Hindu Women: The Rites of Passage

by Penelope Stickney

REL 600Professor Brian Wilson

April 19, 2000

Hindu Women: The Rites of Passage

To the casual observer, the countryside of India is barren with dull flat green fields or

brown dust or mud. Amidst the sun drenched scenery are small clumps of trees, slow

muddy rivers, the dull white of humped cattle, or tiny homes and shops all drab with dust,

rust, and water stains. Within the old cities the streets are paths labyrinthed among rain-

browned official buildings. People are jammed into the streets and half-naked children,

suffering from extreme poverty and hunger, share space with the ambling sacred cows.

Without homes, whole families live and die in the open. The malnourished elderly with

deeply lined faces from toil and hard work endure beside emaciated children and animals.

Silhouetted in nature, the country moves through extreme natural crises of famine, flood,

and drought.

This face of India takes a new look when its life is understood through different eyes.

It is then that the daily activity, though apparently subdued and quiet, exhibits energetic

vitality and the extremes of humanity are not ignored but respected as part of natural,

cyclical living. Women in many-hued saris and men in pants and pastel shirts splash

color on the dignity of labor and work. Rather than apathetic, India explores the

vicissitude of life. The caste system, once established as a means to govern life, has

mutated, and although a disparity of privilege is still evoked by pervasive attitudes

toward some, women are considered equal to men in education, marriage, property rights,

and law. Women in India have gained in status and control of their personal lives, yet the

ideal symbolic nature of womanhood, first taught through the classical literature and

worship of female gods remains intricately woven into the patterns of social order and the

infinite within the self. However, this ideal paved the way for the breakdown of the

Indian caste system and the result of women's independence.

Tracing the origins of India as a nation enables an understanding of the roots of

Hinduism, yet traditional Indian point of view differs from the Western historians'

standard

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view. Western historians teach an Aryan invasion theory stating that the highly

organized

cultures of the Indus Valley and the villages in other parts of the subcontinent were

gradually overrun by nomadic invaders from outside India. The original civilization,

extending from about 2500 BCE to the Indio-European migrations at around 2000-1500

BCE, show remnants of technologically advanced cities, the plumbing and aqueducts

equaled only by the ancient Romans and the Mesopotamians of the modern world. While

these early cities contained no obvious temples, an elaborate bathing system uncovered

by archeologists suggests ritual purification. "Enigmatic religious motifs appear on many

of the seals and small art objects that have been found; these suggest a mother goddess...,

phallic gods, sacred bulls, and...a deity in perhaps a yogic meditation posture" ( Ellwood

and McGraw 61). But by 1900-1500 BCE, the Indus Valley civilization experienced its

decline and the cities fell into ruins at the hands of the Aryan cow herders who have been

ascribed with the early roots of Hinduism, and through the Laws of Manu (c. 100 CE),

helped to establish the system of caste.

Conversely, the Hindu nationalists reject this theory as they refuse to believe that their

religion is foreign-born, but rather the product of an indigenous people, who first

received the Vedas in the oral tradition c.8000-6000 BCE (Fisher 82-83). The extent of

this debate rests in the fact that "[b]efore the first millennium CE there is no

historiography in the south Asian cultural region and texts are not dated" (Flood 20).

This leaves dating of the found texts problematic, as ones with prior reference must be

placed in sequential order, but precise dating remains impossible. Also, "[o]ne of the

clichés about Hinduism has been that it is ahistorical and sees time as cyclical rather

than lineal, which has militated against the keeping of historical records....The earliest

writing of history in the South Asian region occurs in the fourth century CE with the

chronicles written by Sri Lankan Buddhist monks. Myths and genealogies have been

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recorded primarily in the Hindu Epics and texts called Puranas, reaching their

present form in the mid first millennium CE." (20-21)

In spite of the vagueness of its origins and antiquity, the sacred hymns of the Vedas

can be examined. These were written in four parts that appear to have been developed

over time. The earliest is the Samhitas, hymns of praise in worship of deities. These

were followed by the Brahmanas which include directions about performances of the

ritual sacrifices to the deities. The third part of the Vedas, the Aranyakas or "forest

treatises," include reclusive meditations, and the latest of the Vedas, the Upanishads,

contain the teachings from highly spiritualized masters and explain the experience of

personal transformation from participating in the rituals. Each of the Vedas are thought

to be god-breathed and recorded by the sages who first heard their messages, although

they were not initially committed to writing but transferred through careful study in the

oral tradition.

