Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz: The Swasthani Vrata Katha, Gebunden

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This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. The Swasthani Vrata Katha (The Story of the Ritual Vow to the Goddess Swasthani) is the most widely read, recited, and listened to devotional text among Hindu laity in Nepal. Originating in the late sixteenth century, the Swasthani tradition refers simultaneously to the Swasthani story (katha ) and its annual recitation, the accompanying month-long ritual vow (vrat ) women undertake to honor the goddess Swasthani, and Swasthani herself, the goddess of "one's own place." The Swasthani story is a collection of widely circulating Hindu myths about gods, demons, and divine dalliances that forefront Shiva, Sati, and Parvati but it is also a local folk story about women's real and everyday hardships, as well as the rewards of attending to one's dharma and devotion to Swasthani.

These traditions center women's roles and expectations and have actively contributed to the construction of Nepali Hindu identity and practice. In Nepal, the Swasthani carries the same social, cultural, and religious importance of the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata elsewhere in the Hindu world. It similarly provides a pervasive local cultural vocabulary through the familiar trials and triumphs of its characters: the mother Goma, her daughter-in-law Chandravati, and their son / husband Navaraj.

This book offers the first full-length scholarly English translation of this important text from the original Nepali. Just like Parvati made the goddess Swasthani and her story known beyond the realm of the gods to the human realm, so, too, this translation makes them known beyond Nepal to a broad English-speaking audience.