Emilia Bachrach is Assistant Professor of Religion and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Oberlin College. Her research focuses on how people's interpretations of religious texts inform and are informed by intimate negotiations of the family and the self, and by changing class, regional, and gender identities in contemporary western India. She also works with oral and written texts in early modern and modern languages, including Braj Bhasha, Gujarati, and Hindi.

Bachrach sensitively guides the reader into the contemporary life of the Pushtimarg's vārtā traditions with the vibrance of the satsaṅg gatherings she portrays. While never losing her analytical distance, she insinuates herself into the performances of these texts so the reader cannot fail to gauge the emotional tenor of what these stories mean to their devotees. The boundary between text and auditor in the satsaṅg dissolves in the act of reading and commenting, an embodied improvisation that transforms the vārtās into a living canon.

• List of Figures Acknowledgements Note on Transliteration and Translation Introduction: An Ethnography of Reading 1. Dialogical Reading: The Pushtimarg's Performative Canon 2. Commentarial Reading: Historicizing Hagiography and Making Modern Readers 3. Public Reading: Debating Text, Temple, and Religious Authority 4. Community Reading: Learning Affective Piety 5. Women's Reading: Navigating Family, Gender, and Devotion Conclusion: Religious Reading and Everyday Lives Appendix Glossary Bibliography Index

Emilia Bachrach is Assistant Professor of Religion and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Oberlin College. Her research focuses on how people's interpretations of religious texts inform and are informed by intimate negotiations of the family and the self, and by changing class, regional, and gender identities in contemporary western India. She also works with oral and written texts in early modern and modern languages, including Braj Bhasha, Gujarati, and Hindi.

Bachrach sensitively guides the reader into the contemporary life of the Pushtimarg's vārtā traditions with the vibrance of the satsaṅg gatherings she portrays. While never losing her analytical distance, she insinuates herself into the performances of these texts so the reader cannot fail to gauge the emotional tenor of what these stories mean to their devotees. The boundary between text and auditor in the satsaṅg dissolves in the act of reading and commenting, an embodied improvisation that transforms the vārtās into a living canon.

• List of Figures Acknowledgements Note on Transliteration and Translation Introduction: An Ethnography of Reading 1. Dialogical Reading: The Pushtimarg's Performative Canon 2. Commentarial Reading: Historicizing Hagiography and Making Modern Readers 3. Public Reading: Debating Text, Temple, and Religious Authority 4. Community Reading: Learning Affective Piety 5. Women's Reading: Navigating Family, Gender, and Devotion Conclusion: Religious Reading and Everyday Lives Appendix Glossary Bibliography Index

Emilia Bachrach is Assistant Professor of Religion and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Oberlin College. Her research focuses on how people's interpretations of religious texts inform and are informed by intimate negotiations of the family and the self, and by changing class, regional, and gender identities in contemporary western India. She also works with oral and written texts in early modern and modern languages, including Braj Bhasha, Gujarati, and Hindi.

Bachrach sensitively guides the reader into the contemporary life of the Pushtimarg's vārtā traditions with the vibrance of the satsaṅg gatherings she portrays. While never losing her analytical distance, she insinuates herself into the performances of these texts so the reader cannot fail to gauge the emotional tenor of what these stories mean to their devotees. The boundary between text and auditor in the satsaṅg dissolves in the act of reading and commenting, an embodied improvisation that transforms the vārtās into a living canon.

• List of Figures Acknowledgements Note on Transliteration and Translation Introduction: An Ethnography of Reading 1. Dialogical Reading: The Pushtimarg's Performative Canon 2. Commentarial Reading: Historicizing Hagiography and Making Modern Readers 3. Public Reading: Debating Text, Temple, and Religious Authority 4. Community Reading: Learning Affective Piety 5. Women's Reading: Navigating Family, Gender, and Devotion Conclusion: Religious Reading and Everyday Lives Appendix Glossary Bibliography Index