NOTES
1. Julia Leslie (1989: 189) tackles the question of sat (suttee) as it is dealt with by Tryambakayajvan’s Strdharmapaddhati (“Guide to the Religious Status and Duties of Women”). While it is a choice for the Hindu wife (i.e., she chooses not to become a widow), there is also the choice to end one’s status of “wife” and take on the status of “widow-renunciate.”
2. See my descriptions and pictures in Herman, 2000.
3. Sircar (1973) notes a “germ” of early textual evidence in the Veda (10.61.5-70), which recounts a violation of a nameless daughter by her father. In the Brhmanas, this theme is elaborated on and the father is named as Prajpati (see, e.g., . Br. I.VII.4.1-8; and Ait. Br. III.33-34). Prajpati, identified with sacrifice, is punished for his incest by the gods, who have him pierced by Rudra’s arrow. The wound to Prajpati results in his seminal fluid (retas) falling on the ground. In the epic Mahbharata (XII.282-83), there is a description of King Daksa’s sacrifice and its destruction by iva, alerted to the insult by his wife, Sat, who is not identified as Daksa’s daughter. The story of Daksa’s sacrifice is elaborated by Klidsa; in his version, Sat, now the daughter of Daksa, commits suicide by fire having been insulted by the lack of invitation to her and her husband (5). The dismemberment is added in later texts. Thus, if Sircar’s history is correct, what was “male” power in the early texts becomes “female” power in the later recensions, particularly through the transformation wrought by fire.
4. There is a conflation of St and Sat mythology in terms of a pilgrimage site dedicated to the goddess Vaisno Dev: “One compendium of descriptions of pilgrimage sites repeats ‘old folklore’ that it was actually Vaio Dev who was born as Sat. . . Sat became curious about Lord Rma and took the form of St to observe him, but Rma immediately knew who she was. iva found out what Sat had done and became enraged . . . Sat then performed terrible penances . . . she eventually became Prvat and . . . she continues to perform tapas at the cave of Triküta” (Rajiv; quoted by Rohe, 2001: 65).
5. Susan Sered (1992: 10) elaborates on this theme in some detail, referring to the domestication of religion: “[it is] a process in which people who profess their allegiance to a wider religious tradition personalize the rituals, institutions, symbols, and theology of that wider system in order to safeguard the health, happiness, and security of particular people with whom they are linked in relationships of caring and interdependence.”
6. Several women quoted me those exact words. Madhu Kishwar, when I visited her in Delhi in December 2003, was fasting, i.e., allowing herself limited intake of only certain foods. She cited the cleansing, peaceful, and healthful effects of fasting, but not the religious. Is it possible that even the most secularized Indian woman sees the benefits of food restriction if only for the strength and peace of her own body and mind?
7. At a conference in Delhi, I read a part of this essay and was roundly criticized by an Indian woman who felt my topic was, in fact, antifeminist: “Don’t put us back in the kitchen!” In my location of the importance of Sītā as cook/ritualist, she saw a displacement of the importance of the professional woman. This is not what a connection with food preparation means for Indian women and I do not mean the ideal to be always a literal one. It is, however, a practical approach for “women who stay in the family life, vratas are the most important religious practices for redemption, spiritual elevation and even release from sasra. What renouncers achieve by leaving the family life, women achieve within the family by practicing austerity and selfrestraint required for the observance of the rituals of countless vratas” (Gupta, 2000: 103).
REFERENCES
Brown, Mackenzie C. 1998. The Dev Gt: A Translation, Annotation, and Commentary. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Bynum, Caroline Walker. 1987. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious S i g nif i ca n c e o f Fo o d to Me di e va l Wo m e n . Berkeley: University of California Press.
Fruzzetti, Lina. 1982. The Gift of a Virgin: Women, Marriage, and Ritual in a Bengali Society. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Ghosh, Pika. 1995. “Household Rituals and Women’s Domains.” In Cooking for the Gods: The Art of Home Ritual in Bengal, ed. Michael Meister, 21–25. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, and Newark, NJ: The Newark Museum.
Gross, Rita M. 2000. “Is the Goddess a Feminist?” In Is the Goddess a Feminist? The Politics of South Asian Goddesses, ed. Alf Hiltebeitel and Kathleen M. Erndl, 104–112. New York: New York University Press.