In the earliest Vedic scripture, the Rig Veda, the establishment of the family as the

central component of religious worship is found. In this text women are highly revered in

the social structure as wives and mothers and are brought into the center of worship.

Believing that the family is blessed as a collective, many families, even in the current era,

keep their worship out of the temple and at home, where the mother remains attentive to

the family ritual of meditation.

With the appearance of the Brahmanas, the purity of the Vedas was kept by the

Brahmins or priests, who became established as a peculiar class of people assigned to

keeping the sacrificial rites. The focus of their study was on Brahma as the god of

creation, whose words and sacrifice made the world, and they came to believe that by

their words and sacrifices the gods could be controlled. "Thus, the sacrifices controlled

the gods, and the brahmin priests controlled the sacrifice, becoming like higher gods

themselves....For the sacrifice was nothing less than "making the world" and

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calling into life the gods who rule over it; the purpose then was to meditate on

what the cosmos is like and to make adjustments to it in such a way as to keep it

on course or direct its power in desired destinations." (Ellwood and McGraw

65-66)

The Brahmins retained the authority of class as those who became priests were born

into that service. "It is a characteristic of class-organized societies that rights of

ownership are the prerogative of minority groups which form privileged elite. The

capacity of the upper-class minority to 'exploit' the services of the lower-class majority is

critically dependent upon the fact that the members of the underprivileged group must

compete among themselves for the favors of the elite" (Leach 5-6). The Brahmins then

became the highest class and maintained superiority of the caste leadership even though

those they served were from the wealthy caste. Because it was expected of the Brahmins

to become well educated in the techniques and rituals, especially in public worship,

gender and purpose became the focus of education. Most women of the upper caste lost

their privilege to become educated, and some significant focus of family worship shifted

from mother leadership.

For centuries the teachings of the Vedas were kept from the lower or working caste,

and a great majority of the Indians, illiterate and provincial, were restricted from hearing

the teachings directly. Eventually it was the teaching of the fourth part of the Vedas that

opened opportunity for all to hear the message. The Upanishads tells that a person who

finds his true Self, OM or AUM, experiences a sense of oneness with the universe-home

and becomes a complete human being, understanding the inner delights and occult power

of the inner world while living and working in the outer world. With this knowledge, a

new mission becomes his, that of walking the world as a "holy man" and spreading his

wisdom to the inhabitants of the other villages. Among these early teachers from the

sixth

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century BCE was the founder of the Jain religion, still practiced in India today, and

Siddhartha Gautama, called Buddha.

In conjecture, Rudolf Otto wrote, "the liberation and salvation motif...was paralleled

in Indian thought, when the Sankhya doctrine became detached from the Upanishad

atmosphere. It propounded liberative 'knowledge', the spirit withdrawing from the realm

of nature into serenity and inaction" (455). Here Otto describes the technique of spiritual

concentration in the practice of Yoga, as it permits its users to receive balance, purity,

wisdom, and peacefulness of mind. The practice of the Upanishads brought "[r]eligious

emotion and the experience of salvation, liberation, the sense of ultimate release, [and]

the continuance in a state of religious experience...into being" (452). These life attitudes

encouraged recognition in the commonality of existence, especially among the lower

caste, who found it necessary to share working responsibilities for the purpose of

survival. They also paved the way for women to receive individual equality, when

society became influenced by Gandhian thinking.

