FIRST ISSUE! Leaping from the pages of the DEVI/WITCHBLADE crossover event in January, Graphic is now re-releasing the hit series for a new generation of readers with an all-new backup story and new cover by acclaimed artist JENNY FRISON! From filmmaker, Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Four Feathers) comes DEVI, the warrior goddess of divine myth. Tara Mehta, an unsuspecting young woman in the futuristic city, Sitapur is the new Devi. She has no idea that she is about to become the centerpiece of a divine battle between the Gods of Light and the demon lord Bala. Devi is a story about a young woman battling for survival in a landscape of ancient legends, duty and fate. Where will she fall? Between the Divine and the Diabolical there is Devi. "Devi is the smartest and most imaginative comic on the subject of Goddess-hood since Alan Moore's Promethea." - ComicCritique.com
She consistently remembered her former life in minute detail from the earliest age. She was so insistenel that a major investigation was conducted by an impartial committee. Even Mahatma Gandhi became involved and encouraged examination of the case. The results were published and submitted to scientists for analysis. No one was able to disprove the evidence and it was declared valid. This was not a case obtained through the use of hypnosis or any other means. Shanti Devi also reveals the extremely vivid memories of her experiences after death, the period between her lives, and her return to a physical body.
Tara Mehta felt trapped in her aimless life, always suspecting she was destined for greater things. But being the avatar of the celestial warrior Devi, an entire pantheon's champion destined to fight the renegade god Bala, was a bit out of her league. Nevertheless, the Goddess and the Human in her joined forces and prevailed over Bala. Now Tara's mind must maintain its sanity as the divine and the human coexist. Will she be able to live up to her promise of being not just a champion for the gods, but also the harbinger of hope for the entirety mankind? Ancient and primal apocalyptic forces awaken from their eon-old slumber and head straight for the city of Sitapur, with only Devi standing in their way. Writer Saurav Mohapatra (India Authentic) and artist Saumin Patel join forces for Devi's deadliest test, "Karmageddon."
New York Times best-selling author Michelle Goldberg tells the globetrotting story of the incredible woman who brought yoga to the West. When Indra Devi was born in Russia in 1899, yoga was virtually unknown outside of India. By the time of her death, in 2002, it was being practiced around the world. Here Michelle Goldberg tells the globetrotting story of the incredible woman who helped usher in a craze that continues unabated to this day. A sweeping picture of the twentieth century that travels from the cabarets of Berlin to the Mysore Palace to Golden Age Hollywood and beyond, The Goddess Pose brings the Devi’s little known but extraordinary adventures vividly to life.
Part human and part goddess, Devi must learn to wield her goddess powers so that she can save the world from Lord Bala's evil grip, as Lord Bala tries to obtain the Source--an ancient vessel of unimaginable power. Original.
Many cultures accept that a person may die and then come back to life in another form, but Westerners have traditionally rejected the idea. Recently, however, surveys conducted in Europe indicate a substantial increase in the number of Europeans who believe in reincarnation, and numerous claims of reincarnation have been reported. This book examines particular cases in Europe that are suggestive of reincarnation. The first section provides a brief history of the belief in reincarnation among Europeans. The second section considers eight cases from the first third of the twentieth century that were not independently investigated, but were reported and sometimes published by the persons concerned. The third section covers 32 cases from the second half of the twentieth century that were investigated by the author. Many of these cases involved either children who exhibited unusual behavior attributed to a previous life, or adults who experienced recurrent or vivid dreams attributed to a previous life. In the fourth section, the author compares European cases suggestive of reincarnation with those of other countries and cultures.
Oral tales establish relationships between storytellers and their listeners. Yet most printed collections of folktales contain only stories, stripped of the human contexts in which they are told. If storytellers are mentioned at all, they are rarely consulted about what meanings they see in their tales. In this innovative book, Indian-American anthropologist Kirin Narayan reproduces twenty-one folktales narrated in a mountain dialect by a middle-aged Indian village woman, Urmila Devi Sood, or "Urmilaji." The tales are set within the larger story of Kirin Narayan's research in the Himalayan foothill region of Kangra, and of her growing friendship with Urmilaji Sood. In turn, Urmilaji Sood supplements her tales with interpretations of the wisdom that she discerns in their plots. At a moment when the mass-media is flooding through rural India, Urmilaji Sood asserts the value of her tales which have been told and retold across generations. As she says, "Television can't teach you these things." These tales serve as both moral instruction and as beguiling entertainment. The first set of tales, focussing on women's domestic rituals, lays out guidelines for female devotion and virtue. Here are tales of a pious washerwoman who brings the dead to life, a female weevil observing fasts for a better rebirth, a barren woman who adopts a frog and lights ritual oil lamps, and a queen who remains with her husband through twelve arduous years of affliction. The women performing these rituals and listening to the accompanying stories are thought to bring good fortune to their marriages, and long life to their relatives. The second set of tales, associated with passing the time around the fire through long winter nights, are magical adventure tales. Urmilaji Sood tells of a matchmaker who marries a princess off to a lion, God splitting a boy claimed by two families into two selves, a prince's journey to the land of the demons, and a girl transformed into a bird by her stepmother. In an increasingly interconnected world, anthropologists' authority to depict and theorize about distant people's lives is under fire. Kirin Narayan seeks solutions to this crisis in anthropology by locating the exchange of knowledge in a respectful, affectionate collaboration. Through the medium of oral narratives, Urmilaji Sood describes her own life and lives around her, and through the medium of ethnography Kirin Narayan shows how broader conclusions emerge from specific, spirited interactions. Set evocatively amid the changing seasons in a Himalayan foothill village, this pathbreaking book draws a moving portrait of an accomplished woman storyteller. Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon offers a window into the joys and sorrows of women's changing lives in rural India, and reveals the significance of oral storytelling in nurturing human ties.
About 16 centuries ago, an unknown Indian author or authors gathered together the diverse threads of already ancient traditions and wove them into a verbal tapestry that today is still the central text for worshippers of the Hindu Devi, the Divine Mother. This spiritual classic, the Devimahatmya, addresses the perennial questions of the nature of the universe, humankind, and divinity. How are they related, how do we live in a world torn between good and evil, and how do we find lasting satisfaction and inner peace? These questions and their answers form the substance of the Devimahatmya. Its narrative of a dispossessed king, a merchant betrayed by the family he loves, and a seer whose teaching leads beyond existential suffering sets the stage for a trilogy of myths concerning the all-powerful Divine Mother, Durga, and the fierce battles she wages against throngs of demonic foes. In these allegories, her adversaries represent our all-too-human impulses toward power, possessions, and pleasure. The battlefields symbolize the field of human consciousness on which our lives' dramas play out in joy and sorrow, in wisdom and folly. The Devimahatmya speaks to us across the ages of the experiences and beliefs of our ancient ancestors. We sense their enchantment at nature's bounty and their terror before its destructive fury, their recognition of the good and evil in the human heart, and their understanding that everything in our experience is the expression of a greater reality, personified as the Divine Mother.
"A dreamlike novel about a young historian and a persuasive and beguiling stranger coming together in modern-day Kolkata, India to transcribe an ancient journal. A collection of paper, parchment, and skins, the journal tells of bloodshed, kidnapping, magic and shapeshifting, set against the harsh landscapes of the 17th-Century Mughal Empire. It reveals the story of hunters and prey, lovers and the beloved, and, in the end, the choice to be transformed, or be quarry"--
