Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary: A Study in Comparative Religion

FAIN: FT-51159-03

Francis Clooney
Boston College (Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3800)

My goal for the grant period is to complete a book entitled Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary, a book which I have been researching and writing for several years. In the context of recent gender and comparative studies, the book explores Hindu goddess theory in three classic texts (2 in Sanskrit, 1 in Tamil) and their commentaries, to see how gender is understood and used in expositions of goddess theory. For clarification and to emphasize parallels, I make selected comparisons with classic Christian hymns to the Virgin Mary, in order to highlight similarities and differences in the treatment of gender with respect to conceptions of the divine and human.