Abstract
Aloka Parasher Sen, Gender, Religion and Local History: The Early Deccan (Delhi: Primus Books), 2023, xxv + 390 pp., ₹1,750 (Hb).
Aloka Parasher Sen, surely one of the most prolific scholars of her generation, has constantly reminded us about the need to acknowledge and engage with the particular. In this anthology, consisting of seven essays, she charts out gender relations in the early Deccan, returning to a period and a space that she has studied both extensively and intensively for several decades. Religious traditions provide the entry point. Parasher Sen explores these using textual, epigraphic and visual material, urging the reader to view categories such as patriarchy as flexible rather than fixed and arguing forcefully and persuasively against a static understanding of the past.
The introductory essay provides a historiographical survey of the field in broad brushstrokes and a foretaste of the strategies of analysis that Parasher Sen deploys through a discussion of the divine figure of Mohini, exemplifying an early and complex representation of androgyny. Here and elsewhere, Parasher Sen leads us rapidly through a vast array of sources, ranging from the Mahabharata to early Buddhist narratives, before drawing attention to the representation of Vishnu as Mohini in the Puranic tradition as well as in sculpture and painting. She rightly highlights the complexity of the myth. At the same time, one wishes that there was a more sustained engagement with the visual traditions that she alludes to. How central were these representations to the contexts in which they were found? And, given that sculptures and paintings drawn from very diverse spaces and times were accessed by spectators, both devout and otherwise, how are we to understand these visuals?
These issues resurface in the discussion on Lajja Gauri. Parasher Sen draws attention to some striking visual representations of the deity and their rich symbolism, including the pot-like womb, which has visual analogies with the kalasha, which became a part of temple architecture, even as Lajja Gauri images made their way into the temple premises. While the correlation between the kalasha and the womb is both interesting and plausible, one wishes that there was some more information about the placement or location of the images within and/or around the shrine, in terms of other deities, to get a more precise sense of their significance. Would viewers/worshippers several centuries ago have made the correlations suggested by scholars in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? Sen is aware of these complications and attempts to straddle diversities and divergences across space and time, offering resolutions suggesting harmonies and correlations, which might occasionally seem remote, given our present fraught locations.
The second substantive essay focuses on women in Buddhism. Here, Parasher Sen outlines the context and message of early Buddhism before moving on to questions of gender. This includes an account of the debates around women’s entry into the sangha and the possibility of their attaining the ultimate goal, as well as a summary of the Buddha’s teachings meant for those who remained within the world. This leads on to an exploration of the visual and archaeological material available from Buddhist sites in the Deccan. Here, Parasher Sen summarises findings based on inscriptions across the larger region while highlighting the presence and diversity of women donors. This in turn flows into a discussion on mithuna figures—cross-sex couples often, though not always, represented in erotic modes. Their significance in the context of monuments associated with a renunciatory tradition remains intriguing. Parasher Sen is inclined to suggest that these images represent a dialogue with and accommodation of local attitudes, beliefs and practices. What emerges is a situation where early Buddhism is understood as encompassing multivalent, and occasionally conflicting ideas about gender relations.
Parasher Sen next draws attention to the temple women of the early medieval period, considered auspicious in spite of not being ‘wives’ in the conventional sense of the term. Here, she attempts to move beyond the colonial stigmatisation of these women, rehabilitating them through a consideration of the inscriptional evidence. As in other instances, she provides an insightful critique of historiographical debates around these women. In doing so, she underscores the need to acknowledge and engage with terminological specificities as well as spatio-temporal diversities. It is in this context that she analyses the epigraphic and visual material pertaining to early medieval Karnataka, focusing in particular on the different and occasionally overlapping terms used to designate these women and their functions. This detailed analysis is useful in highlighting differentiation and variations within the overarching category. Parasher Sen also draws attention to the contrast between normative provisions regarding women’s access to property and the changing scenario on the ground. At the same time, she cautions against romanticising the status of these women, indicating ways in which their position changed as well as focusing on the demand for sexual services, which was a feature of a distinct patriarchal order.