"[I]n India,...the oldest teachings held that human beings were destined to live

without hope in a world that passed through immense cycles of decay and decline

until it was finally destroyed and again remade. The reaction to this deeply

pessimistic view eventually came in the form of the classic Eastern version of

eternal return--the doctrine of rebirth, or reincarnation. We find it chiefly in the

famous Hindu Upanishads....Seeing humanity as hopelessly enslaved by these

endless cycles of nature, these teachers insisted that a path could be found to a

purely spiritual release from history's triviality and terrors. They announced that

the soul, or true self, could free itself from the body, which is its main tie to

history, by struggling patiently through a long series of rebirths until finally a

purely spiritual escape was achieved. [This is] the doctrine of moksha, the soul's

final release from nature and history." (Pals 180)

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Within the classical Hindu tradition, wives worshipped their husbands as personal

gods and believed that through sacrificially bringing comfort and beauty to the life of the

spouse, the cyclical pattern for their own lives might be broken. The hope of the dutiful

wife was that she would either spend her next life as a man or else be blessed with

moksha. This was the pure focus of living out her worshipful duty.

The Laws of Manu initially systematized the Hindu society, beginning with the

brahmins (priest-scholars), kshatriyas (rulers or warriors), vaishyas (merchants and

craftsmen) and shudras (peasants). Metaphorically, each of these groups represent a part

of the body: brahmins form the head, kshatriyas the arms, vaishyas represent the thighs,

and shudras the feet. Those not included in this system, the harijans or untouchables,

make up about twenty percent of the current population of India and rank among the

poorest members of society. Gough suggests that the caste system outlines occupations.

"Castes in Hindu India are ranked, birth-status groups. The caste...tends to be associated

with an occupation. A caste is not a localized group, but comprises small local

communities, often several miles apart. Local communities of different castes form

administration units as multi-caste villages or towns" (11). Varying degree of caste

within same caste communities forms itself superficially, but actually the real division of

caste finds its basis in the principle of purity and impurity. One is made impure by

contact with another from a lower caste, resulting in the need for ritual purification. This

significant, innate attitude maintains separateness, even though the caste system has been

legally abolished in modern India.

Edmund Leach, in his approach to the structure of a society, defines caste this way:

"In a formal sense, the word 'caste'...should always be taken to have its ethnographic

Hindu meaning" (1).

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"Caste conforms to the following criteria:

(1) A caste is endogamous.

(2) There are restrictions on commensality between members of different castes.

(3) There is a hierarchical grading of castes, the best recognized position being

that of the Brahman at the top.

(4) In various kinds of context, especially those concerned with food, sex and

ritual, a member of a 'high' caste is liable to be 'polluted' by either direct or indirect

contact with a member of a 'low' caste.

(5) Castes are very commonly associated with traditional occupations.

(6) A man's caste status is finally determined by the circumstances of his birth,

unless he comes to be expelled from his caste for some ritual offense.

(7) The system as a whole is always focused around the prestige accorded to the

Brahmans" (Leach 2-3). Although each level meets the criteria for this study, what is

most appropriate here is Leach's explanation of support in number four. In food, sex and

ritual, a member of one caste may be polluted by a member of a lower caste.

From her work in a Tanjore Hindu village, Kathleen Gough maintains, "The formal

ranking of castes is defined in terms of the belief in ritual purity and pollution;

rules of social distance between castes issue primarily from this belief. Whatever

the origins of these rules, their codification, recording and adaptation to local

circumstances have been primarily the work of the Brahmans, who from their

origin in the Vedic kingdoms of the North Indian river valleys spread throughout

the subcontinent as the highest caste of religious specialists." (11)

It cannot be ignored that the Brahmanic ritualism influenced the caste system and did

so until after the control of the British (1857-1947). According to Max Weber, the

Brahmin priests "claimed high rank and...were intellectual officers and landowners who

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stood close to the center of state power....[Weber] outlines the social structure of

