Historically grounded scholarship on the tantric goddesses known as Mahāvidyās has been lacking to date. Jae-Eun Shin's monograph thus fills an important vacuum in the study of Indian religions, complementing the phenomenologically-oriented monograph of the late David Kinsley.Footnote1 The book is based upon the author's doctoral thesis from the University of Delhi (Department of History) and more recent published articles. Shin's principal contention is that the Mahāvidyās, best known as a set of ten, are products of complex historical processes associated with Brahmanical Hinduism's localization in eastern India, in a dialogical relationship with local cultures.
