A Sakta Method for Comparative Theology: Upside-Down, Inside-Out offers the world's first Sakta thealogy of religions and a Sakta anti-method, method, and a-method for comparative theology. For Saktas, the thread of religious diversity is part of the rich tapestry of cosmological, topographical, environmental, and bio-diversity, which is the Goddess' collective (sama??i) and individuated (vya??i) forms. Sakta religious diversity is complex, layered, and paradoxical, allowing ontological similarities, ontological differences, and irreducibility. A Sakta thealogy of religious diversity transcends humans and the borders of religion, politics, society, and speciesism. It is panentheist in that it reveres the material and the spiritual equally since they are knotted and inseparable. As "anti-method," for comparative theology, Sakta thealogy inverts the standard hypertextual approach to doing comparative theology. As "anti-method," it proposes engaging theological activities based on the view of the body-mind-sense complex as non-hierarchical and entrenched in a tangled, mutually conditioned world. As "method," it employs the bodies' auditory, gestural, and haptic interfaces to create vibrotactile feedback that takes interlocutors beyond conventional, conditioned reality and toward Oneness. Finally, as "a-method," Sakta thealogy offers an inverted way of being and acting in the world that transcends putting the body-mind-sense complex to work by using the metaphor of the upside-down asvattha tree in the Bhagavad Gita.
Pravina Rodrigues is adjunct faculty at the Starr King School for the Ministry, and is postdoctoral fellow at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University.
Acknowledgments Personal Prelude Introduction Chapter One: The Case of the Missing Interlocutors: Methodological Issues in Hindu-Christian Studies Chapter Two: One, None, Many: A Sakta Ontology Chapter Three: A Sakta Thealogy of Religious Diversity Chapter Four: Upside-Down, Inside-Out: A Sakta Method for Comparative Theology Conclusion Bibliography About the Author
Rodrigues takes a full-bodied approach to theology of religions and comparative theology. She pinpoints the postcolonial, intergenerational trauma that is often missed in conversations about the relative absence of Hindu interlocutors. Offering her own voice to these disciplines, she roots a Sakta thealogy of religions in the divine as one, none, and many; and she concludes with promising notes toward a holistic method for comparative theology. -- Michelle Voss, Toronto School of Theology A Sakta Method for Comparative Theology is a welcome addition to the maturing field of comparative theology. The Sakta tradition of the Goddess, most often neglected by theologians, points us to a more sensual and sensitive interreligious learning that corresponds to the realities of lived religion. Pravina Rodrigues is to be congratulated for this pioneering study, a book that is both scholarly and personal. -- Francis X. Clooney, SJ, Harvard Divinity School
