The Song of the Goddess

The Devi Gita: Spiritual Counsel of the Great Goddess

Translated by C. Mackenzie Brown
Introduction by C. Mackenzie Brown

Subjects: India And South Asian Studies
Paperback : 9780791453940, 158 pages, August 2002
Hardcover : 9780791453933, 158 pages, August 2002
Out of print (Hardcover)

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Table of contents

A Note on the Text

Introduction

Translator's Note

The Devi Gita: Spiritual Counsel of the Great Goddess

1. The Appearance of the Great Goddess before the Mountain King Himalaya and the Gods

2. The Goddess as the Supreme Cause of Creation

3. The Goddess Reveals Her Cosmic Body (The Viraj)

4. Instruction in the Yoga of Knowledge

5. Instruction in the Eight-Limbed/Serpentine Yoga

6. The Goal of the Yogas: Knowledge of Brahman

7. Instruction in the Yoga of Devotion

8. Further Instruction in the Yoga of Devotion: The Sacred Sites, Rites, and Festivals of the Goddess

9. Vedic and Internal Forms of Goddess Worship

10. The Tantric Form of Goddess Worship and the Disappearance of the Great Goddess

Glossary

Selected Bibliography

A reader-friendly translation of the medieval Indian text, which presents a powerful, compassionate goddess as ruler of the universe.

Description

The Devi Gita, literally the "Song of the Goddess," is an Eastern spiritual classic that appeared around the fifteenth century C. E. C. Mackenzie Brown provides a reader-friendly English translation of this sacred text taken from his well-regarded previous book The Devi Gita: The Song of the Goddess, A Translation, Annotation, and Commentary. Here the translation is presented uninterrupted, without the scholarly annotations of the original version, and in its entirety for the pleasure of all readers who wish to encounter this treasure from the world's sacred literature.

Often neglected, the Devi Gita deserves to be better known for its presentations of one of the great Hindu visions of the divine conceived in feminine terms. The work depicts the universe as created, pervaded, and protected by a supremely powerful, all-knowing, and wholly compassionate divine female. It also describes the various spiritual paths leading to realization of unity with the Goddess. The author of the Devi Gita intended for the work to supplant the famous teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita (the "Song of the Lord") from a goddess-inspired perspective.

C. Mackenzie Brown is Professor and Chair of Religion at Trinity University. He is the author of The Triumph of the Goddess: The Canonical Models and Theological Visions of the Devi-Bhagavata Purana , also published by SUNY Press.

Reviews

"In The Song of the Goddess, C. Mackenzie Brown offers an unencumbered translation of the Hindu devotional text the Devi Gita, which dates to somewhere between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. In an accessible and short introduction, Brown explains that the Devi Gita posits the supremacy of a great goddess, who is called the World Mother. " — Publishers Weekly