India, noting that the social and ritual demarcation of the castes was largely based

on magical beliefs and that the spread of Hinduism not only involved the incorpo-

ration of tribal communities into the caste system through conquest, but that

changes in rank status were also related to the process of Hinduization." (qtd.

in Morris 80-81)

With the complication of religious practice, religious education became a necessity and

the upper castes found fewer women in the halls of education, filled with many of its new

devout progeny. And, as the sacred involvement of women in the ritual declined, men

chose to follow the Laws of Manu that dictated the ways to govern women by severely

limiting their lives:

In childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband,

when her lord is dead to her sons: a woman must never be independent....

Though destitute of virtue, or seeking pleasure (elsewhere), or devoid of good

qualities, (yet) a husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by a faithful

wife....

Day and night, woman must be kept in dependency by the males (of) their

(families), and if they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments, they must be kept

under one's control....

Through their passion for men, through their mutable temper, through their

natural heartlessness, they become disloyal towards their husbands, however

carefully they are guarded in this (world).

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Knowing their disposition, which the Lord of creatures laid in them at the

creation to be such, (every) man should most strenuously exert himself to guard

them. (qtd. in Ellwood and McGraw 101-102)

This perceived need to control women was founded in the story of the "Goddess

Shakti--the universal power, both creative and destructive, from which all things derive.

[A]s Shakti became...devoted wife of Shiva, so women should be transformed....'[I]f the

goddess were not controlled by her male consort, her energy would go to excess and

produce chaos'" (102).

The influences from this illustration produced the classic image of the Hindu woman.

She is married with at least one son; chaste, humble, devoted to the point of sacrifice to

her family and especially her husband, whom she reveres as god. She bathes, sleeps, eats

only after he is finished; provides sexual pleasure and personal and cultural pleasure to

the home; fasts, makes vows, and sacrifices to the gods for the well-being of the family;

performs her husbands funerary rights to ensure his safe passage to the next life. In all

ways, she upholds the social and cosmic order and in return she hopes to have gained

sufficiently good karma to be reborn as a man in her next life (102). The Hindu tradition

suggests that the woman chooses to live this apparent attitude of servitude in order to

gain victory in the next life. Undoubtedly some women were coerced into accepting this

ritualism as their best course of life.

Other responses to the Laws of Manu included child marriage and the practice of

isolating the wife from society by confining her to the home. To remain pure and

"pollution-free," women were not allowed to divorce, or upon widowhood, was refused

permission to remarry. Also, the widow was scorned in Hindu society. She was

considered unlucky, had to keep her head shaved and wear course garments, and was

forced to remove the red dot from her forehead, the symbol of wifehood and her only

source of status. Her only alternative to this life was to commit Sati, the ritual where she

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was burned alive on her husband's funeral pyre. It is recorded that a few women chose

this self-sacrificial devotion in order to receive exaltation, but it appears that most women

who performed Sati did so under physical or emotional duress.

A balance to the apparent male dominance of Indian society comes in the form of

Mother worship. As contributors and sustainers of the earth through reproduction,

women are highly revered, and often women without children are respectfully referred to

as Mother. This reverence has taken form in many goddesses who constitute manifold

attributes of female strength, and is memorialized in the sacredness of the Hindu cows,

but ultimately find incarnation in the form of One goddess, the active power Devi, the

shakti that manifests as the universe. "She is the mother of everything but she is not

merely a soft, maternal figure. She is an embodiment of both creative and destructive

power. She can be depicted as Lakshmi, the goddess of good fortune, offering bounty, or

as Kali, the dark goddess of the battlefield, who drinks the blood of her enemies"

(Shattuck 49). "[T]he Mother Goddess...is a deity a living original divine figure, in

whom the unmeasurable inexpressible essence of the world manifests itself"

( "Theophania" 632). She gathers all to her and all is in her; yet, many of the deities are

worshipped individually.

