Author Description

"This book explores devotional Hinduism in a modern context of high consumerism and revolutionized communications. It focuses on a fast-growing and high-profile contemporary Hindu guru faith originating in India and attracting a transnational following. The organization is led by an extremely popular female guru, Mata Amritanandamayi, whom devotees worship as an avatar and a healer of the ills of the contemporary world. By drawing upon multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork among the Mata's primarily urban, educated 'middle class' Indian devotees, the author provides crucial insights into new trends in popular Hinduism in a post-colonial and rapidly modernizing Indian setting."--Jacket.