The essay that follows discusses the ways in which Jaina women relate to the ideal of voluntary death, recognised as a crucial element of the tradition. Here, Parasher Sen draws attention to the complex ways in which public ritual intersects with the private, individual goal of liberation. As in the earlier instances, she etches out the broader context before introducing and analysing specific details. This juxtaposition allows us to engage with the dynamics of the relationship between a major tradition, and the ways in which it is understood and shaped in regional contexts.
This is evident in the discussion on the relationship between a local goddess, Chenchu Laksmi and the Narasimha avatar of Visnu as well. Parasher Sen contextualises this in terms of the relationship of the inhabitants of this forested and hilly tract with the Vijayanagara empire, providing us with interesting insights. She traces various representations of Prahlada, the devout demon, unpacking shifts through the Puranic tradition. Further, she draws on ethnographic accounts to reconstruct the contested and complex relationship between the Chenchus, the indigenous forest dwellers, and Narasimha, typified by a marital tie between the deity and a Chenchu goddess/woman, which is represented in a variety of ways. And there is yet another strand woven into the rich visual representation of the relationship between Narasimha and his consort. What is evident is that the iconography is not standardised.
The concluding chapter focuses on the goddess Kali. Here, Parasher Sen moves away from the spatio-temporal focus that runs through most of the other chapters, adopting instead a much wider, almost atemporal framework. The Deccan, too, recedes into the background. Interesting as it is, its connections with the rest of the volume are somewhat tenuous.
Overall, Parasher Sen draws on a rich variety of inscriptional, visual and textual resources. The visual material in particular, presented through sharp, clear images, enhances the value of the work.
Having said that, there are certain methodological issues that perhaps require some reflection. These are encapsulated in the author’s statement (p. 34) that her attempt is ‘not to glorify the dominant traditions of the past, but rather recover some of the positive elements of the great and small traditions inherited by us to counter the monolithic construction of patriarchy in the Brahmanical tradition’. What needs to be foregrounded more carefully is the basis on which ‘positive elements’ are identified, as well as the larger contexts within which these were located historically. Abstracting or extracting ‘positive elements’ from traditions, whether dominant or not, can provide us with some resources, it is true, but may not help us in understanding the socio-political processes through which gender identities were constructed, challenged and acquired meaning. The problems with this strategy are, I think, particularly evident in the treatment of the goddess Kali in the concluding essay. While the way in which the goddess was envisaged by some of her well-known male devotees receives the attention it deserves, the implications of such conceptualisations for gender relations require some further consideration.
Also, there may be scope for reflecting on the notion of a ‘religious society’(e.g., pp. 4–5, ‘the largely religious society of early India’). It is true that many of the sources for the study of early India available at present, including texts, architectural and visual remains in terms of sculpture and painting, and inscriptions associated with religious monuments, can be regarded as ‘religious’. At the same time, it is useful and even necessary to acknowledge that societies, both past and present, have had a whole range of other intersecting dimensions. While these may not be equally and obviously visible in our sources, their existence is undeniable. Hence, it is perhaps important not to classify any society as ‘religious’—other dimensions in terms of economic and political activities, now increasingly marginalised in a situation where we are being forced into accepting somewhat monolithic religious identities, need to be acknowledged. In all fairness, these dimensions do emerge in some of the specific essays and could perhaps be further highlighted.
Finally, although gender is foregrounded in both the title and elsewhere, the discussion tends to focus on women rather than gender relations. Some of us would argue that it is this latter, relational aspect that gives gender its distinctive meaning—abstracting references to women from sources—a strategy that has been part of scholarship for decades and, while a valuable exercise, has also proven to be somewhat limited unless we open ourselves to the possibilities of a comparative study of both genders. To cite one instance, that of ritual death within the Jaina tradition, it would have been interesting to see the similarities and differences between women and men who opted for this mode of ending their lives. While Parasher Sen draws attention to differences amongst women, as, for instance, in her discussion on temple women, the differences between men and women would have further enriched the analysis. And, given the attempt to explore the question of the agency of women in some instances, a discussion of the possibilities, opened up by Jaya Tyagi in her analysis of gender relations in the Puranic tradition, would have been useful.
While these possibilities remain, Parasher Sen has certainly thrown much light on crucial themes and opened the path for further investigation.