"Two of the most popular goddesses are Sarasvati and Lakshmi. Sarasvati is

known as the goddess of learning and is also a patroness of music. Dressed in

white and riding a swan, she plays on a stringed instrument called a vina and

carries a manuscript and string of beads. The manuscript ties her to scripture and

in some traditions she has to have created devanagari, the 'divine script' in which

Sanskrit is written. Lakshmi is often depicted as standing on a lotus flanked by

elephants while gold coins shower from her hands. She is the goddess of good

fortune who brings prosperity to her worshippers. Her image adorns modern

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coins...." (Shattuck 50-51)

A brief summation of the female attributes of these deities reveals they are alike in the

strengths of female beauty and grace. In a classical sense, they are lovely to look at and

their energy and restraint bear great attraction. Sarasvati enables the cultural

intelligences and promotes literacy of the most sacred. According to some traditions, she

is the source of pure language, the mother tongue. In contrast, Lakshmi symbolizes

freedom from the concerns of life. Her lotus flower represents pleasure and luxury. She

is upheld by the available strength and patience of the waiting elephants and from her

hands drips the satisfaction of life and the promise of prosperity. The festival of lights,

Divali, is held annually to encourage her aid. Together these goddesses hold the promise

that personal discipline can lead to a worry-free life.

Of all the goddesses, one of the most individually revered is Kali, the Divine Mother,

who appears to have a growing number of followers among both Indians and Westerners

who study her teachings in the Shakta Tantras, called the Chandi. She is often depicted

as a dark mother devi, one who creates and destroys; a man-maker and a man-hater, yet

she was created from the blinding anger of Vishnu, Brahma, Indra and other mighty gods

who simultaneously sent out piercing rays of light that joined at one point and took the

shape of a woman. Energized, she quickly vindicated the anger against the demons that

caused her appearance and out-witted even the most impervious presence, until she had

conquered all and all the gods were fearful. It took her husband, Shiva, to contrive a way

to stop her.

As an allegory, Kali presents herself as a representation of the constant war going on

within each of us--between our divine and demonic natures. In the great Mother Goddess

legend, every dominant passion and vice has its special demon representative and in

punishing the demons, she brings balance to the world. Also, the Shaktas (Shakti

worshippers) believe that stories about fierce Goddesses stimulate imagination and are

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supposed to horrify and shock, so that pretensions may be stripped away and Cosmic

Truth is confronted.

"What is truth? According to the Shakta, the truth is that we are all deluded,

attached to finite things, and incapable of comprehending the absolute, infinite

Truth. And the cause of this illusion is Maya, which is the Divine Mother.

Whoever seeks freedom from this dilemma must worship the Mother. By her

grace alone one can uncover and regain the Truth. All prosperity comes to the

person who worships Shakti--energy." (Harding xxxi).

The poet penned these observations of Kali: The Divine Mother's magic / is ancient

as life itself. / She existed before gods and mortals, / and she will still exist even after

the / great dissolution. / Mother is pure energy in subtle form, / but in times of need / or

just out of a desire to play, she manifests." Her devotees believe that Kali is the source of

pure energy. She is in all and through all, and those who seek her find Truth. Kali

requires the worshipper to acknowledge the dark side of the personality, to come to

accept it and understand it. It is only then that feminine strength is understood in its

entirety.

Even when wives were found in extreme isolation from society or taken into child

marriage, practices considered abuse to the Westerner, the Hindu people found dignity by

living beyond presupposed physical appearances and concentrating on the spiritual realm

of existence set forth in the Upanishads. In this perspective the body is merely a vessel, a

lifetime of transportation for the spirit waiting to move into the next world. Thoughts and

imaginings placed into unceasing meditation need not concern itself with the apparent

needs of those others found near by. Needs are only temporal and each person is left to

follow a specific path. This spiritual mindset readied itself for the reforms initiated by

Mahatma Gandhi and his experiments with truth.

