I’m going to suggest that the use of the masculine here is a linguistic marker referencing another class of gods, and that as a class of gods, women resemble this other class of living, breathing gods. That is, the status that we find for women in these texts in many respects parallels the bh-deva, the “earth-gods,” that is, Brahmins, that class of humans who are like gods, but walk the face of the earth.
My assertion is corroborated in other ways. For example, the GST applies the same procedure of feeding Brahmins for the attainment of religious merit to women: “Earlier the rules were given that one should feed a Brahmin according to one’s ability. In the same way one should feed a woman” (5.9bf). Women are like Brahmins, and just as feeding a Brahmin brings merit, so does feeding a woman. Similarly, the BT also tells us that worshipping a woman brings results equal to that which one gains by giving a learned Brahmin a field rich with grain (6.7f). Elsewhere, in a list where we might expect to find Brahmins listed, women take their place. The CT says “one should make great efforts and with devotion worship the guru, goddess, sdhus (itinerant practitioners), women, and the immortal self” (5.7). It would not have been at all against normative expectations to find Brahmins in this fourth position slot; instead here we find the category “women.” Again, the GST describes for each of the four castes the state of beatitude one can expect from the repetition of the mantra associated with the five m’s.29 Here, the Brahmin is absorbed into the supreme self; the warrior caste (katriyri) gets to dwell with the Supreme Goddess eternally; the merchant attains the same form as the supreme Goddess (svarpd); the servant caste (drd) gets to live in the same general world as the Goddess (salokd). The text then includes women as a fifth caste that gets absorbed into the body of the Goddess (GST 7.15ff).30 Just as we find in normative Hinduism that serving Brahmins, these earth-walking gods, leads a person to salvation, so also all “beings reach salvation by serving women” (CT 4.23b; 2.44-Adhika Ptha). Earlier I noted a verse from the GST that assimilates women as a class to the creator god. In fact, this is precisely what we find with Brahmins who get linguistically and otherwise assimilated to the creator god Brahm.
This class action reverence is not at all like the respect accorded to the guru or the yogin. In the case of the guru especially, most tantric texts, including these, are eminently cognizant of the existence of both good and false gurus, and they take no pains to supply us with lists of the qualities we might expect to see in both. Gurus are individuals and individually merit worship and respect. Not so in the case of Brahmins and women. Just as Brahmins as a class are categorically offered respect, so these texts enjoin this sort of class-based respect toward women. We should keep in mind here how radically this diverges from normative Hindu tradition where women as a caste are mostly grouped with, or place on a par with, the lowest of the four castes, the dras (Smith, 1991: 18).31 L ikew ise, women’s faci lit y w it h mantras extends to members of the class as a whole and not specifically to particular women.
What does this class action reverence mean for women? It affords a way to shift the status women have in the social sphere. For our own purposes, what’s interesting about this potential shift is precisely that it does not rely on a version of gender founded on a duality. This non-binary model, I suspect, is part of what’s key in the reconfiguring of women’s roles. It may be that, as Kristeva and Lacan argue, insofar as we construct our sense of self out of an element that must be extruded outside and alienated as “other” to our selves—and as an other that has historically taken the form of woman, as both Lacan and Kristeva note (Lacan, 1998: 6, 11, 73; Kristeva, 1982)—this “other,” as a perpetually alienated “other,” then becomes and remains intrinsic to the stability of self. That is, we can’t rid of the “other” without destabilizing our sense of self. This indeed presents a formidable psychological barrier to seeing women as equal, to releasing them from t he categor y of “other.” On the other hand, the model that these texts presents offers one possible way out of the impasse we find with the binary self/other (echoed in the binary of man/woman). The very multiplicity of the terms destabilizes the system. This may of fer possibilities for rethinking gender outside a dualist hierarchy.
NOTES
1. The word “yoni” here may refer to the woman or it may refer to the fema le sex organ, though in this case, the reply appears to suggest that it refers to the latter.
2. See, e.g., Muller-Ortega, 1989.
3. See also Dimock, 1989: 215–216.
4. See White, 2003; Bharati, 1965: 304ff; and Davidson, 2002: 92ff, especially 97. See also Humes, 2000.
5. These views differ from some contemporary anthropological research (i.e., Humes, 2000; and Caldwell, 1999).
6. I give here also Dvivedi’s (1978: 42) original Sanskrit for this quote since this is such a striking claim he makes: “ityatra varitau cnasnnanamaskrau islmadharmnuyyinm vaju-namaj-karman anuharatah.”
7. This text is edited by Rasik Mohan Chattopadhyaya in Tantrasra, a text to which I did not have access.
8. These are the akarman, a term referring to the sixfold division of goals in Tantric praxis.
9. See especially Jamison, 1991 and 1996; Patton, 2002; and Smith, 1991.
10. The Gandharva Tantra differs from the other sources in that it strongly affiliates itself with the r Vidy tradition and has less association with the Northeastern region. I discuss the dating of these texts elsewhere (Biernacki, 2007).
11. The “5 m’s”—each of the words in Sanskrit begins with the letter “m”—include meat (msa), fish (matsya), liquor (madya), parched grain (mudra), and sexual intercourse (maithund).
12. Notably many of these texts reference the Dev-Mhtmya and some, such as the My Tantra 3.12-3.20, directly quote the Dev-Mhtmya. However, nearly all of these texts date much later, to probably not earlier than the sixteenth century, suggesting a late date for this signature verse. I discuss the dating and location elsewhere (Biernacki, 2007). The Gandharva and Phetkri Tantra are both cited in Brahmnanda Giri’s ktnandatarangin, suggesting an earlier date for these two texts, especially for the Gandharva Tantra that Brahmnanda Giri cites extensively.
