Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal

Rachel Fell McDermott's Singing to the Goddess is a scholarly translation and study of Bengali devotional poetry addressed to the goddesses Kali and Uma, written by a specialist in Bengali Hindu religious literature and combining careful translation with contextual analysis of the poems' theological and cultural significance. Its authority rests on McDermott's direct command of the Bengali source texts and her recognized standing in South Asian religious studies. As a study centered specifically on the Bengali devotional tradition and its particular poetic conventions, it is authoritative there and should not be read as representative of goddess devotion across all of Hinduism, where regional traditions vary considerably in theology, poetic form and ritual practice from the specifically Bengali material McDermott treats.