This is a fascinating, well-researched volume that undertakes a woman-centered ethnographic exploration of the practice and significance of rituals during one of the holiest months in the Hindu festival calendar. The location is Benares (Varanasi), north India; the subjects are “generally pretty conventional Hindu housewives who are not highly educated and do not hold any notable social, political, or economic power” (p. 2), who are mostly middle-class and from middle or high castes (p. 98); and the sacred month is Kartik (October–November), during which various interrelated festivals, such as the prominent Diwali, celebrate cosmological feats by major Hindu deities, especially Vaishnava deities, including Vishnu, Krishna, and Lakshmi.
This book offers a detailed look at how religion is reimagined by ritual participants. Pintchman's central thesis and the book's major contribution to our understanding of the nature and significance of women's ritual participation is that, while Sanskrit textual material (such as the...