13. The Cncra Tantra presents an exception, since there is a German translation of it. Also, I heard of a popular nonscholarly English translation of the Cncra Tantra, but was not able to track it down.
14. See especially Irigaray, 1985.
15. BT 6.74-75: NT p.28, ln.14, also BT 6.300, NST11.120-11.121, CT 2.23, MT 11.38.
16. See Biernacki, 2007: 40-41, for the Sanskrit version and translation of this passage.
17. BT 6.301-6.302. See also BT 6.57.
18. Optionally, the guru may be present, and it appears the guru was probably a necessary presence when the couple first began performing the rite. See YT 1.19.
19. I discuss this durable reverence in detail in Biernacki, 2007.
20. Again at YT 1.16. The Sanskrit for CT 3.16 is: tatra cvahanam nsti. The line in the YT is identical (shifting slightly in the next portion of the verse).
21. tsrh prahro nindñc kauilyamapriyantath || sarvath ca na kar-tavyam |; CT 2.24, NST 11.121, NT p.28, ln.14, BT 8.91 as well as BT 6.74, GT 35.9, NT p.9, PhT 11.17, for no hatred toward women and GST 5.17-5.20, cautioning the practitioner to worship and feed women, and if one out of anger or delusion neglects to worship women, the practice is useless.
22. kadcid darparpea pupepi na tayet |, NST 16.7: atpardhasayukt pupepi na tayet. As I discuss in Biernacki, 2007, this line in the NST, though not that in the GT, is lifted from KuT 11.95.
23. The line here continues, “Especially not the women who are his.”
24. See especially Lindsay Harlan’s (1996) interesting discussion of the cursing power of the sat.
25. Chndogya Upaniad 4.4.3ff, translated in Olivelle, 1998.
26. Also GT 36.2. See also NST 14.50.
27. CT 2.25, NST 11.122, NST 16.6, GT 35.56, BT 6.75b, BT 8.90.
28. We should also note here that the text uses the term “god,” rather
than the feminine abstractive devat, which tends to carry a diminished importance in relation to the term deva. In this context, see also Weinberger-Thomas, 1999: 172, for a contemporary instance of a woman, in this case, the sat, designated with the male term dev (the Hindi version of the Sanskrit) rather than the female form dev.
29. The pañcatattva in these texts usually refers to the five m’s discussed earlier. However, it may also refer to the five elements or five principles of the cosmos.
30. This reading comes from two manuscripts the editors titled “k” and “n.” Recension “g” also lists women as a fifth group, though here they do not get absorbed in the body of the Goddess. The editors printed an alternative version that lists the fifth category as “army generals” (apparently the “kha” manuscript). Now as far as the logic of categories go, it seems rather far-fetched to list the four well-known castes and then as a fifth add the category of “army generals”—given that three of the five manuscripts give the fifth category as women. This editorial decision likely reflects an uneasiness on the part of this text’s editors and one of this text’s redactors to the more symmetrical idea of women as constituting a fifth caste. Also, “army generals” as a category is generally subsumed under the warrior caste. Finally, given that what the fifth caste obtains, absorption into the body of the Goddess (devdehe pralyate), it appears rather more likely that women would attain this state than would army generals.
31. We should note also GST 11.13 where women are still conceived of as a group like the four castes; however here, rather than being treated more like Brahmins, they again get lumped together with dras, as prohibited from pronouncing the syllable “Om.”
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Dev Mhtmyam: 700 Mantras on Sri Durga. n.d. Transl. Swami Jagadiswarananda. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math.
Dvivedi, Vrajvallabh. 1978. aktisangama Tantra. Chinnamastkhaa. Ed. B. Bhattacharya and V. V. Dvivedi. Baroda: Oriental Institute.
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P A R T III
The Feminine Principle in
Hindu Thought and Practice:
Problems and Possibilities
C H A P T E R 7
Hindu Rituals on Behalf of Women:
Notes o
n First Principles
Laurie L. Patton
In recent research I came across a young woman who told me how she recited the Rma-raksa, or “protection of Rma” mantra, during childbirth. I was struck by the integration of Sanskrit, and this small ritual, into her everyday life. Her Hindu world, and her performance of Sanskrit, included the labor and delivery room in a major city in India. While this was not a properly “Vedic” ritual, it was still modeled on the gyatr mantra and understood by many as Vedic. The baby was a girl, welcomed by all in the family. When I discussed this practice with another colleague, also a woman Sanskritist, I further commented that Sanskrit seemed to be a language of the heart as well as the head. She replied, “It is artha that matters—one’s goal in life and in ritual. Everything should be subject to artha, and analyzed accordingly.”
I was struck by the comment as a kind of practical philosophy—a sense of how one might best organize a life, both in terms of the appropriate mantra recitation as well as the appropriate rituals to follow as one confronts the stages of life. One might view my friend’s comment even as a kind of metapractical philosophy—an inquiry into why rituals work the way they do (see Kasulis, 1992). In other words, in my colleague’s view, the mantra became part of the larger goals of safe childbirth and flourishing of life. The following is a small meditation on the possibility of artha and the hierarchy of knowledge (prama, or “direct knowledge”; anumna, or “inferential knowledge”; smti, or “remembered knowledge”; and sadcara, or “customary practice”) in traditional Indian philosophy for present-day feminist purposes. By feminist purposes, I mean very simply thinking philosophically with the concerns of women in mind, such as safe childbirth and the prevention of female infanticide. These ideas will be the focus of the rest of this essay.
Woman and Goddess in Hinduism Page 18