The book will be found interesting by those curious to gain knowledge of Hindu mythology, in its true aspect, philanthropists, indologists and artists interested in mythological art.
Shri Prem Nath, with an academic career in, Medicine, Science, and Law, is a very well read person who has co-related his basic studies in Religion and Philosophy, fine arts, archaeology, Indology history and mythology. His approach to the topic is scientific, logical and easily understandable.
Generally the books have a chapter on “Introduction”. Such chapter is read by only those who wish to have an intensive study, but the general reader skips over “Introduction” and runs to the first chapter. In this book “Introduction” has been avoided, so that reader starts with the first chapter, which gives broad outlines of Vedism, Brahmanism and Hinduism. It was considered essential so that the general reader could have the necessary background before studying the later ones. An introductory chapter on Goddesses follows the one on Hinduism. This is also a run through the basic goddess cult in Hinduism.
Vedic Goddesses are rarely worshiped, although they are the natural mother goddesses. Literature on such deities is also scanty and beyond the reach of the general literature read by a common man. Foreign writers, who have contributed vast knowledge of Hindu mythology, have not been able to do justice to these deities. They just mention them, but not adequately. A brief description of the Vedic female deities has been given in this book, elaboration will follow in subsequent books, one each vedic Goddess.
Whereas there is abundance of literature on Hindu Gods, the literature on Hindu Goddesses is not adequate, in Modern Hinduism, Worship of Hindu Goddesses, their temples, their festivals and their celebrations (fasts, offerings and devotion) is much more, yet written text on them, their iconography, mythology is inadequate. This book gives a short account of a few important and popular vedic, Brahmanical and Hinduism Goddesses.
There are certain deities, matris, matrikas, Nayaikas, Yoginis who are worshipped, but are not Goddesses. No description has been given of these; as also of Tantric Devi (Shakti). Tantricism is a very wide subject, only a passing reference to some Goddesses, mentioned in this topic, has been made under different Goddesses.
There are innumerable regional and village-to-village deities, who are worshipped. It was outside the scope of this book to give any details about them.
Our endeavour in this book has been to give an outline account of Hindu Goddesses so that the common man and the Westerners could gain a basic true knowledge. Few illustrations added will not only make the publication impressive but their very depiction will exhibit the power and strength of the particular Goddess.
Crest publishing House after publishing, ‘Hindu Gods’, have launched this project on Hindu Goddesses. We are obliged to Shri S.C. Sethi, for having entrusted this project to us.
We hereby gratefully acknowledge the rich material used by us from books in the bibliography. We express our gratitude to the authors and the publishers, concerned.
We request the readers to let us the publishers know any querries that they may have, so that those can be dealt with in the series.
The heroes and heroines of the great Epics: the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, live again: while Rama, Krishna and Gautama the Buddha appears as examples of the perfact king and man, of the spiritual teacher and friend, and of glorious sacrifices. Hanuman’s devotion and loyalty make him perhaps the most beloved of legendary figures.
Through these pages the great panorama of life unfolds to us part of its mystery.
Let us hopes that these stories will never fade from human memory.
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Vedas (1376)
Upanishads (666)
Puranas (831)
Ramayana (894)
Mahabharata (328)
Dharmasastras (164)
Goddess (474)
Bhakti (243)
Saints (1276)
Gods (1291)
Shiva (331)
Journal (132)
Fiction (44)
Vedanta (323)
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