This interesting book starts with a description of preparing for the autumn celebration of the goddess. It then explains in great detail the various ways in which her manifestation as Lakshmi is worshipped. Text translations of hymns about the goddess Lakshmi are given from three major phases of Indian literature: Vedic, Puranic, and Tantric. These are included in crisp, clear English as well as in transliterated Sanskrit.
From the onset the author makes clear that this book is intended for two readerships: devotees of the goddess and scholars of religious traditions. The book opens with a description of a family celebrating Lakshmi puja in the outskirts of New Delhi. With great anticipation, they prepare the house a few days ahead of time and then perform an elaborate worship ceremony or puja that, in the words of the author, “imploded into perfection, when the supplications from the human realm seem to have succeeded in drawing the goddess into our space, crowding out mundane restlessness with a deep and abundant tranquility” (p. 3). This “arrival” of the goddess signals times of well being and luminosity.
Although sparing in its analysis, this book includes some helpful insights that help explain the “this worldly” aspects of the Hindu faith. The author writes that “Devotees of the goddess are not forced to choose between ‘spirituality’ and ‘materiality,’ and in fact to do so would be to disregard the magnificent arena of the goddess's essence” (p. 40). Philosophically this can be found most evident in Tantra, which “recognizes and highlights the divinity that exists everywhere, even as it is embedded in the mundane” (p. 54).
Rhodes includes an excellent analysis of hospitality as it relates to puja. Inviting the deity to take up residence in one's home through ceremonial actions is described as follows: “The intense and abundant overtures with brilliant colors, aromatic fragrances, and chanting serve to awaken the senses and direct them toward a heightened experience of the deity” (p. 97). The author explains each of the sixteen aspects of puja, from the invocation through bathing and clothing the deity image, making vegetative offerings, offering food and money, waving of lights, and a farewell. While the book opens with a sensitive and thick description of a family engaging in Lakshmi puja, the narrative portion of the book ends rather abruptly with a sixteen-fold list of ritual activities.
The two Vedic, five Puranic, and ten Tantric songs to Lakshmi are well translated, conveying a sense of how their meaning suffuses the rituals described earlier. The author follows a traditional paddhati, a manual for conducting worship, in laying out her explanations. The appendix includes the Sanskrit texts in transliteration, provided, according to the author, so that the reader may chant them out in the original, noting “The mantras that constitute the songs to the goddess carry her sacred energy, for their syllables are understood to constitute her sonic body” (p. 61).
This comprehensive study is designed to show how the worship of the goddess Lakshmi has evolved and yet remained constant from the Vedic period up to the present. The author's treatment of inauspiciousness could have been more fully developed, and her celebration of the devadasis or “sacred royal courtesans” (p. 27) could have been more probing. Additionally, more material on the contemporary worship of Lakshmi in India and elsewhere would have been helpful. The Nine Lakshmi Temple in the city of Ahmedabad on the grounds of the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre provides one example of a contemporary re-imagining of this important goddess. Nonetheless, this book tills new ground. It should be part of all library collections and will also work well as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses on Hinduism.