Gupta, Samjukta Gombrich. 2000. “The Goddess, Women and their Ritual Roles in Hinduism.” In Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Modern India, ed. Mandrakaranta Bose, 87–106. New York: Oxford University Press.
Herman, Phyllis. 1998. “Relocating Rmarjya: Perspectives on St’s Kitchen in Ayodhy.” International Journal of Hindu Studies, Vol. 2, no. 2 (August), 157–184.
———. 2000. “St in t he K itchen: The Pativrat and Rmarjya.” Manushi: A Journal about Women and Society, No. 120, 5–11.
Kaelber, Walter O. 1989. Tapta Mrga: Asceticism and Initiation in Vedic India. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Kinsley, David R. 1986. Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kishwar, Madhu. 1997. “Yes to St, No to Rm!: The Continuing Popularity of St in India.” In Manushi: A Journal about Women and Society. Delhi: Manushi Trust. Retrieved November 1, 2001, from http://www.india togethr.org/manushi/issue 98/sita.htm.
Leslie, Julia I. 1989. The Perfect Wife: The Orthodox Hindu Woman According to the Strdharmapaddhati of Tryambakayajvan. Delhi: Oxford Press.
Malamoud, Charles. 1996. Cooking the World: Ritual and Thought in Ancient India, trans. David White. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
McGee, Mary. 1987. Feasting and Fasting: The Vrat Tradition and Its Significance for Hindu Women, unpublished dissertation, Harvard University.
Pearson, Anne Mackenzie. 1996. “BecauseIt Gives Me Peace of Mind “: Ritual Fasts in the Religious Lives of Hindu Women. Albany, N Y: State University of New York Press.
Pintchman, Tracy. 2000. “Is the Hindu Goddess Tradition a Good Resource for Western Feminism?” In Is the Goddess a Feminist? The Politics of South Asian Goddesses, ed. Alf Hiltebeitel and Kathleen M. Erndl, 187–202. New York: New York University Press.
———, ed. 2001. Seeking Mahdev: Constructing the Identities of the Hindu Goddess. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Ratte, Lou. 1985. “Goddesses, Mothers, and Heroines: Hindu Women and the Feminine in the Early Nationalist Movement.” In Women, Religion and Social Change, ed. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Ellison Banks Findly, 351–376. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Rohe, Mark Edwin. 2001. “Ambiguous and Definitive: The Greatness of Goddess Vaio Dev.” In Seeking Mahdev: Constructing the Identities of the Hindu Great Goddess, ed. Tracy Pintchman, 55–76. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Sered, Susan Starr. 1992. Women as Ritual Experts: The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sircar, D. C. 1973. The kta Phas. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
C H A P T E R 5
Spreading akti
Karen Pechilis
INTRODUCTION
Rita Sherma’s methodological discussion of perspective in the study of religion in the introduction to this volume is an important new contribution to the continuing scholarly consideration of relationships among the self, the subject, and knowledge. She emphasizes that engagement, critical distance, and articulation are inseparably intertwined modes in a methodology of scholarly inquiry that fosters the creation of empathetic scholarly knowledge.1 She argues that intersubjective construction, “in which the scholar experiences, integrates, and reflects on the encounter,” involves both engagement and critical reflection within the encounter between knower and subject, while dialexis, “in which the scholar is intellectually engag
ed while taking into account that different cultures have divergent emotional, aesthetic and intellectual styles,” involves both self-reflection and a recognition of difference in the articulation of the knowledge produced within the encounter. The interface between the two modes contours scholarly study, bringing together both personal engagement and critical study in the formation of scholarly knowledge. The nex u s of t he hermeneut ics of i ntersubject ivit y, const r uct ive ref lect ion, and dialexis is an encouraging methodology, recognizing experience (emotional, aesthetic), critical reflection (on the scholar’s own experience as well as diverse sources of information about the subject), and articulation (dialogue with scholarly discourse) in its validation of the exploratory nature of scholarly knowledge.
