World of Philosophy

SR No.: 007005
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan
Publication Year: 2011
Total Pages: 1002
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 30 MB

Page 190

world religions such that women are then placed within the domestic space or ascribed appropriate religious spaces within institutional religion. This analysis is of relevance with the current move to a post Cold War era, globalization and the rise in fundamentalism. Together these factors raise issues of a reinscription of women's roles within religion and nationalisms and threaten the rights of women won in the last century.
In describing the sacred and religious shaping of feminine subjectivity and sexuality, voice is given by feminist scholars to the need for a balance between an understanding of women's religious and mythic experience as well the sociopolitical and economic realities within which they are formed. Different frameworks for analysis use different methodologies. Traditionally, the reading of 'prakriti" (feminine) as the multifold essences of being, and 'purusha"(the masculine) as the impersonal structure of consciousness was constructed as constituting the gendered identity framework of the pantheon of gods and archetypes in many readings. In turn, these transpersonal selves are seen as the signatures for understanding the bisexuality/androgynous nature of human identity. Gendered human spirituality plays out some sort of polarity. The divine play as template for the personal endeavor and struggles on the one hand of a model of submission, purity, chastity, and domesticity and on the other of a wild woman of unbridled passion, strength, and knowledge seems to typify the generally Orientalist readings of Indian iconography into the dichotomy between stereotypes of renunciation and exuberance, virginality and whoredom. The Gandhian vision of the Indian superwoman, Max Muller's reading of dangerous sexuality vis-à-vis Indian women, and O'Flaherty's idealization of Jungian archetypes within the Indian pantheon seem a limited dichotomization of a multitude of positions and indeed realities.
Perhaps historicity can not so easily be separated from personal symbol systems and experiences. It may be tendentious to suggest that the notion of the divine and numinosity are open to cultural and historical analysis. The lure of the rich symbolism of the Indian goddesses holds potent meanings for analysis and exploration but I am not sure whether a Jungian or Freudian/ Ericksonian libido theory are necessarily the only tools of analysis. Perhaps the personal numinous experiences of women's spirituality needs to come under the gaze of a sociopolitical and economic analysis. This construction of the notion of the divine highlights many of the difficulties of simple readings of women's spirituality. These difficulties in understanding become further accentuated by the regional differences and heterogeneity, such as in the considerably enlightened position of women in the Virasaivism sect; the polyandrous Nayar traditions; Draupadi-influenced sects of southern India, and the reasonably enlightened approach to education within Kerala.
141