Table of Contents

Figures

Contributors

Foreword: Jeffrey J. Kripal

Acknowledgements

Introduction:
Rico G. Monge, Kerry P.C. San Chirico, and Rachel J. Smith

Part One: Theoretical Considerations

1. Saints, Truth, and the “Use and Abuse” of Hagiography, Rico G. Monge

2. Devotion, Critique, and the Reading of Christian Saints’ Lives, Rachel J. Smith

3. Sacred Narrative and Truth: What Does It Mean If It Did Not Happen?, Peter C. Bouteneff
and Patricia Fann Bouteneff

Part Two: Case Studies in Dharmic Traditions

4. Imagining Hagiographies in Chhattisgarh, Ramdas Lamb

5. Turning Tomb to Temple: Hagiography, Sacred Space, and Ritual Activity in a Thirteenth-
Century Hindu Shrine, Mark J. McLaughlin

6. From Legend to Flesh and Bone: The Reenactment of a Tantric Narrative, Joel S. Gruber

Part Three: Case Studies in Abrahamic Traditions

7. The Transmission of Virtue in the Hagiography of Haci Bektas Veli: The Narrative of
Güvenç Abdal, Vernon J. Schubel

8. A Global Intercessor: Triumphalism and Reconciliation in the Services of St. John
Maximovich, Nicholas Denysenko

9. “King-slaves” in South Africa: Shrines, Ritual, & Resistance, Bahar Davary

10. Many Truths, One Story: John of Ephesus’s “Lives of the Eastern Saints”, Todd French



Part Four: Case Studies in Comparison

11. Saints from the Margin: Rescuing Tradition through Hagiography in the Lives of
Sylouan the Athonite and Milarepa, Thomas Cattoi

12. Holy Negotiations in the Hindu Heartland: Abundant People and Places among the
Khrist Bhaktas of Banaras, Kerry P. C. San Chirico


Afterword: Comparative Theological Reflections, Francis X. Clooney

Notes
Select Bibliography
Index

Promotional Information

An exploration by scholars of Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions of how hagiographic materials - saints' lives, images of saints, and ritual devotions surrounding the saint - act as vehicles for articulating and replicating religious, social, and cultural ideals.

About the Author

Rico G. Monge is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, University of San Diego, USA.
Kerry P. C. San Chirico is Assistant Professor of Interfaith and Interreligious Studies, Villanova University, USA.
Rachel Smith is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, Villanova University, USA.

Reviews

A rich collection of essays that advances work on the topic of hagiography. Many of the essays indicate new ways of understanding a fascinating subject. The essays are very suggestive of new directions for hagiographical studies, and indicate new connections for the subject…these essays will advance the understanding of hagiography and should encourage other scholars to grasp this subject more seriously in the future.
*Reading Religion*

This is a deeply engaging book that highlights the importance of stories of holy people and the way these stories enliven religious communities. Hagiography and the idea of the saint, which are so central to living religious traditions, have been somewhat neglected in scholarship and this very fine book takes these themes seriously as a focus for discussing questions of truth and how these traditions speak to us today. Everyone interested in comparative theology or comparative religion should read this book.
*Gavin Flood FBA, Yap Kim Hao Professor of Comparative Religious Studies, Yale-NUS, Singapore, and Senior Research Fellow, Oxford University, UK*

Embracing a notion of truth as manifestation — truth in so far as it reveals what could be — this volume attempts to create a space in which religionists, historians, and comparative theologians can engage productively with narratives of saints’ lives. In doing so, it offers invaluable assistance to scholars interested in a deeper understanding of the role that saints’ lives have played within and across religious traditions.
*Ann Taves, Professor of Religious Studies and Graduate Advisor, University of California at Santa Barbara, USA*