Introduction: God at Play: Līlā in Hindu and Christian Traditions | 1
Daniel Soars -
Part I: Līlā as Divine Will and Divine Creativity:
1 Play in East and West | 21
Douglas Hedley -
2 Creating without a “Why”: Divine Play as Metaphor
for Creation in John Scottus Eriugena, Thomas Aquinas, and Meister Eckhart | 43
Bernard McGinn -
3 God’s Willand the Creative Act:
Origen on Divine Volition and the Intelligibility of the Cosmos | 63
Daniel J. Tolan -
Part II: Grace, Compassion, and Suffering: Some Pastoral Connotations of Līlā:
4 Creation, Vision, Bliss: Līlā as Grace according to Rāmānuja, with
Reference Also to Thomas Aquinas and Gregory Palamas | 89
Francis X. Clooney, SJ -
5 Līlā and Divine Mercy in the Hundred Verses to Compassion of Vedānta Deśika | 109
Sucharita Adluri -
6 What Does It Mean for the Goddess to Play?
Līlā (or Its Absence) in the Śākta Traditions | 135
Rachel Fell McDermott -
Part III: Some Aesthetic and Dramatic Dimensions of Līlā:
7 “You have made me endless, such is thy pleasure”:
The Līlā of Love in the Metaphysical Poetry of Rabindranath Tagore | 153
Ankur Barua -
8 The Metaphysics of Emotion: Divine Play in Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Philosophy | 178
Jessica Frazier -
9 The Making of the Sacred City: Līlā as God’s Violence in a Tamil Śaiva Talapurāṇam | 197
Srilata Raman -
Part IV: Human Playfulness as Imitation of Divine Līlā:
10 Looking to the Leader: The Divine Dance in Neoplatonism | 221
Stephen R.L. Clark -
11 Serio Ludere! Divine Lessons from Tricksters and Holy Fools | 244
Peter Tyler-
12 The Serious Subject of Play: Play in Dance and Music | 264
Dominic White, OP -
Afterword: Divine Līlā and Human Play | 289
Michelle Voss -
Contributors | 299 -
Index | 303.

"This volume presents a theological exploration of the multifaceted motif of lila across diverse Hindu and Christian landscapes and its wide-ranging connections to divine and human creativity. Given its ubiquity in Hindu theologies and life-forms, lila offers a rich comparative framework for exploring certain ways of understanding divine and human action as expressed in Hindu and Christian sacred texts, philosophical theology, and devotional practices. Often interpreted simply as "play," the essays in this volume reflect a far richer semantic and conceptual field, ranging from spontaneity and gratuitousness, through joy and humor, to mercy and compassion. By focusing on the different contexts in which lila is found in Hindu traditions and resisting any uniform translation of the term, we avoid the risks of using predominantly western or Christian categories to understand the Hindu other. The volume thus explores how lila functions in a variety of distinctive philosophical, theological, and devotional ways across Hindu traditions, and listens for echoes in Christian understandings of the gratuitousness of the created order in relation to God"-- Provided by publisher.