THE SACRED FEMININE IN INDIAN THOUGHT BY ANNIYIL THARAKAN [HARDCOVER]

As Goethe has rounded off the second half of his Faust with the penetrating remark, nothing has fired the imagination of mankind to yearn for perfection so much as the vision of the Eternal Feminine. The study, in the context of Tantric Metaphysics, focuses on the importance of the feminine or the role of woman in Indian spirituality and aesthetics. Dr. Anniyil Tharakan explores the hidden depths of the feminine to gloss how it operates in Indian thought as a primal force in the ascent of man to spiritual heights and aesthetic vision. The Absolute polarizes into the Male and the Female Creative Principles, the Feminine Principle being the divine energy, descending into multiple names and forms in the universe. It is the descending phase of the Divine that makes the ascending growth of spirituality possible. Hindu spirituality is patterns of rhythm between ascent and descent, man’s ascent to the Divine and the Divine’s descent to him, between man and woman, so that they become polar to each other and fuse into the identical whole again. Aesthetics is the vision by the ascending self of reality as beauty when it partakes of the patterns of rhythm caused by its ascent and the descending phase of the Divine. Both spirituality and aesthetics are further glossed in the context of exploration into the subtleties of Saundaryalahari, unraveling the secret of the Eternal Feminine and proffering multiple insights into the topic under study. Emeritus Professor of Mar Ivanios College (Trivandrum) affiliated with the University of Kerala, Dr. Tharakan taught at home and abroad.