VL 5 HumanGoddessesDivineWomen Flashcards
- The female body: pure/impure, natural/social
Dialetics between life-negating and
life-affirming ideologies (Dumont, Heesterman, Madan, etc.)
Different ways to obtain power within the same complex religious and cultural phenomenon
Two fundamental oppositions
- Purity (śauca, śuddhi) vs impurity (a-śauca, a-śuddhi)
“A scale of status and hierarchy which corresponds to the caste hierarchy: [traditional] Hindu society is based on this scale”
Concerned with status, the particular concern of the Brahmanical social group. Their duty is to create a ritually pure environment at all time
- Auspiciousness (śubha, maṅgala) vs Inauspiciousness (a-śubha, a-maṅgala)
“A scale of the degree to which events, times, and relationship are conducive to the well-being of the society or individual”
Concerned with power, particularly political power; particular concern of the king. Involves the “divinity” of the king: king capable of creating an auspicious kingdom, with good fortune and prosperity
The Body
- The body is polluted everyday but should be kept as ritually pure as possible. Main way to do it: by water (here: purity overlaps with hygiene, but it is not always the case)
- Deeper level of ritual pollution: it is inherent in the body and differentiate one social group from another.
The polarity of purity/impurity traditionally organizes the Hindu social space. The Dharmaśāstras are a corpus of texts dealing with rules of behaviour depending on caste and life-stage rules of ritual im/purity
Natural and social body
- The “natural” body is dependent on karman, actions accomplished in the past that have future results and determine one‘s own rebirth
- Karman determines both a human/animal/divine rebirth, a female/male body, and a certain caste
- Social rules differ for the different individuals, according to „caste and life-stage”: varṇāśrama- dharma
varṇāśrama-dharma
(duties based on caste and life-stage)
Dharma of the individual (svadharma) is based on:
1. social position, caste: => varṇa
2. stage of life: => āśrama
The caste system: varṇa and jāti
varṇa: “colour” (skin or symbolic?):
four main hierarchical and functional categories
* Brāhmaṇa
* Kṣatriya
* Vaiśya
* Śūdra
priests, priesthood, or Brahmins warriors, royal class
farmers, breeders (and later traders) servants, day labourers
Outside of this structure: Caṇḍālas (untouchables)
jāti “birth”: smaller but much more numerous categories based on the profession (in the narrow sense of the term), equated with function in society and based on hierarchical notions of relative purity and impurity (pure and impure professions).
Śuddhi (‘purity’) > ‘Commensality and Endogamy’
Life goals : Stages of life
4 Puruṣārtha
Dharma (law)
Artha (property) Kāma (desire)
Mokṣa (liberation)
4 Āśrama
Brahmacārin: celibate student
Gṛhastha: householder
Vānaprastha: forest hermit Saṃnyāsin: renouncer
General dharma
“Abstention from injuring, truthfulness, refraining from anger, purification, and mastering the organs—this, Manu has declared, is the gist of the Law for the four classes.”
(Manusmṛti 10.63, Translation Olivelle 2005 The Laws of Manu)
Strī-dharma: Women and (in)dependence
“Even in their homes, a female—whether she is a child, a young woman, or an old lady—should never carry out any task independently.
As a child, she must remain under her father’s control; as a young woman, under her husband’s; and when her husband is dead, under her sons’. She must never seek to live independently.”
Mānavadharmaśāstra 5.147-148 Translation P. Olivelle, Manu’s Code of Law
Saṃskāras – ‘Rituals of passage’ * “Lifecyclerituals”
=> transform the “natural” body, characterised by karman, into a “social” body
Þ literally: “perfections”
Þ rituals performed differently depending on caste and gender
Saṃskāras I
Prenatal
1. garbhādhāna
Procreation rite
2. puṃsavana
Ritual for a male offspring
3. simantonnayana
Parting the hair of the pregnant mother
Birth and childhood rituals
4. jātakarman Birth rituals
5. nāmakaraṇa Naming
6. niṣkramaṇa Leaving the house for the first time
7. annaprāśana First consumption of solid food
8. cūḍākaraṇa First haircut
9. karṇavedha Piercing of an earlobe
Saṃskāras II
Puberty rituals (boys)
10. vidyārambha Beginning of learning 11. upanayana
three upper castes: Initiation into the status of a disciple (sacrificial cord)
12. vedārambha
Start of Veda studies
13. keśānta First shave
14. samāvartana
End of studies under a teacher
Puberty rituals (girls)
South India: at the first menstruation
Upanayana with “Maṅgala-sūtra” before the wedding
Adult rituals
15. vivāha Wedding
16. antyeṣṭi Death ritual
Marriage (vivāha)
- Alliance relationship between the two families
- Endogamous (intra-caste) marriage is favoured
- Women can marry into higher status groups, men should not
Women and ritual rights
- Women only acquire their final social status through marriage. The husband’s family become her relatives, not the family of origin.
- This is associated with ritual rights at the husband’s side.
pativratā
* Ideal image of the wife according to the Dharmaśāstras:
Þ pativratā: “one whose observances are for the husband”, i.e. it is interpreted as a form of asceticism (tapas)
Þ religious merit is acquired through fulfilment of the marital role
