In this biographical study, Antonio Rigopoulos explores the fundamental role of a hagiographer within a charismatic religious movement: in this case, the postsectarian, cosmopolitan community of the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba. The guru's hagiographer, Narayan Kasturi, was already a distinguished litterateur by the time he first met Sathya Sai Baba in 1948. The two lived together at the guru's hermitage more or less continuously from 1954 up until Kasturi's death, in 1987. Despite Kasturi's influential hagiography, Sathyam Sivam Sundaram, little scholarly attention has been paid to the hagiographer himself and his importance to the movement. In detailing Kasturi's relationship to Sathya Sai Baba, Rigopoulos emphasizes that the hagiographer's work was not subordinate to the guru's definition of himself. Rather, his discourses with the holy man had a reciprocal and reinforcing influence, resulting in the construction of a unified canon. Furthermore, Kasturi's ability to perform a variety of functions as a hagiographer successfully mediated the relationship between the guru and his followers. Drawing on years of research on the movement as well as interviews with Kasturi himself, this book deepens our understanding of this important pan-Indian figure and his charismatic religious movement.

Ma Anandamayi is generally regarded as the most important Hindu woman saint of the twentieth century. Venerated alternately as a guru and as an incarnation of God on earth, Ma had hundreds of thousands of devotees. Through the creation of a religious movement and a vast network of ashrams-unprecedented for a woman-Ma presented herself as an authority figure in a society where female gurus were not often recognized. Because of her widespread influence, Ma is one of the rare Hindu saints whose cult has outlived her. Today, her tomb is a place of veneration for those who knew her as well as new generations of her followers. By performing extensive fieldwork among Ma's current devotees, Orianne Aymard examines what happens to a cult after the death of its leader. Does it decline, stagnate, or grow? Or is it rather transformed into something else entirely? Aymard's work sheds new light not only on Hindu sainthood-and particularly female Hindu sainthood-but on the nature of charismatic religious leadership and devotion.

Devotional Spaces of a Global Saint focuses on the presence and contemporaneity of Shirdi Sai Baba (d.1918), who has a vast following in postcolonial South Asia and an ever-growing global diaspora. Essays consider the saint’s influence on everyday life and how visual, narrative, textual, sensorial, performative, political, social, and spatial practices interpenetrate to produce multiple terrains of devotion. Contributions by twelve scholars of several academic disciplines explore eruptions and circulations of sacred materials, spatialities of devotional practices, visual and digital imaginaries, transcultural narrativizations, and material affects and effects of Sai Baba. The presentation transcends routine scholarly discussions about sainthood, cultures of worship, religious objects, Hinduism and Islam. Shirdi Sai Baba’s presence conveys inspiration and healing energies and he accepted the entreaties of people of all castes and creeds, offering an alternative to communal ideologies of his time – and the present. Considerations of Shirdi Sai Baba’s milieux of devotional praxis situate and localize debates about the meaning of nation and religion, past and present, urbanization, and class identity in transitions from colonial to postcolonial/global South Asia. The book expands the boundaries of the study of Shirdi Sai Baba and makes important contributions to South Asia Studies, Anthropology, Religious Studies, Global Studies, Urban Studies, Indian Ocean Studies, Inter-Asian Studies, Visual and Media Studies, and Cultural Geography.

Through an analysis of the rhetorical strategies of those who have written about his life (his hagiographers), the book argues that the reporting of the experience of being in Swami Rama Tirtha's presence is a central feature of these hagiographies. The nature of the experiences of close disciples of the Swami as opposed to those of followers of a later period helps account for the radical changes in the portrayal of the Swami in the hagiographical tradition.

Behind Kṛṣṇa's Smile offers a wholly original perspective on the celebrated Bhagavadgītā, or "Song of God." The book investigates Kṛṣṇa's hint of laughter (prahasann iva) in Bhagavadgītā 2.10, which is generally understood to be the turning point of the famous poem, signaling the outpouring of his grace and teaching to Arjuna. Remarkably, it is from this verse that Śaṅkara and other leading theologians begin to write their commentaries. In addition to exploring the momentousness of Kṛṣṇa's hint of laughter and its impact on the poem's central teachings, Behind Kṛṣṇa's Smile provides a crucial interpretation of Kṛṣṇa's prahasann iva in the Vedānta commentarial tradition, from Śaṅkara up to modern times. The book also considers the meanings of the stock phrase prahasann iva in the larger epic framework of the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa. Moreover, the book offers the first comprehensive review of the significance of Kṛṣṇa's smile in Kṛṣṇaite iconography and literature, demonstrating that there is a unified canon bringing together the literary and performative dimensions of Kṛṣṇa’s hint of laughter.

An award-winning historian's examination of impossible events at the dawn of modernity and of their enduring significance Accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena abounded in the early modern era--tales of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft--even as skepticism, atheism, and empirical science were starting to supplant religious belief in the paranormal. In this book, Carlos Eire explores how a culture increasingly devoted to scientific thinking grappled with events deemed impossible by its leading intellectuals. Eire observes how levitating saints and flying witches were as essential a component of early modern life as the religious turmoil of the age, and as much a part of history as Newton's scientific discoveries. Relying on an array of firsthand accounts, and focusing on exceptionally impossible cases involving levitation, bilocation, witchcraft, and demonic possession, Eire challenges established assumptions about the redrawing of boundaries between the natural and supernatural that marked the transition to modernity. Using as his case studies stories about St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Venerable María de Ágreda, and three disgraced nuns, Eire challenges readers to imagine a world animated by a different understanding of reality and of the supernatural's relationship with the natural world. The questions he explores--such as why and how "impossibility" is determined by cultural contexts, and whether there is more to reality than meets the eye or can be observed by science--have resonance and lessons for our time.

The hill of Uisneach lies almost exactly at the geographical center of Ireland. Remarkably, a fraction at least of the ancient Irish population was aware of that fact. There is no doubt that the place of Uisneach in Irish mythology, and more broadly speaking the Celtic world, was of utmost importance: Uisneach was – and probably still is – best defined as a sacred hill at the center of Ireland, possibly the sacred hill of the center of Ireland. Uisneach or the Center of Ireland explores the medieval documents connected with the hill and compares them with both archeological data and modern Irish folklore. In the early 21st century, a Fire Festival started being held on Uisneach in connection with the festival of Bealtaine, in early May, arguably in an attempt to echo more ancient traditions: the celebration was attended by Michael D. Higgins, the current president of Ireland, who lit the fire of Uisneach on 6 May 2017. This book argues that the symbolic significance of the hill has echoed the evolution of Irish society through time, be it in political, spiritual and religious terms or, perhaps more accurately, in terms of identity and Irishness. It is relevant for scholars and advanced students in the fields of cultural history, Irish history and cultural studies.