Śākta Purāṇas in Hindu Religious Practice, Text, and History

Dear Colleagues, 

In 1963, Dr. Rajendra Chandra Hazra published the second volume of his Studies in the Upapurāṇas (Principal Sanskrit College, Calcutta). Subtitled Śākta and Non-Sectarian Upapurāṇas, 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 Purāṇas 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

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