Archives: Lectures

Śākta Influence in the Goddess Cults of Malabar

This paper will attempt a synthetic overview of textual, ethnographic, and historical sources in Malayalam, Tamil and Sanskrit related to the cultural historical role and adaptation of Sakta worship in the temple cults of prominent goddesses in northern Kerala. Based ethnographically in the formerly royal shrines and temples of this region, where special Sakta priests conduct daily rites of worship with blood sacrifice and alcohol, and preside annually over festivals of spirit possessed incarnations of the goddess, I will cast a textual eye back over the Indological and literary record in a survey of the cultural history that eventuated in today’s ritual configuration. This region seems to have preserved important evidence for the amalgamation of a Sakta cult, with its hybrid priestly officiants, into the worship of local war goddesses under specifically royal patronage. My survey intends to highlight the nature of this evidence in its inter-relations as pointing the way forward to further Indological and ethnographic research.

[John] Rich[ardson] Freeman is a cultural anthropologist with a background and research interest in Indology (Sanskrit and Dravidian languages and literatures). He currently teaches courses on Indian civilization, Hinduism, and the anthropology of religion for the faculties of History and Religion at Duke University. His special area of research is Kerala, where he has carried out many years of ethnographic and textual work on the Teyyam traditions of spirit possession in Malabar, the wider region’s Brahmanical system of temple worship, and the literary history of Malayalam in its cultural relations with Sanskrit and Tamil.

The Problem of Evil and Western Theodicy: But what says Indian Theism and Non-theism to the challenge?

Purushottama Bilimoria, PhD is Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Studies at Deakin University in Australia and Senior Research Fellow, University of Melbourne. Visiting Professor and Lecturer at University of California, Berkeley and Dominican University, San Anselmo, and Shivadasani Fellow of Oxford University. His areas of specialist research and publications cover classical Indian philosophy and comparative ethics; Continental thought; cross-cultural philosophy of religion, diaspora studies; bioethics, and personal law in India. He is an Editor-in-Chief of Sophia, Journal of Philosophy of Religion, Springer. He also edits a book series with Springer on Sophia: cross-cultural studies in Culture and Traditions, Recent publication is Indian Ethics I, Ashgate 2007; OUP 2008, and Sabdapramana: Word and Knowledge (Testimony) in Indian Philosophy (revised reprint), Delhi: DK PrintWorld 2008; ‘Nietzsche as ‘Europe’s Buddha’ and Asia’s Superman, Sophia, vol 47/3 2008; Postcolonial Philosophy of Religion (with Andrew Irvine, Ken Surin et al) Springer 2009. Teaches and publishes on Hindu religious philosophies. Also works on political philosophy, pertaining to ethics of rights, theories of justice, capabilities, education and gender issues in third world, particularly South Asian, contexts.