For more information on the USGS-the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment, visit http://www.usgs.gov or call 1-888-ASK-USGS.For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit http://www.usgs.gov/pubprodTo order this and other USGS information products, visit http://store.usgs.gov Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also may contain copyrighted materials as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items must be secured from the copyright owner. Thanks are also extended to all of the USGS hydrologists and hydrologic technicians who made extraordinary efforts during and after the floods in collecting and analyzing the data for this report. The authors would also like to acknowledge William F. Coon and Phillip J. Zarriello of the USGS for their detailed technical reviews of the report and Mary S. Ashman (USGS) for her thorough editorial review of the report. The major contributions to the graphics in the report by the geographic information system and publications units of the USGS New York Water Science Center are also much appreciated. 28-29, 2011, January 19-20, 1996, and April 4-5, 1987, and corresponding elevations for the 10-, 2-, 1-, and 0. Floods of 2011 in New YorkBy Richard Lumia, Gary D. Firda, and Travis L. Smith AbstractRecord rainfall combined with above-average temperatures and substantial spring snowmelt resulted in record flooding throughout New

University of FloridaThe present essay reassesses the central narratives of that renowned Purāṇic ‘glorification’ (māhātmya) of Vārāṇasī, the Kāśīkhaṇḍa. In retelling the ancient stories pertaining to Śaiva Vārāṇasī, the Kāśīkhaṇḍa embeds itself within the authoritative tradition of Vārāṇasī māhātmyas, even while effecting an ambitious literary project: a radical reconfiguration of the Śaiva landscape of the city. This reconfiguration would seek to legitimize new Śaiva forms—most prominently, an imperial temple dedicated to Viśveśvara—while reconciling them with Vārāṇasī’s existing Pāśupata infrastructure. Belying facile characterizations of Purāṇa as mere ‘myth’, the Kāśīkhaṇḍa composers took care in ensuring that the many, interwoven strands of its grand narrative of Vārāṇasī’s past were purposefully linked to ideological concerns of the present. A close reading of the Kāśīkhaṇḍa’s narrative strategies provokes a reevaluation of current scholarly understandings of Vārāṇasī history that view texts as imperfectly reflecting historical realities, rather than as actively constructing that very history.

This article explores the unique textual dynamism of the Sanskrit Purāṇas, considering it as an essential feature of Purāṇa as a genre. While early textual scholars looked upon the extreme eclecticism and textual instability of this literature with disdain, the Purāṇas themselves were aware of their own fluctuation as a corpus, making efforts to justify it while also taming it, all the while boldly asserting Purāṇa’s canonical status and its ultimate coherence and authority. The complex and varied strategies that Purāṇa texts take in achieving these goals take on new significance in locating the origins of this genre in the new orthodox but inclusivist theistic movements of the early centuries of the Common Era, which operated on the frontiers of brahmanical culture. Purāṇa was a textual form conceived by such groups, and perfectly suited to the dissemination of their particular doctrines and practices. As such, Purāṇa was “frontier literature” in two senses: in the first place, it was composed and deployed primarily on the geographical margins of brahmanical orthopraxis; and secondly, the distinctive textual editability of Purāṇa texts made Purāṇa a site of constant sectarian and ideological contestation.

The Orthodox Church in Canada finds itself in an ecclesiological dilemma on the eve of its second century of presence in this part of the world. For a variety of sociological and theological reasons, it has thus far been unable to coalesce into one visible institution, remaining instead segregated along ethnopolitical lines and showing few signs of escaping from its resultant selfimposed marginalization in Canadian society. The widely respected and well received theology of the local church as the preferred Orthodox insight into the nature and functioning of Christian community has thus far made little headway in extricating Orthodox Christianity in the Canadian context from its chaotic jurisdictional status. The reality of multiculturalism as a distinguishing characteristic of Canadian society further complicates the issue by offering a secularized model of the Pentecost event as a powerful extra-ecclesial argument for the retention of ethnically defined churches. For the outside admirer of Eastern Christianity, this ongoing failure of the Orthodox to address the problems confronting their church in a multicultural society runs the risk of eliminating by neglect an incarnation of the Christian experience of God of immense value for all Christian traditions. It is to commit on a theological level the same fundamental error which on a sociological level plagues the establishment of multiculturalism in Canada: to ignore the givens of a shared vision of human society and assert diversity for its own sake without concern for unity.

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