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Devoted To The Goddess The Life and Work of Ramprasad by Malcolm McLean and WendyDoniger
Devoted To The Goddess The Life and Work of Ramprasad by Malcolm McLean and WendyDoniger
Doniger
Review by: Rachel Fell McDermott
The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Nov., 1998), pp. 1207-1208
Published by: Association for Asian Studies
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BOOK REVIEWS-SOUTH ASIA 1207
The resultingbook not only gives fleshto a cardboardicon, but also challenges
received notions. For McLean argues that we misunderstandRamprasad if we
categorizehim as a bhaktipoet; he is, instead,a thoroughgoing Tantric.
Methodologically,McLean seeks to bypass the futilesearchforthe historical
Ramprasad.As he demonstrates froma studyoflsvarcandra Gupta'searliestbiography
of the poet, from1853 (translatedin the appendix),text-critical scholarshipcannot
get behind hagiography.The same is true for the over threehundredpoems in
Ramprasad'sname:establishingauthorship, dates,and criticaleditionsis impossible.
Far preferable,suggestsMcLean,is to followthe deconstructionists in "reading"the
legends and receivedliterarycanon as "texts" importantfor the emergingSakta
communityof the eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies.Not "who is Ramprasad
really?"but "whatdoes he mean to Bengaligoddessworshipers?"
McLean's principalcontributionlies in threeunprecedentedclaims. First,he
arguesconvincinglythat Ramprasadwas consciouslymodeled afterCaitanya,since
Sktas neededa spiritualexemplarto matchthatof theirVaisnavarivals.Second,he
assertsthatalthoughRamprasadlookslikeCaitanyain form(birth,death,recognition
by Muslim rulers,and religiousmadness),in contenthis lifeand poetryare farfrom
Vaisnavadevotionalism. Rather,McLeancontendsthatRamprasadwas nota dreamy-
eyed bhakta,worshipingthe Goddess's image with petitionary self-surrender,but a
Tantricwhosepoetic languagecould easily-purposely?-be misunderstood. When
Ramprasadspeaksof theMother'simage,he is visualizingHer in his body,through
Tantric kun/alin7yoga, with an eventual goal of monistic union, not dualistic
reverence. To bolsterthis secondclaim,McLean makesa third:Ramprasad'spoetry
closely resemblesBengali Baul songs, both of which draw heavilyupon Tantric
physiognomy and philosophy.If McLean is righton the importanceof Tantra in
Ramprasad'spoetry-and I thinkhe is-then it is ironicthatRamprasad'spresent-
day interpretersemphasizethe devotionalovertheTantricstrainsin his poems.The
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ruseof hidinga Tantricin bhakta'sclothinghas
succeeded.
McLean concludesby proposingthat Ramprasad'srelevanceto modernpeople
lies in his depictionof a "mad bitch goddess" who symbolizesthe ambiguity,
unpredictability,and uncertaintyoflife.In thishe corroborates David Kinsley'sjustly
popularinterpretation in TheSwordand theFlute:KdlTand Krsna,Dark Visionsofthe
Terribleand theSublimein HinduMythology (Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress,
1975). As in Feuerbach,whomMcLeandrawsuponforcomparative purposes,so here:
theologyis reducedto anthropology.
AlthoughSUNY could have done a betterediting job, and althoughI might
quibble withsomeofMcLean'sinterpretations-inparticular, I am less inclinedthan
he to see acrimonybetweenSaktas and Vaisnavas in late medievalBengal-I am
delightedby this book. It will appeal to specialistsinterestedin KalT and Bengali
religioushistory,and to interpreters anywheregrapplingwith legacies that text-
criticalscholarshipcan no longerilluminate.
RACHEL FELL McDERMOTT
BarnardCollege
Movements
Subnational in SouthAsia. Edited by SUBRATA K. MITRA and R.
ALISON LEWIS. Boulder,Colo.: WestviewPress,1996. xiv,256 pp. $59.00
(cloth).