The Supreme Refuge by Hillary P Rodrigues

The Supreme Refuge by Hillary P Rodrigues

Offers the first comprehensive analysis of the Hindu Great Goddess Durgā, tracing her evolution from a minor goddess into a transcendent supreme deity central to Hindu theology and the ultimate refuge accessible to all.

This study provides the first comprehensive examination of the Hindu Great Goddess Durgā, one of the most significant deities in the Hindu pantheon, who is celebrated annually during the Navarātra festival, a widely observed event across the Hindu world. Drawing on textual, inscriptional, and iconographic evidence, the study traces Durgā's evolution from a minor goddess to her identification as the Mahādevī, or Great Goddess. It presents an alternative chronology for hymnic materials, aligning them more closely with early iconographic depictions and offering new insights into misidentified attributes of the goddess. The work incorporates evidence from beyond South Asia to contextualize external influences on Durgā's persona and her central myths, particularly her defeat of the buffalo demon Mahiṣa. A detailed analysis of the myths in the influential Devī Māhātmya against earlier Purāṇic accounts highlights the text's sophisticated theological approach. Its strategy places Durgā in a transcendent role while asserting her as the supreme deity and ultimate refuge, accessible to both kings and commoners in dire need of her support.

"This is a tremendous contribution to the fields of South Asian and religious studies, as it considers a massive amount of material from diverse sources across Asia to discuss the early development of the Great Goddess Durgā within the South Asian contextBy placing Durgā at the center of this work, it does something that no other book has done to date, which is to evaluate the literary and textual traditions along with the extant imagery and co-relating the two, which is a very difficult task." — Madhuvanti Ghose, Art Institute of Chicago

Hillary P. Rodrigues is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of Lethbridge. His previous books include Ritual Worship of the Great Goddess: The Liturgy of the Durgā Pūjā with Interpretations and, coedited with Caleb Simmons and Moumita Sen, Nine Nights of the Goddess: The Navarātri Festival in South Asia, both published by SUNY Press.