Divine thresholds of marginality: Liminality and the representation of Chandi and Annada in Mangalkavyas

This study investigates the representation of Chandi and Annada in the Bengali Mangalkavya corpus, emphasizing their liminal and marginal positions within Shakta narratives. By analyzing textual, symbolic, and ritual dimensions, the paper examines how these goddesses inhabit thresholds-spaces where social, cosmic, and religious norms are unsettled or renegotiated. Their liminality is intricately linked to marginality, revealing how peripheral figures and spaces become sites of divine agency, ethical intervention, and symbolic negotiation of power. Through the study of the Chandimangal Kavya and Annadamangalkavya the article seeks to explore the portrayal of the Goddess as mediating the threshold of marginality. The analysis demonstrates that Mangalkavya poets deploy Chandi and Annada as mediators between normative orders and the chaotic or marginalized realms, reflecting broader strategies within Eastern Shakta traditions to conceptualize authority, gender, and social peripheries. This study contributes to ongoing scholarship on the intersections of marginality, liminality, and sacred power in medieval Bengali religious literature, highlighting the dynamic role of goddesses in shaping both textual and socio-religious imagination.