Dealing with Deities

Maps and Illustrations Acknowledgments Sites Associated with Rituals Vow 1. Introduction: The Deal with Deities-Ways Vows Work in South Asia Selva J. Raj and William P. Harman 2. "The Vow": A Short Story Shankarrao Kharat I. Getting What You Want 3. Negotiating Relationships with the Goddess William P. Harman 4. Shared Vows, Shared Space, and Shared Deities: Vow Rituals among Tamil Catholics in South India Selva J. Raj 5. Religious Vows at the Shrine of Shahul Hamid Vasudha Narayanan 6. In the Company of Pirs: Making Vows, Receiving Favors at Bangladeshi Sufi Shrines Sufia Uddin 7. Bara: Buddhist Vows at Kataragama Sunil Goonasekera 8. Performing Vows in Diasporic Contexts: Tamil Hindus, Temples, and Goddesses in Germany Martin Baumann II. Getting What You Need 9. Singing a Vow: Devoting Oneself to Shiva through Song Karen Pechilis 10. Monastic Vows and the Ramananda Sampraday Ramdas Lamb 11. Negotiating Karma, Merit, and Liberation: Vow-taking in the Jain Tradition M. Whitney Kelting 12. Vows in the Sikh Tradition Louis E. Fenech and Pashaura Singh III. Getting Nothing At All 13. When Vows Fail to Deliver What They Promise: The Case of Shyamavati Tracy Pintchman 14. Two Critiques of Women's Vows Jack E. Llewellyn IV. Conclusion: Some Promising Possibilities 15. Toward a Typology of South Asian Lay Vows Selva J. Raj and William P. Harman Glossary Contributors Appendix: Essays Arranged According to Tradition Index