Tradition, Innovation, and Resistance? Women’s Approaches to Holiness in Contemporary Vedic Rituals
Tradition, Innovation, and Resistance? Women’s Approaches to Holiness in Contemporary Vedic Rituals
Lecturer: Prof. Ute Hüsken
Keynote lecture
Approaches to Holiness
Third Annual Conference – The Israeli Association for the Study of Religions
Greetings: Dr. Naphtali Meshel, Dr. Adam Klin-Oron, Prof. Ithamar Gruenwald, Prof. Naama Constantini
The talk will introduce the Pāṇinikanyāmahāvidyālaya girls school in Varanasi (established 1970), a residential school hosting up to 100 girls from all over India (and Nepal). In this school, in-depth practical and theoretical knowledge of Sanskrit and Vedic rituals is imparted to the girls, complemented by training in martial arts, music, and computer sciences. The lecture will cover the history and reception of this school and its activities in influential Brahmin circles in Varanasi and will contextualize this within discussions of female religious agency (adhikāra) in Ancient India, the Ārya Samāj’s reinterpretation of this concept, and the views of the girls themselves on these matters. In this way the lecture will address the following questions: Which strategies do the women involved employ to integrate in a tradition that excludes them? What are the competing agendas of the diverse stakeholders, including the men, involved in the processes? How, in this case, does the higher degree of gender equality within this tradition come at the expense of other subjectivities?