Summary
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, and of the traditions that have built around her for over 3,000 years. According to the creation story of the Puranas, she came to existence in the churning of the ocean of milk. Her prominent status grew alongside other goddesses in the mainly male world of the Vedas, as female deities came to be seen as the Shakti, the energy of the gods, without which they would be powerless. Lakshmi came to represent the qualities of blessing, prosperity, fertility, beauty and good fortune and, more recently, political order, and she has a significant role in Diwali, one of the most important of the Hindu festivals.
With
Jessica Frazier Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Kent Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies at the University of Oxford
Jacqueline Suthren-Hirst Senior Lecturer in South Asian Studies at the University of Manchester
and
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad Professor of Comparative Religion and Philosophy at Lancaster University
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time, for news about In Our Time, and |
| 0:04.8 | for recommendations about our archive, please follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time. |
| 0:10.1 | I hope you enjoyed the program. |
| 0:12.0 | Hello, Lakshmi is one of the most prominent and popular Hindu goddesses. |
| 0:17.0 | In one tradition, she merged when the gods used a mountain and a serpent to churn the ocean |
| 0:21.9 | of milk, the primeval cosmos, until there she floated, there she merged, radiant and |
| 0:27.3 | seated on a lotus flower. |
| 0:29.2 | She became Vishnu's wife, and today as goddess of prosperity and health, her worshipers |
| 0:33.2 | might pray to her for, from anything, from a good harvest to a university place, to political |
| 0:38.1 | order. |
| 0:39.9 | Lakshmi's prominence in daily life, though, is not matched by prominence in the early |
| 0:44.2 | Vedic texts, and comes instead from the gathering of stories around her in the last 2,000 years. |
| 0:49.4 | Stories which reflect the beliefs and values of a changing society, or changing society, |
| 0:54.2 | indeed. |
| 0:55.2 | We'd me to discuss the rise of Lakshmi in the Hindu traditions, Ah, Jessica Frazier, |
| 1:00.6 | lecturer in religious studies at the University of Kent, and a research fellow at the Oxford |
| 1:04.5 | Centre for Hindu Studies at the University of Oxford, Jacqueline Sotranhurst, senior lecturer |
| 1:09.7 | in South Asian Studies at the University of Manchester, and Chuck DeBartier on Plasad, professor |
| 1:14.4 | of comparative religion and philosophy at Lancaster University, Jessica Frazier, where do we |
| 1:18.8 | look for the origins of Lakshmi? |
| 1:21.3 | Well, Goddesses are worshiped probably from prehistoric time in India as in Europe, but we |
| 1:25.6 | don't have texts to tell us much about them. |
... |
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