When Gandhi assumed India's leadership, the average life span of an Indian was only

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27 years. Child marriage was common and babies and pregnant women ranked among

the highest statistics of mortality. Only 2% of the women had any education, and women

did not have personal identity. Women were not permitted outside the house without

male accompaniment, and in northern India women were only seen veiled. In this

context, Gandhi raised his claim that women are completely equal to men economically,

socially, and politically. "He believed that the difference between men and women was

only physical and has expressed several times in his writings that in many matters

especially those of tolerance, patience, and sacrifice that the Indian woman is superior to

the male" (Kamat 1)

Perhaps because Mahatma Gandhi was not focused on women as the center of his

reforms that so much ready progress was made in that area. Rather, Gandhi built public

support by encouraging non-violent resistance to the military-industrial oppression of

British rule, emphasizing that the people's strength lay in awareness of spiritual truth, not

in government control. His grassroots nationalism touched all aspects of life, including

political unity which gave birth to the social consciousness of reform for women. Fully

understanding the idea of self-sacrifice for others, many Hindu women joined in the

political rallies and campaigns to bring reform to India. Subsequently, British leadership

was overthrown. In 1917, the Women's Indian Association was founded, and in many

parts of India the women received the right to vote, long before the right was won in

Britain and other countries. This opened the argument that women did not need British

imperialism to protect their rights and initiated Indian independence from British rule.

After independence from Britain was won (1947) a new constitution was written in

which women were promised equal pay for equal work, polygamy was outlawed, the

marriage age was raised to 18 (21 for men), divorce was permitted, maternity leaves from

work could be taken, and women were protected from sexual harassment. In 1954,

India's

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first prime minister, Jawaharkak Nehru called on women to work with men in the

development of a new India. But still, in spite of progress, problems continue, especially

in the rural areas that are not aware of reforms. Also, literacy rates continue to be lower

than men's as traditional attitudes are difficult to change. "The notion of the ideal Hindu

wife is well imbedded in Hindu culture; and the practices and attitudes associated with

widows [has] never...been eradicated completely" (Ellwood and McGraw 108). Even so,

women are helping women in India and women's movements remain active. "Today if

Gandhi's agenda has fallen apart, it is due to Indian politics. The continued exploitation

of women can be attributed to the degradation in moral values of the society and utter

poverty" (Kamat 3).

Gandhi created opportunity for women in leadership, although the concept was

already understood through goddess symbology and ancient practicality. In South India,

inscriptions, literary sources, and sculptures from medieval times suggest that some

women enjoyed political and intellectual freedom, and Kamat records that historical

sources of the period are filled with stories of accomplished women of the era.

"Kanataka had women who administered villages, towns, divisions, and

heralded social and religious institutions. Piriyaketaladevi, a queen of Chalukya

Vikramaditya VI ruled three villages. According to an inscripture of 1148 AD

Lakkadevi was a village headman. Jakkiabbe ably administered seventy villages

after the premature death of her husband. Mailalladevi, a senior queen of

Someshwara-I ruled the important province of Banavasi comprising 12000

villages....There were female trustees, priestesses, philanthropists, musicians, and

scholars." ("Status" 1)

A return to the Vedas and Upanishads reveal that women were educated in the Vedic lore

just like men, and education for both men and women is a necessary basis for society.

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This philosophy continues to this modern era, although there are more opportunities

for women than there had once been. One of the important changes in modern Hinduism

is the visibility of women as gurus and temple priests. Cybelle Shattuck records that

Sarada Math is a women's monastic community that offers women a chance to live in a

monastic community run solely by women where they combine spiritual practices with

social outreach through their schools and hospitals. Also, a number of male gurus have

named women as their successors and a few women have been recognized as gurus on

their own. Sarala Chakabarty, a Calcutta grandmother, has undertaken spiritual studies

with a guru. She states, "I have a very powerful guru, a swami of the Ramakrishna

Mission, who has passed on. He gave me a mantra, and it gives me very much peace"

(Fisher 103). Other women have been formally trained to carry out the duties of temple

priests, especially in Hindu communities outside India where traditional specialists are

unavailable (Shattuck 112-113).

