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I seek refuge with Tripurasundarī,
The Spouse of the Three-eyed One,
Who dwells in the Kadamba forest,
And who is ever wandering;
The Large-eyed One who holds a golden vīnā,
Wearing a necklace of priceless gems,
Whose face is glowing with wine,
And who of Her mercy grants prosperity to Her devotees.
Tripurasundarīstotra, Hymns to the Goddess, Arthur Avalon
Now for some brief comments on verses 30-31 of Anandalahari. Continue reading »
Back in 2011 I gave a lecture at Treadwells Bookshop for LGBT History month on Richard Payne Knight’s A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus under the title “A Phallic (K)night”. Due to one thing and another, I never got around to writing up the lecture for publication, so I’m going to serialise it here. This first post provides a general introduction and outlines some biographical information on Payne Knight and some of his colleagues. In future posts I’ll examine Discourse itself – and the circumstances in which it came to be written, and then go on to look at the role it played in the nineteenth-century enthusiasm for theories of “phallic worship”. Continue reading »