Social Sciences and Missions

Sciences sociales et missions

Social Sciences and Missions 22 (2009) 317–325 brill.nl/ssm

Book Reviews

Matthias Frenz, Gottes-Mutter-Göttin: Marienverehrung im Spannungsfeld religiöser Traditionen in

Südindien. Beiträge zur Südasienforschung (BSAF). Südasien-Institut 195. Universität Heidel-
berg. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2004, 218 pp., pbk: €42.00, ISBN 978-3-899-13343-1.

As a rule, reviewers should not insert comments on their own work into a review of someone
else’s book, but I think it relevant for the reader to know that I wrote a book about south Indian
goddesses and Mary, Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (2005).
In it I studied three Goddess hymns and drew my study of them into the context of a Catholic
Christian theological reflection on three Marian hymns, one south Indian. I acknowledged but
did not study the social context of the hymns and Marian parallels. While I did draw heavily on
available commentaries on the hymns for the sake of literary and theological context, I gave little
attention to the historical and social contexts of the cults of Mary and the goddesses developed,
or living exchanges “on the ground” today. My work was theological and comparative reflection
from the inside out.
So I am grateful to see Matthias Frenz’s new book, precisely because it takes a different
approach. It works from the outside in, offering a perspective that richly describes and interprets
the framework in which the written word arises. Drawing expertly on European-language sources
and Tamil, his book starts from the broader historical, cultural, and social context, showing how
the cult of Mary, Mother of God, developed and has flourished at two famed Marian shrines in
south India: the regionally important and French-originated shrine at Villiyanur and the Portu-
guese-originated shrine of all-India importance at Velankanni. While Velankanni is justly at the
heart of his study given its international as well as all-India fame, his observations on a regional
cult in Villiyanur constitutes a helpful measure by which to understand the still-more complex
interactions encoded in Velankanni.
Frenz grounds his study in close attention to the patterns of social interaction played out
with respect to varied Western and Indian ecclesial structures, differing modes of Christian
expectations arising from indigenous and Western Christian origins, and the variations arising
through Hindu-Christian contact. These rich interactions, necessarily addressed from multiple
perspectives, create the contexts in which the cult of Mary has flourished. Rather than syncre-
tism, the term “contact zone” (for which he is indebted to Mary Louise Pratt) is his preferred
category for making sense of the dynamic and ongoing interactions among cultural and religious
factors. As defined in the English-language abstract appended to the book, contact zone “denotes
a variably definable space in which actors meet and relate to each other” through interactions
that “can be defined more precisely as a process of negotiation between human actors, which is
dependent on contextual power structures; its thrust results from the habitual behaviour and
discursive attachment of the people involved” (219).

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318 Book Reviews / Social Sciences and Missions 22 (2009) 317–325

After setting the theoretical, historical foundations of his study in the introduction and first
chapters, in chapter four Frenz maps the shrines of Mary in Tamil Nadu, and on that basis
explores interactions in those contact zones, respectively in the Christian context (chapter five)
and then interreligiously (chapter six). In both chapters Frenz uncovers the practical and theo-
retical significance of the ongoing interactions of Hindus and Christians in the Velankanni area.
Particularly fascinating to this reviewer are the observations on the founding myths (sthala
puranas) of the local Siva temple and the Velankanni church. Both refer to a storm at sea, a divine
intervention, and a grateful construction of a place of worship that persists as an ongoing site of
divine favor. Historical influences aside, it is clear that both accounts have been in part shaped
by their mutual proximity; the meaning of each shrine is in part determined by implicit reference
to the other. Following Frenz’ lead, we can learn to see the attraction of Hindus to Mary not as
step toward conversion or an alarming religious misunderstanding, but as yet another facet of the
ongoing contact whereby Hindus and Christians make sense of Mary from their particular per-
spectives. It is a welcome final contribution of the book that its brief final chapter (“Maria
zwischen Gottesmutter und Muttergöttin”) leaves room for the reality of a pious devotion to the
Mother, centered on Mary in her Catholic identity, but at the same time not closed to Hindus
who likewise love the Mother—and find her in Mary.
Gottes-Mutter-Göttin is an excellent contribution to the sociology of religion, especially (inter)
cultural studies in the encounter of religions. It is an excellent resource that assists those wishing
to theologize devotion to Mary in its historical and cultural dimensions. It also nicely comple-
ments the (still necessary) textual studies. Indeed, Frenz’s theory and utilization of “contact
zone” will aid textualists and comparative theologians in finding parallels between the intertex-
tuality of the written word and the dynamics of the larger historical and cultural environs.
Neither texts nor social settings contain or communicate single and simple meanings; rather,
their meanings, though real, are complex, contested, ever subject to different perspectives, and
evolving over time. While this complexity need not defeat the quest for right interpretation nor
give blanket permission to all interpretations, it does mean that both texts and social texts are
internally diverse. This diversity in turn allows us to see the dynamics of text-and-social-setting
not as forcing a choice between “the text” and “the world” as two juxtaposed monoliths, but
rather as a choice between two entry points into a more complex whole comprised of both. To
reflect on Mary and Hindu Goddesses may begin with the text, or with the social setting, but
attention to either of these complementary sites ultimately leads us to take note of the other
as well.

Francis X. Clooney, SJ
Harvard Divinity School

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