The Experience of Hinduism: essays on religion in Maharashtra

This book presents multi-faceted images of religious experience in the Marathi-speaking region of India. In addition to Irawati Karve’s classic, “On the Road,” about her pilgrimage to Pandharpur, there are three essays by Karve that appear in English for the first time. Here is possession by gods and ghosts, an actual sermon by an inspired saint in the traditional bhajan style, and an autobiographical account of the religious nationalism of the militant R.S.S. These are engaging, true-to-life accounts of the lives of individual Hindus.Essays and imaginative literature, a poem, and a short story interplay the ideas, concepts, personalities, practices, rituals, and deities of Hinduism in a surprisingly coherent manner.