Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author ofVictory to the Mother: The Hindu Goddess of
Northwest India in Myth, Ritual, and Symbol(1993) and coeditor ofIs the Goddess a Fem-
inist? The Politics of South Asian Goddesses(2000). She has written numerous essays on
goddess traditions and women in South Asian religions and is currently at work on a
book entitled Playing with the Mother: Women, Goddess Possession, and Power in Kangra
Hinduism.Her other research interests include gender and religious hybridity in India
and the United States. She is the recipient of grants from the John Simon Guggenheim
Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright-Hayes pro-
gram, and the American Institute of Indian Studies.
shrivatsa goswamiis a member of an eminent family of spiritual leaders and schol-
ars at the Sri Radharamana Mandir, Vrindaban, India. He is director of the Sri Caitanya
Prema Sansthana, a research institution devoted to Vaishnava studies and the culture of
the Braj region, whose Vraja Nathadvara Prakalpa project is sponsored by the Indira
Gandhi National Center for the Arts. Acharya Goswami is the author of a number of
scholarly articles and books including, most recently, Celebrating Krishna(2004), and he
is the editor of the volume on Caitanya that will appear in the Encyclopaedia of Indian
Philosophy. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University (1977–1978) and the
University of Heidelberg (2004), and delivered the Hibbert Lecture at Oxford Univer-
sity in 2000.
lisa lassell hallstromhas pursued the study of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions
through doctoral work at Harvard University as well as through personal practice. She
has taught religion and Asian studies at Bard, Mt. Holyoke, and Smith colleges and at
the University of New Mexico. She is the author ofMother of Bliss: Anandamayi Ma
(1896–1982)(1999). She is currently teaching courses and workshops on Hindu and
Buddhist spirituality while working on a book on women whose spiritual practice is fo-
cused on the goddesses Kuan Yin and Green Tara. As a professional singer, she leads kir-
tan,or devotional chanting, in the Boston area.
john stratton hawleyis Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Religion at Barnard Col-
lege, Columbia University, and the author or editor of some fifteen books. Most concern
India, but others—most recently Holy Tears: Weeping in the Religious Imagination
(2005), coedited with Kimberley Patton—are comparative in nature. His recent publi-
cations on Hindu India include a second revised edition ofSongs of the Saints of India
(2004), with Mark Juergensmeyer, and Three Bhakti Voices: Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir
in Their Time and Ours (2005). Hawley’s major work, a translation and analysis of the
earliest poetry attributed to Surdas, is forthcoming as Sur’s Ocean, a title it shares with
the critical edition on which it is based, by Kenneth E. Bryant. He has been a John Simon
Guggenheim Fellow.