Choice in marriage by the woman is permitted, and property rights of women are

protected under the law so that any inheritance or dowry is recovered by her family upon

her death, rather than acquired by the husband and his family. Many women have

established independence in the workforce by operating their own businesses, and

although a dichotomy between law and practice still exists, especially in the rural Indian

areas, inheritors of the reform movement are working to let the uneducated village

women learn their rights.

Opportunities for research and work in the Untied States for the Indian and available

media merge India with Western culture, transforming the face of the Indian but not the

essence of Hinduism. "Hinduism teaches the value of life. We can be westernized but

still be a Hindu at heart. Nothing prevents that....All we need to understand is that we

value

every life on Earth and we should respect, forgive and forget and not hurt anyone

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intentionally. That determines whether or not we are true Hindus" (Lakshmi 4).

Hindu women respect their traditions and teach them to their children, and Westerners

incorporate the Hindu views of balance and spirituality into daily lives. In the United

States and Canada, Hindu temples have been built for worship, and traditional Hindu

music and videos preserve traditions. Film and television have made the knowledge of

pilgrimage sites available, and those traveling to visit them no longer need to do so on

foot. Many fear that technology and public transportation will alter the true spiritual

account of the experience, but others believe that regional traditions can be mixed with

new methods without losing value.

Certainly these questions of technological influence are currently being raised and

analyzed in every modern society. What of the old traditions will be preserved in its pure

form, and what traditions will be left to the interpretation of the media? The transfer of

tradition from the mothers to the daughters, as historically, will maintain the sense of

cosmic purity. The teaching passed to the next generation lends itself to cultural

interpretation, but the value placed on the experience determines its beauty. Arts, skills,

creation, and inspiration are the beauty of woman, and she is the beauty of man. That

changeless axiom is significant to the Hindu. Although the image changes, the inner

remains.

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Works Cited

Ellwood, Robert S. and Barbara A. McGraw. Many Peoples, Many Faiths:Women and

Men in the World Religions, 6th ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999.

Fisher, Mary Pat.Living Religions, 4th ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999.

Flood, Gavin. An introduction to Hinduism. New York: Cambridge University Press,

1996.

Gough, E. Kathleen. Caste in a Tanjore Village." Aspects of Caste in South India, Ceylon

and North-West Pakistan. Leach, E.R., ed. New York: Cambridge University Press,

1960.

Harding, Elizabeth U. Kali: the Black Goddess of Dakshineswar. Delhi: Motilal

Banarsidass Pub., 1998.

Kamat, Jyotsna. Gandhiji and the Status of Women in India. Kamat's Potpourri (27 Mar

2000) 3pgs. 3 Apr 2000. Available: http://www.kamat.com/mmgandhi/gwomen.htm

---. Status of Women in Medieval Karnataka. Kamat's Potpourri (20 Jan 2000) 6pgs.

3 Apr 2000. Available: http://www.kamat.com/jyotsna/women.htm

Lakshmi. E-mail to Yashodadd. 3 Aug. 1998. 13 pgs. 9 Apr. 2000 available:

www.hindunet.org/forum/discus/messages/38/120.html.

Leach, E.R., ed. Introduction. Aspects of Caste in South India, Ceylon and North-West

Pakistan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1960.

Morris, Brian. Anthropological Studies of Religion. New York: Cambridge University

Press, 1987.

Otto, Rudolf. "Religious history (from Religious essays)." Classical Approaches to the

Study of Religion. Jacques Waardenburg, ed. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.,

1999.

---. "Theophania." Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion. Jacques Waardenburg,

ed. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co., 1999.

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Works Cited, cont.

Pals, Daniel L. Seven Theories of Religion New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Shattuck, Cybelle. Hinduism. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1999.