ABSTRACT
As the previous chapters have pointed out, this study directs its audience primarily to Hindu thought rather than social practice relating to women. It will also have been clear that the purpose of this study is not to offer an exposition of Hindu philosophical ideas except where they relate to ideas of gender, most prominently in the linkages between women and Hindu goddesses. While we need to acknowledge that in matters of lived experience, thought and practice are indeed interdependent and that thought determines practice as much as practice gives rise to ideas, we can take only one of these categories at a time for the sake of concentrated and fruitful attention. That is why this study begins by assembling textual material that reflects the views of Hindu thinkers on women. A striking characteristic, and perhaps a troubling one, of the material presented in this study is the frequent self-contradiction within texts. The Manusm®ti and the Mahābhārata are
The Hindu discourse on womankind is vast and more often divisive than not. The provisions for women’s life in traditional thought are many and generally restrictive, especially when backed by religious ideology. Setting goddesses and mortal women side by side shows how Hindu thought has historically conflated power and dependency within the idea of womanhood, no matter how irreconcilable the two positions might be. Still more intriguing is that the seemingly inescapable dependency that such a belief system imposes on women has also provided room for liberation through acts of creative imagination within the conditions of its religious culture.
