From the late nineteenth century onwards the concept of Mother India assumed political significance in colonial Bengal. Reacting against British rule, Bengali writers and artists gendered the nation in literature and visual culture in order to inspire patriotism amongst the indigenous population. This book will examine the process by which the Hindu goddess Sati rose to sudden prominence as a personification of the subcontinent and an icon of heroic self-sacrifice. According to a myth of cosmic dismemberment, Satis body parts were scattered across South Asia and enshrined as Shakti Pithas, or Seats of Power. These sacred sites were re-imagined as the fragmented body of the motherland in crisis that could provide the basis for an emergent territorial consciousness. The most potent sites were located in eastern India, Kalighat and Tarapith in Bengal, and Kamakhya in Assam. By examining Bengali and colonial responses to these temples and the ritual traditions associated with them, including Tantra and image worship, this book will provide the first comprehensive study of this ancient network of pilgrimage sites in an art historical and political context.
This book represents the first attempt to study an ancient network of pilgrimage sites, known as Shakti Pithas, dedicated to the Hindu goddess Sati in an art historical and political context. During the nineteenth century these sites were re-imagined by Bengali writers and artists as the fragmented body of the motherland that could provide
Contents
Introduction
A myth of dismemberment
Sati and her rise as a patriotic icon
The formation of Hindu identity: From cultural to revolutionary nationalism
Layout of the book
Chapter One
Kalighat souvenirs and the creation of Satis iconography
Satis place in the visual rhetoric of motherland
Satis portrayal in Kalighat pilgrimage souvenirs
The invocation and reinvention of Sati
The romanticisation of martyrdom
Subverting Christian iconography
Shiva, asceticism and Bengali masculinity
Sati, suttee and the story of Padmini
The enduring power of Sati
Chapter Two
Kamakhyas erotic-apotropaic potency and the forging of sacred geography
Martial and maternal: Kamakhyas sculptures
The promotion of fertility and protection: Kamakhyas female archers
Subversive sexuality: The reception of Kamakhya during the colonial period
Colonial mapping versus sacred geography
Bengals love affair with Kamakhya: Pilgrimage as a nationalist device
Chapter Three
Tantras revolutionary potential: Tarapith and Bamakhepas visualisation of
Tara
Understanding Tara
Understanding Tantric ritual through Tara
Bamakhepa, Tantra and revolutionary potential
Terrifying and benevolent: Visions of Tara
The sweetening of death
Chapter Four
Contesting the colonial gaze: Image worship debates in nineteenth-century
Bengal
Murtipuja, darshan and rituals of consecration
Ram Mohan Roy and the Brahmo Samaj movement
Inconsistent with the moral order of the universe: The Reverend Hasties
views on murtipuja
The backlash: Bengali responses to Hastie
The Saligram idol case: Murti and artefact
The Attahas and Khirogram Pithas: The charisma of antique murtis
Conclusion
Epilogue
Reviving Satis corpse: Mother India tours and Hindutva in the twenty-first
century
Bibliography
Imma Ramos is curator of the South Asia collections at the British Museum in London. Her research interests revolve around the relationship between religion, politics and gender in South Asian visual culture.
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