Jignasa Journal Of History Of Ideas And Culture Part 02

Author(s): Vibha Upadhyaya and Others
Publisher: University of Rajasthan

Page 85

Encapsulated as Material Artistic Response
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accommodation of the changed circumstances, which further was found articulated as Devala Smrti. 4 There is a distinct reference in it to the "cases of persons who had embraced the Mleccha religion, as well as those whose women had been ravished, and had also conceived." While the purifactory rites were prescribed for the persons returning to their religion, ravished' women were considered to be pure after the period of their menstruation, with a three day fast, and those of them who had conceived were to be "reclaimed back to their original fold after the delivery of the child."46 It was further noted in Deval Smrti, that the foetus in the womb of such women was like a thorn in her body and when this substances was removed, as her body visited her next menstrual cycle, "she becomes pure as gold. "47 The other references pertaining to them, sees the ladies as dancers and singers playing on the musical instruments, as well as painters, which have been cited from Rājashekhara's Viddhaśālabbhñjikā, while the heroines of Karpūramanñjari and Viddhaśālabbhñjikā were seen to be having a creative bent who composed poems." The approach to the position of women apart from the routine, stereotyped description on them was also viewed through Rāvyamīmāṁsā of Rājaśkhera which gave a description of the nepathya-costume or attrire of the ladies in the east, north, west and south in accordance with natural surroundings, customs and manners of the people. Thus the representation of the women largely appears far removed from these descriptive elements, and their temple representation is thus associated to the past remote sequence of ritualistic religious overtones, steeped in the folds of mythologies which visited the embedded femininity with the various 'masculine divine 'sanctions."
The religious environment can further be examined to understand its linkages to the formation of the feminine spaces, through articulations and comments which stressed upon the impact of religion by stating that, "In the early medieval period of our history religion played a much more important role in the people's lives than it does at present. It coloured their attitude towards every problem, political, ethical as well as social and created an atmosphere which might be regarded as peculiarly Hindu, even though this term had not till then gained popular currency. "49 But this religious life as it appears was multilayered, which further as Dasharatha Sharma noticed as a strong syncretist tendency amongst the Pratihāras. While the other view saw the 'religious life during the period of the GurjaraPratihāras as the dominance of Saivism and the Vaişpavism. And yet on the other hand, the Karpūramañjari also refers to Kaulas and the supernatural powers possessed by Bhairavanātha, who "combined the pleasure with salvation, religion with indulgence in wine and women, and repute for piety with most unrestricted sensuality." It has been viewed as a degenerate form of worship. Further the Kaulas indulged in drinking and flouted"...............some of the moral and social conventions, because these appeared to them as representatives of that duality which they were taught to overcome by word as well as act. In fact, Kula, the state of which a Kaula tried to attain, requires complete disappearance of the distinction between the knower, the known and the knowledge. Carried to its logical limits such a theory leaves no place for morality."*52
While commenting on the position of women gleaned from the contemporary literature, Dasharatha Sharma opines that Rajasthan "had no lack of women of easy virtue. Reformers like Haribhadra Sūri, Jineśvara Sūrī and Jinavallabha Süri raised their voice against the employment of such women in temples." The temple, thus, as an important site for situating the women of easy virtue,' is an important indicator to be borne constantly to attempt to study and locate the feminine workings, as their proximity and presence in the premises added to the specific sculptural environment in addition to the one of purely religious intent in general, and is suggestive of various other activities of the