anandamayi ma. 177
renowned for its spiritual power. Her twenty-eight ashrams, a charitable hospital,
schools, and dispensaries continue to be administered by the nonprofit society es-
tablished in her name. Yet while nearly every Hindu in India knows of Anandamayi
Ma as a mahatma, or great soul, a saint, those who consider themselves to be her
devotees, her disciples, who number in the hundreds of thousands, worship her as
an avatara, as God who came in the form of a woman for the sake of her devotees.
It was my good fortune to spend 1990–1991 traveling throughout India interview-
ing close devotees of Ma, in particular the women among them who described en-
joying a rare privilege—that of intimately caring for the body of God as Mother.
I did not come to India in the summer of 1990 prepared to do research on some-
one considered a female incarnation of God. I had my own agenda, which was to
study a woman saint who might serve as a powerful model for her women devotees,
offering them an inspiring alternative to the sometimes oppressive paradigm of the
devoted Hindu wife. The book that came out of this research, Mother of Bliss:
Anandamayi Ma (1896–1982), reflects a dramatic change of focus, which was fore-
shadowed by the following incident.
In September 1990, full of anticipation and excitement, I was traveling on a train
from Banaras to Allahabad. Things were beginning to come together. I was about
to meet and interview the most prominent biographer of Anandamayi Ma, Bithika
Mukerji, professor emeritus at Banaras Hindu University, with whom I had been
corresponding for several years. From the train station in Allahabad, I took a horse-
drawn wagon to the grand Victorian house that is Bithika’s family home. We were
greeted very graciously by Bithika-ji, who is a strikingly handsome, brilliant, yet
serene woman, and told that dinner was almost ready.
I was quite nervous to be sitting down to a meal with the person whom I expected
would be central to my research in India. As the first course was being cleared,
Bithika-ji, wasting no time, asked me to tell her about my work. I said, “Well, I am
very excited to be doing this study on Ma. You know, I have been interested in
women saints for a long time.” A look of alarm, and even horror, came over
Bithika’s face. “My dear Lisa,” Bithika said emphatically, “Ma was neither a woman
nor a saint!” She added, “Once I was invited to give a talk on Ma at a conference on
women saints. I refused! They obviously did not have an understanding of who Ma
was!” I was speechless.
Indeed, this interaction has been central to my research. Although I had consid-
ered myself particularly respectful of the Hindu tradition, here I was being called
upon to deconstruct and transcend the categories of “woman” and “saint” and to
entertain new and less familiar categories.