Guides: RELG 372: Hindu Goddesses: Home

Getting Started

Course Readings

RELG 372: Course Reserves
Link to print and electronic readings on reserve for this class.

Helpful Guides

Religious Studies
by Kristen Howard Last Updated Sep 30, 2025 1477 views this year
South Asian History
by Kristen Howard Last Updated Sep 25, 2025 305 views this year
Image Resources - Find & Understand Images
by David Greene Last Updated Oct 22, 2025 363 views this year

Encyclopedias

Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism (5 Vols) by Knut A. Jacobsen (Editor-In-Chief)
Call Number: BL1105 B75 2009

Publication Date: 2009

Available as eBook and in the Birks Reading Room (Reference Collection)
A Dictionary of Hinduism by W. J. Johnson
Publication Date: 2010

Available as eBook.

Research your Goddess

Find books

Library Catalogue

Reminders for catalogue searching:

Begin by keyword searching for your goddess (e.g., Durga, Sarasvati, Sita). If you are getting too many false hits (e.g., authors with the last name Durga), try combining with the word "goddess" (e.g., goddess Durga)
Use the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to find more books on the same topic
Scroll to the bottom of a catalogue record to browse the virtual shelf

Find peer-reviewed articles

ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials (EBSCO)
Resource for religious and theological studies, providing bibliographic records covering topics such as biblical studies, world religions, church history and religion in social issues. Contains over 2.9 million index records covering the research literature of religion in many languages. Bibliographic records represent scholarship on major religions, faiths, denominations and languages. Updated monthly,
Bibliography of Asian Studies (EBSCO)
Bibliographic database covering principally the areas of humanities and the social sciences on the East, Southeast, and South Asia. Abstracts published worldwide from 1971 to present.

Find images

ARTstor
Access is now on JSTOR.

British Library South Asian Collection
Rich resources for the study of South Asia past and present.

Oxford Art Online
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

ACSAA (American Council for Southern Asian Art) Digital Images
ACSAA Digital Images is accessible for free and available as downloadable low-res images through the Virtual Museum of Images and Sounds. The images can be found at http://www.vmis.in/ under the Center for Art and Archaeology, “Collections” category. It is divided into two groups within Monuments/Special Collections and Museums/Partner in VMIS.

Note that most of these images are available through ARTstor.
Michael C. Carlos Museum Asian Art Collection
The museum's Asian collections focus primarily on the religious arts of South Asia. They represent living religious traditions that originated in India thousands of years ago and spread throughout Asia and around the globe—Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.
Harvard Art Museum Arthur M. Sackler Collection
Search images of items in their Asian Art collection and in their Islamic & Later Indian Art collection.
South Asian Visual Arts Collection (SAVAC)
"A Toronto-based, artist-run, nonprofit organization dedicated to the development and presentation of new works of contemporary visual art by artists of South Asian origin, within Canada and internationally."
Tasveer Ghar: A House of Pictures
Tasveer Ghar is a trans-national virtual “home” for collecting, digitizing, and documenting various materials produced by South Asia’s exciting popular visual sphere including posters, calendar art, pilgrimage maps and paraphernalia, cinema hoardings, advertisements, and other forms of street and bazaar art.

Create your project

Adobe Photoshop

Several Library computers have specialized software including Adobe Creative Suite CS6, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Photoshop Elements.

Digital Scholarship Hub in the Redpath Library RM-16 (5 computers). Bookings recommended.
Data Lab, McLennan Library 2nd Floor, M2-37A (Computer #2)
Macdonald Campus Library, Barton Building
Music Library (3rd, 4th, and 5th floors)
Law Library, main floor (1 computer)

Canva
Free-to-use online graphic design tool. Requires creating a login.

Other Programs

Although less sophisticated, programs you already have access to such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Google Slides can be used successfully for this assignment.

Cite your sources

Chicago Citation Style

The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition
Call Number: Z253 U69 2017

Publication Date: 2017

Chicago Manual of Style Citation Quick Guide
McGill Library Citation Subject Guide
Under "citation styles by subject", select "History" for more resources on Chicago style.
Chicago Workshops
McGill Librarians offer two virtual Chicago Citation Style workshops per term. Follow this link to find and register for upcoming workshops!

Cite images

Generating citations in ARTstor

To create a Chicago Style citation for a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other work of art, you should include:

The artist/creator
Title (in italics)
Date of creation or completion
Information about the medium and location of the work
For works consulted online, add a URL.

See CMOS 14.235 for examples.

Liaison Librarian

Kristen Howard

she/her

Email me

Subjects: Classical studies, History, Indigenous studies, Religious studies

McGill University Collections Centre

Check on the progress of the move of the McLennan-Library circulating collection at the Collections Centre website.