Attending Krishna's Image: Chaitanya Vaishnava Murti-seva as Devotional Truth (Routledge Hindu Studies Series)

There is a steady and growing scholarly as well as popular interest in Hindu religion – especially devotional (bhakti) traditions as forms of spiritual practice and expressions of divine embodiment. Associated with this is the attention to sacred images and their worship. Attending Krishna's Image extends the discussion on Indian images and their worship bringing historical and comparative dimensions and considering Krishna worship in the context of modernity both in India and the West. It focuses on one specific worship tradition the Chaitanya Vaishnava tradition of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries as it develops and sustains itself in two specific locales. By applying the comparative category of ‘religious truth’ the book provides a comprehensive understanding of a living religious tradition. It successfully demonstrates the understanding of devotion as a process of participation with divine embodiment in which worship of Krishna’s image is integral.