This book of essays has no agenda - either gender or religious - but discusses the many facets of the Goddess Durga's images and worship on the Indian subcontinent. The nine authors (in keeping with Navaratri) belong to both the East and West, and to four religions: Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and Christian. They also include historians of religion and art as well as sociologists and anthropologists, thereby providing the readers with multiple perspectives on the subject. The ten essays like the ten arms (dasabhuja) of the great goddess in her Bengali manifestation cannot possibly be all-encompassing but cover the physical geography of the subcontinent by including discussions of her presence and prevalence in Nepal and Kashmir, in Baluchistan, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and of course, in West Bengal, especially Kolkata, where her autumn festival is celebrated annually with remarkable flamboyance and exuberance, in private as well as public. The book is lavishly illustrated with numerous colour photographs.