ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the trope of the devoted wife associated with Sati gets deconstructed in the female-centric theology developed in texts like the Mahabhagavata Upapurana and Bharatchandra's Bengali text, Annadamangal Kavya and an alternative interpretation/reconstruction of the narrative emerges through the foregrounding of a Shiva madly devoted to his wife. It argues that, within the narrative universe of the texts, Shiva's devotion to his wife becomes more central to the myth than Sati's devotion to Shiva. The chapter also argues that the Mahabhagavata Sati does offer a proto-feminist and "goddess-centered" version of the myth. It points out, Loriliai Biernacki has underlined this female-friendly theology gradually developing in the tantric Hinduism of late medieval Eastern/North-Eastern India, especially around the cult of the Goddess Kamakhya. The chapter strongly argues that the Sati myth, from the tantric perspective, radically gets altered in terms of its mytheme of "love".
