Goddess Encounters: The Mughals, Monsters, and the Goddess in Bengal

There is a large scholarly literature on Bengal’s goddess tradition and particularly on the worship of Durga, one of the most popular deities of this region. However, the study of this goddess tradition has not been sufficiently contextualized in historical terms. In other words, the social and particularly, the political context of goddess worship has yet to receive adequate scholarly attention.  This paper focuses on Bengal’s goddess tradition with particular reference to the period between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries i.e. the period that witnessed the establishment and consolidation of Mughal rule over this region. Based on an exploration of Bengali literary texts, myths, inscriptions and visual and architectural representations, this paper aims to show that first, the era of Mughal rule contributed to the development of features associated today with the annual, autumnal worship of the ten-armed goddess Durga in Bengal and secondly, the reasons why the Mughal regime and its allies in Bengal may have had an interest in promoting these particular features of Durga puja. Finally, the paper will explore the question of how and why the public performance of religion has a significance that transcends the religious realm and is tied to considerations of state-building  and  a viable public ,cultural ideology which could be deployed to create a sense of community.