2017 SMU Event Details | sarii.digikingsp.com

The Queen, the Dasi and Sexual Politics in the Sabhaparvan of the Mahabharata

Uma Chakravarti

Amongst all of the major ‘characters’ in the Mahabharata, Draupadi dominates the popular imagination in India where she, in my view, overshadows both Arjuna and Krishna, even though they are the protagonists of the famous conversation that forms the text of the Bhagavad Gita.

Her humiliation in the sabha of Hastinapura stands at the centre of the Mahabharata and moves events forward to their tragic denouement. It is the absolute core of the moral crisis that the Mahabharata, as a text, epitomises in a series of wrongs that are depicted: the abandonment of Karna by his mother Kunti to hide her pre-marital liaison, the lie uttered by Yudhishthira that leads to the vanquishing of guru Dronacharya, the killing of the unarmed Karna by Arjuna while he is recovering his chariot from its wheel being stuck in the mud.

Whatever be the interpretation of the dharma by which these acts are justified, all these wrongs, committed as they are by the Pandavas who won the war as the more righteous of the two sides in a battle represented as one between the forces of evil and the forces of good, lend themselves to ambiguity.

Only the humiliation of Draupadi at the hands of the Kauravas occupies the moral high ground—the utter indefensibility of the sexual violence against her in the sabha makes this one act the casus belli of the fratricidal war, a war that will virtually finish off all the kshatriyas, save a few.

Given the investment that almost everyone reading, hearing, or engaging with the text today has in the matter of ‘Draupadi in the sabhaparvan’, any discussion of the episode from a slightly different standpoint is fraught with difficulties since we are all already pre-disposed to reading Draupadi’s humiliation through the text’s own lens.

Nevertheless, I am going to give it a try since I think there is room enough to look at the episode, especially the question that Draupadi asks in the sabha which finally buys freedom for all the Pandavas from the implications of the question, rather than the question itself.

In doing so I will build on the very insightful work of a range of scholars but who, to my mind, have left some things unsaid and some critical questions unasked.

Author Bio Uma Chakravarti is a feminist historian who taught at Miranda House University College for Women of the University of Delhi for many decades and retired from there. She writes on Buddhism, early India, the 19th century, and contemporary events. Uma has been associated with the women’s movement and the movement for democratic rights since the early 1980s and has participated in many fact-finding investigations documenting violence against women, Dalits, and minorities in India. She has also become a filmmaker in recent years and has directed three films dealing with history, memory, and women’s lives. She is currently preparing a manuscript titled The Dying Lineage: Sexual Politics in the Mahabharata.

The Power a Woman's Story Creates: Stories, Lives, and Female Renunciation in India

Antoinette E. DeNapoli

This presentation calls attention to the uncommon religious lives and worlds of Hindu holy women (sadhus) in India. As sadhus, these women practice an unconventional religious way of life known as renunciation.

Sadhus are overwhelmingly men, and the elite religious institution in which they participate has traditionally excluded women from its ranks and leadership roles. How do female sadhus create their religious authority and earn the respect, trust, and devotion of their communities and the wider society?

Drawing on sixteen years of research in Rajasthan, this presentation explores the oral life histories of female sadhus. Through their personal narratives, DeNapoli illuminates the cultural-religious categories and mythic models through which female sadhus understand their renunciation.

Using the metaphor of “singing to God,” the paper demonstrates how female sadhus perform radical devotion inspired by legendary female devotees.

Author Bio Antoinette E. DeNapoli is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Texas Christian University. She is the author of Real Sadhus Sing to God (Oxford University Press, 2014) and has received fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, American Institute of Indian Studies, and the University of Notre Dame.

Women and Truth Speech: The Classical Saint Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār Then and Now

Karen Pechilis

Through her devotional poetry, Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār constructs a devotional subjectivity that speaks the truth of Śiva’s power without reference to gender, caste, or class.

Her biographer Cēkkilār re-genders her story, locating her within patriarchal frameworks and raising questions about where and how women can speak religious truth.

Contemporary artists have drawn on her story to explore women’s empowerment, revealing Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār’s continuing relevance.

Author Bio Karen Pechilis is NEH Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Drew University. She has authored and edited major works on bhakti, Tamil devotional literature, and Hindu female gurus.

Ruby of the Dynasty, Our Lady, Sembiyan Mahadevi

Vidya Dehejia

This paper explores the extraordinary life of Sembiyan Mahadevi, a Chola queen who exercised political, artistic, and religious authority for over sixty years.

She built temples, sponsored bronze workshops, and was granted royal authority equal to that of Emperor Rajaraja.

Author Bio Vidya Dehejia is Barbara Stoler Miller Professor of Indian Art at Columbia University and a leading scholar of Indian art and Chola bronzes.

Kinship, Power, Gender: Some Questions from the History of Matriliny in Kerala

G. Arunima

This paper examines nineteenth- and twentieth-century debates on matriliny in Kerala, focusing on family, affect, gender, and power.

It highlights the limitations of purely legal approaches to understanding matrilineal societies and emphasizes cultural and affective dimensions.

Author Bio G. Arunima teaches at the Centre for Women’s Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and is the author of There Comes Papa (2003).