Hindu Ritual at the Margins

Linda Penkower is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. She has published on the historical, social, institutional, and doctrinal aspects of East Asian Buddhism, especially the Chinese Tiantai tradition. Penkower is currently completing two monographs: Tiantai Buddhism and the Construction of Lineage during the Tang and Shared Sacrality, an annotated translation of the Jin'gangbei (The Diamond Scalpel), the eighth-century Chinese locus classicus for the idea of insentient buddha-nature.

Tracy Pintchman is a professor of religious studies and director of the International Studies Program at Loyola University of Chicago, USA. Her research interests include Hindu goddess traditions, women and religion, ritual studies, and transnational Hinduism. Her scholarly publications include more than twenty articles and book chapters, five edited and coedited volumes, and two monographs, The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition and Guests at God's Wedding: Celebrating Kartik among the Women of Benares.