The exploratory quality is vital to the definition of scholarship. In the U.S. educational system the culture of academia is a voluntary association: in theory, anyone can study anything. Credentials in a subject of study are earned through study over time in an accredited academic program. That time is spent in exploring possibilities of interpretation, being aware of a multiplicity of perspectives, and formulating one’s own ideas in order to advance scholarly understanding of the self, the subject, and the creation of knowledge. Exploration is a “structure of feeling” in the making of the culture of academia, a fundamental attitude that informs research and teaching.2
Scholarship is more about the exploration of inquiry than the consolidation of identity. It is one of the ironies of our era of globalization that a prominent response to the increased awareness of difference is the attempted consolidation of selfhood by insistence on what one perceives to be one’s own tradition. In this case, the multiple possibilities inherent in selfhood are subordinated, as noted by Madhu Kishwar (1999: 251–267, 251–252):
Every human being is the product of many cross-cutting, multilayered identities . . . For the most part, people take these identity layers for granted and they find expression in their appropriate realms at different points of time. However, a group or person may begin to assert a particular identity with greater vigor if it provides greater access to power and opportunities . . . Alternately, a person begins to assign a high priority to a particular basic identity if she or he perceives it as threatened or suppressed, especially if that identity is essential to the person’s personal, economic or social well-being.3
Perhaps it is not surprising that there is an emphasis on ownership— exclusive ownership—in an increasingly globalized capitalist context. In terms of religious practice, this approach could be characterized as fundamentalism.4 In terms of scholarship in religion, this approach cou ld be cha racter ized as t he st udy of a speci f ic rel ig ion w it hout mea n-ingful discussion of other religions, of interdisciplinar y methodolog y, or of religion as a category. Rita D. Sherma (2008: 1–18) describes this kind of dynamic as “ ‘hermeneutical reductionism’ which objectifies elements of religious traditions and deadens the possibility of Gadamer’s ‘fusion of horizons.’ “
At the other end of the spectrum would be the attempt to globalize: to purposefully engage with multiple cultural formations. One understands oneself to exist in a multilayered context, with multiple identities, also as per Kishwar’s discussion. In terms of religious practice, this approach could be characterized as institutional ecumeni-calism, or a personal commitment to a diversity of religious thought and practice. In terms of scholarship in religion, this approach could be characterized as the study of a specific religion accompanied by meaningful discussion of other religions (on a synchronic or a dia-chronic basis), of interdisciplinary methodology, or of religion as a category.
The two paths involve distinctive, though interrelated, perspectives on the self-reflection necessary for scholarship, which is another supporting “structure of feeling” that encourages exploration in the production of scholarly knowledge. This is an awareness of the Other t h at appl ies to t he met hod of schola rsh ip; or, as Sherma apt ly d iscus se s in the introduction to this volume, to the intersubjective exchange or “conversation” that is necessary for understanding. Scholarship insists on the active recognition of critical distance between the scholar and the subject or object of knowledge (with issues of perspective disclosed by the seeming interchangeability of these terms, though Sherma cogently argues for regarding the Other as subject in her introduction); this critical distance has been explicitly prob-lematized in studies that provide meaningful discussion of religions, interdisciplinary method, or religion as a category, while it has taken on a polemical cast, or been ignored completely, in studies that lack such components. However, even if not acknowledged in this latter type of study, personal engagement always brings a distinctive outsider perspective to a subject. Even if one chooses to present oneself as representative of the subject due to tradition, heritage, depth of study, and so on, it can be argued that if one is not the author or in any other way the progenitor of the subject of study, then one is an outsider whose knowledge is at least in part based on one’s own personal experience of that specific subject. Alternatively, one can acknowledge at the outset that one’s primary concern relates to a perspective or tradition that is outside of the subject of study’s self-definition.
It is this latter situation that I take up in this essay; specifically, sympathetically deconstructing and reconstructing Western feminist scholarship’s attempts to understand a Hindu-inspired spiritual path that does not, according to its publications and programs, take an explicit stand with respect to feminism. This Hindu-inspired spiritual path is Siddha Yoga. What feminist scholarship and Siddha Yoga have in common is that they are both attempts to connect with an “Other.” Western feminist scholarship seeks to understand women in non-Western cultures, and Siddha Yoga, which originated in India, seeks to continue its establishment in and engagement with Western cultures. The aspect of Siddha Yoga that has especially attracted Western feminist scholarship is its leadership by a Hindu female guru, Gurumayi. In this essay, I critically examine the nature of feminist scholars’ encounter with and the terms of their analysis of Siddha Yoga through intersubjective construction and dialexis.
