao 子羔 should be transcribed as 銫, pronounced jin, and was a special way of writing the word jin 金 “metal.” The myth of Xie in Zi Gao may be related to the virtue of Metal of the Shang dynasty, which can still be seen in a story in the Shiyi ji 拾遺記 in which the divine mother asks Jian Di 簡狄 to give birth to Xie to “succeed the Virtue of Metal.” This paper also traces the myths of Shaohao 少皞 and Xie in order to show that Shaohao and Xie derive from the same mythical source. This paper argues that the association of Shang with the virtue of Metal already existed prior to the time that Zou Yan 鄒衍 systematized the Five Virtues.

The Divine Mother Comes to Michigan

This chapter explores the nature of the goddess at the Parashakthi Temple in Pontiac, Michigan, also known in English as the Eternal Mother Temple. The Divine Mother worshiped in this temple is named as the goddess Karumāriyammaṉ, “Black Māriyammaṉ.” The discourse and practices promulgated at the Parashakthi Temple help construct a form of religiosity that is rooted in Indian Hindu vernacular goddess traditions but transforms such traditions in dynamic conversation with the temple’s American and translocative context. In Michigan, the goddess and her temple are emplaced in the American landscape; yet they simultaneously participate in a transcultural, transnational, and transhistorical economy of divine power that reveals the nature of both goddess and temple as entities that ultimately transcend the types of religious and ethnic boundaries that characterize the mundane human world.

MOURNING IS ETERNAL—AND PROCEEDS FROM IRON AGE: HOMER’S PATHOS OF ACHILLES AND HECTOR

Homeric heroes know the consequences of combat, of their own possible death and an enemy’s, with the impact of either upon persons nearest and dearest. A malicious taunt reminds a foeman of what his death will mean to old parents, to young wife, and to other relatives. A warrior’s own premonition of falling in battle before a superior fighter and/or by Fate or deadly intervention of a hostile god may add his child or children to those who will miss and mourn him. The Iliad-poet anticipates the painful aftermath of demigod Achilles’ coming death for his irregular family, which includes a divine mother who will mourn him forever. “Homer” dramatizes the pain of mortal Hector’s death, first expected then effected, for a family many of whom we have met, from aged parents to infant son. Hector’s slaying, linked by Fate to that of Achilles, is the key event. It leads to a sublime reconciliation between Achilles, his killer, and Priam, his devastated father. Hector’s mother, however, and his loving wife—mother of his defenseless son—cannot be reconciled with his loss and with their dreaded and certain harsh future.

‘Two Voices Heard in Castile’: Rachel and Mary Weep for Their Children in the Age of the Zohar

This chapter talks about Jewish culture in Castile from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries and returns to two early mothers. It examines Rachel and Mary's lives and their respective transformations in Jewish mystical literature and Christian theology. The chapters examines the cultural transformations and metamorphosis of Rachel into a symbol of the Shekhinah as an attempt to cope with the particular cultural situation of exile within the dominant Christian culture of the time. It also explains how Rachel becomes the divine mother suffering for her children in exile. The chapter illustrates the theological transformation of Rachel that enabled Jews to respond to the Christian devotion to Mary on a cosmic scale in order to grapple with their exilic condition. It recounts stories of Rachel and Mary in the sacred texts of the Jewish and Christian faiths which have inspired devotees, religious scholars, and historians for thousands of years.