Hindu Selves in a Modern World

This book explores devotional Hinduism in a modern context of high consumerism and revolutionised communications. It focuses on a fast-growing and high-profile contemporary Hindu guru faith originating in India and attracting a transnational following. The organisation is led by a vastly 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 modernising Indian setting.