WESTERN FEMINIST
EXPECTATIONS AND HINDU WOMEN GURUS
I came to the study of Hindu female gurus a few years ago, through my collaborative study of traditional religions new to the American subu rba n context u nder t he au spice s of t he Ha r va rd Plu r a l i sm Projec t Affiliate Program.5 The Siddha Yoga ashram in South Fallsburg in the Catskills, some ninety miles from New York City, was in my general surrounding region of study, and I was especially interested in the leadership of Siddha Yoga by Swami Chidvilasa na nda (a lso k nown as Gurumayi), a present-day Hindu female guru. A dimension of my interest was the feminist discussion of the presence or the absence of female leaders in world religions, a timely and contested topic. Female Hindu gurus, including the late Anandamayi Ma and the present-day Ammachi, Shree Maa, Mother Meera, and the focus of my study, Gurumayi, seemed to be candidates overdue for feminist scholarly analysis, given their prominence as religious leaders with thousands of devoted followers worldwide. However, when I turned to feminist studies that included discussion of Gurumayi, I noticed conflicting opinions on the guru’s “fit” with Western feminism.
On the one hand, scholar Catherine Wessinger (1993) identifies characteristics associated with the Asian traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism that challenge the patriarchal biblical traditions. For example, she understands women’s leadership in Siddha Yoga and in Buddhist groups in America to result from a specific combination of characteristics, including the lack of an exclusive male deity and a context of women’s social equality:
The history of Hinduism and Buddhism demonstrates that androgynous, neuter or female conceptions of the divine are not sufficient in and of themselves to promote equality for women. But once there is a social expectation of the equality of women [such as in the American context], conceptions of the divine that de-emphasize the masculine prove attractive to women and support
them in legitimating their presence in religious leadership roles. (139–140)
Additional factors that support the emergence of women’s religious leadership, according to Wessinger, include the ideal that women’s roles are not limited to wife and mother, and a de-emphasis on associating women with the fall of humankind. Although Wessinger states that Siddha Yoga “is not an explicitly feminist movement,” and she betrays her own mistrust of guru traditions as “patriarchal authority, even when it is being exercised by a woman,” she does tend to assimilate Siddha Yoga with a feminist critiq ue of patriarchy in biblical traditions (135, 139; cf. Pechilis, 2004: 237).
On the other hand, Elizabeth Puttick (1997: 192, also 188) identifies Gurumayi, along with the present-day Hindu female guru Nirmala Devi (also known as Sri Mataji, the founder of Sahaja Yoga), as “explicitly antifeminist. Puttick characterizes Gurumayi’s teachings as follows in support of this view: “As with most Hindu-based N[ew] R[eligious] M[ovement]s, Siddha Yoga theology has a misogy-nistic streak, with a particular emphasis on my, the illusory state of consciousness that causes suffering—personified as a woman” (181). She also contrasts what she considers to be the “feminine,” bhakti (devotional and participatory) leadership style of other Hindu female gurus (notably Mother Meera, Anandamayi Ma, and Ammachi) with the “androgynous” style of leadership characteristic of Gurumayi and Nirmala Devi, “which steers a middle path between cultivating the traditional masculine models, with the danger of taking on their flaws to an even greater degree, or adhering too closely to a feminine model, which lacks toughness in a confrontation or crisis” (194).6 The specific examples by which both authors register the gap between feminism’s self-definition and that of Siddha Yoga point to la rger u nderly i ng is sues: W hen we a sk , “ I s t he subjec t fem i n ist ?” what are we really asking? How do we respond to whether or not the subject identifies herself as feminist? Are we trying to determine whether or not the subject displays characteristics that we associate with feminism? Are we trying to assess the subject’s usefulness for feminism? Is our attempt explorator y, toward discovering both common ground as well as difference? Or is it assessment, toward our acceptance or rejection of the subject?7
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