In Reciting the Goddess: Narratives of Place and the Making of Hinduism in Nepal, Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz illuminates the “powerful ways in which people, place, and literature intersect” (p. 206) in the Nepali cult of the goddess Svasthānī Devī, whose name means “goddess of one's own place.” Combining textual criticism with art historical and ethnographic methods, Birkenholtz cogently contends that the Svasthānī tradition has survived the major sociopolitical and religious developments of the last five centuries largely by absorbing and adapting narratives of place accommodating to both local and translocal visions of a “Hindu Nepal.”
In the first chapter, Birkenholtz introduces the ritual observations (vrat) and narratives (kathā) of the Svasthānīvratakathā (SVK), or “Story of the Ritual Vow to the Goddess Svasthānī.” Despite originating among the Newar people indigenous to the Kathmandu Valley, the Svasthānī tradition also assimilated the more regional voices of their high-caste,...
