Holy Tears: Weeping in the Religious Imagination

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The poetics and politics of ritualized weeping in early and medieval Japan / Gary L. Ebersole -- Productive tears : weeping speech, water, and the underworld in Mexica tradition / Kay Almere Read -- "Why do your eyes not run like a river?" : ritual tears in ancient and modern Greek funerary traditions / Gay Ord Pollock Lynch -- "Sealing the book with tears" : divine weeping on Mount Nebo and in the Warsaw ghetto / Nehemia Polen -- The Gopīs' tears / John Stratton Hawley -- Hsüan-tsang's encounter with the Buddha : a cloud of philosophy in a drop of tears / Malcolm David Eckel -- Weeping in classical Sufism / William C. Chittick -- "No power of speech remains" : tears and transformation in south Asian majlis poetry / Amy Bard -- Ẹkuń ìyàwó : bridal tears in marriage rites of passage among the Ọ̀yọ́-Yorùbá of Nigeria / Jacob K. Olúpọ̀nà with Ṣọlá Ajíbádé -- A love for all seasons : weeping in Jewish sources / Herbert W. Basser -- "Pray with tears and your request will find a hearing" : on the iconology of the Magdalene's tears / Diane Apostolos-Cappadona -- Tears and screaming : weeping in the spirituality of Margery Kempe / Santha Bhattacharji -- "An obscure matter" : the mystery of tears in Orthodox spirituality / Kallistos Ware -- "Howl, weep and moan, and bring it back to God" : holy tears in Eastern Christianity / Kimberley Christine Patton -- "Send thou me" : God's weeping and the sanctification of Ground Zero / Betsee Parker.