Bhakti and Embodiment: Fashioning Divine Bodies and Devotional Bodies in Krsna Bhakti: Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

This is a superb piece of scholarship that will go to the top of my required reading list for graduate students studying bhakti. Barbara Holdrege has done us a huge favor in laying out an understanding of bhakti in terms of embodiment. It is a study that brings together her interest in the body, sacred space and Hindu devotionalism, and places the important concept of relationship at the very center of bhakti, for as she observes, bhakti is “first and foremost about relationships” (p. 20). With its emphasis on relationship, Bhakti and Embodiment is one of the most intelligent books I have read on bhakti. For relationships to occur, of course, there have to be bodies; and this book consists of an extended exploration of the bodies—both divine and devotional—that comprise the rich religious world of the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition.