Goddesses and women in the Indic religious tradition

182 Pages·2005·0.882 MB·English

by  Sharma, Arvind

GODDESSES AND WOMEN IN
THE INDIC RELIGIOUS TRADITION
BRILL’S
INDOLOGICAL
LIBRARY
EDITED BY
JOHANNES BRONKHORST
IN CO-OPERATION WITH
RICHARD GOMBRICH • OSKAR VON HINÜBER
KATSUMI MIMAKI • ARVIND SHARMA
VOLUME 24
GODDESSES AND WOMEN
IN THE INDIC RELIGIOUS
TRADITION
EDITED BY
ARVIND SHARMA
BRILL
LEIDEN•BOSTON
2005
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goddesses and women in the Indic religious tradition / edited by Arvind Sharma.
p. cm. — (Brill’s Indological library, ISSN 0925-2916 ; v. 24)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 90-04-12466-7 (hard cover)
1. Women in Hinduism. 2. Women and religion. 3. Goddesses, Hindu. 4.
Women—Religious aspects—Hinduism. I. Sharma, Arvind. II. Series.
BL2015.W6G63 2004
294’.082—dc22
2004057558
ISSN 0925-2916
ISBN 90 04 12466 7
© Copyright 2005 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
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printed in the netherlands
in memory of
David Kinsley
(1939-2000)
who passed away while this volume was in preparation

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION............................................................................... ix
CHAPTERONE:Roles for Women in Vedic (cid:285)rauta Ritual
STEPHANIEW.JAMISON ............................................................. 1
CHAPTERTWO:Tibetan Fairy Glimmerings: D(cid:1167)(cid:407)kin(cid:431)s in Buddhist
Spiritual Biography
VICTORIAKENNICKURUBSHUROW ............................................. 18
CHAPTERTHREE:Women, Earth, and the Goddess: A (cid:285)(cid:407)kta-Hindu
Interpretation of Embodied Religion
KARTIKEYAC.PATEL ................................................................ 50
CHAPTERFOUR:Women in the Worship of the Great Goddess
HILLARYRODRIGUES ................................................................. 72
CHAPTERFIVE:Between Pestle and Mortar: Women in the
Marathi Sant Tradition
VIDYUTAKLUJKAR .................................................................... 105
CHAPTERSIX:(cid:285)aØkara on the Salvation of Women and (cid:285)(cid:460)dras
KATHERINEK.YOUNG............................................................... 131
INDEX............................................................................................... 167

INTRODUCTION
ARVINDSHARMA
Fokke Dijkema approached me several years ago to put together a
book on the theme of goddesses and women in the Indic religious
tradition. At the time, I was inclined to demur for fear that the field
may have been harvested to the point of diminishing returns. But now
that the volume is ready I am glad that I allowed myself to be
persuaded. This transformation in my attitude is the result of what the
distinguished contributors to this volume have accomplished in these
essays. Apparently the field is more fecund than I had taken it to be.
In the first essay we are offered a glimpse of how even initially
unpromising material of the kind associated with ritual minutiae can
reward scholarly perseverance. Stephanie W. Jamison demonstrates
how such investigation sheds new light on the status of women. It
also allows us to see earlier conclusions in this respect in a new light.
With the second essay we enter a magic garden, as it were,
inhabited by the Buddhist “fairies.” This paper explores a realm often
neglected, the realm which lies between the mundane and the
transcendent. Victoria K. Urubshurow dis-closes how vital a role
óàkinãs, who inhabit this in-between world, play in the ascent from
the mundane to the transcendent in Tibetan Buddhism.
The third essay deals with “embodied knowledge,” wherein
Kartikeya C. Patel offers a new paradigm of viewing the relationship
between women, earth and the Goddess.
The fourth essay, by comparison, is more conventional and deals
with women and the worship of the Goddess, at the end of which
Hillary Rodrigues offers the interesting conclusion that the entire
period of festivities brings about “a temporary status elevation” for
women. It represents a period during which “woman hood is
transformed and purified, elevated in auspiciousness and venerated.”
The fifth essay discusses what happens to ordinary women of the
family when the families become God-intoxicated. Vidyut Aklujkar
illustrates their fate with the help of biographical details from the
lives of Nàmdev and Tukàràm.
x ARVIND SHARMA
The final essay examines in textual and hermeneutical detail the
position of (cid:216)aïkara on the accessibility of salvation to woman and
(cid:215)(cid:197)dras. The issue is important because it is (cid:216)aïkara’s position that
the Vedas are inaccessible to women and (cid:215)(cid:197)dras, and further that the
Vedas are the primary means of attaining salvific knowledge about
Brahman. An important point in (cid:216)aïkara’s thought is involved
here—that(cid:216)aïkara allows for a universal soteriology within allowing
for universal accessibility to the Vedas. Katherine K. Young spells
out how precisely (cid:216)aïkara manages to hold on hermeneutically to
these apparently divergent positions.
These essays point to a hermeneutics of surprise, both individually
as well as collectively. That is to say, they surprise us by belying our
academic expectations. To offer just two examples: Menstruation
often possesses negative associations in Hinduism and yet it seems to
acquire an almost celebratory air in chapter three when the earth is
feminized in this way—an outcome one would hardly expect in the
light of the earlier association. Similarly, one would expect the
family of a devout devotee to be suffused with domestiv felicity as an
expression of such piety, and yet the next-of-kin of the saint seem to
have a hard time in chapter five. And so on.
I hope I have said enough to induce the reader to keep reading
further for more surprises.