Patriarchal Politics and the (Dis)Empowerment of Hindu Goddesses: Unveiling the Chandi Mangal and the Devi Mahatmya of the Markandeya Purana

• Published in: Intersections (Perth, W.A.) W.A.), 2009-10 (22)
• Main Author: Chakravarty, Saumitra
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Deities; Females; Hindus; Males; Patriarchy; Power
• ISSN: 1440-9151; 1440-9151

In this essay, I undertake the study of two Hindu Puranic texts viz. the Chandi Mangal and the Devi Mahatmya with the purpose of highlighting how patriarchy was responsible for the dis-empowering of female goddesses who once held sway in the religious practices and social lives of ethnic people. With the passage of time, the power of the goddess was usurped by male deities and the primacy of goddess worship in earlier non-Aryan societies became subordinate to powerful male deities to whom the goddess existed as a mere appendage. I will also attempt to demonstrate that the politics of gender was effected through the instrumentation of upper castes, and thereby indicate how class and patriarchy were interdependent on each other for purposes of exploitation. This infusion of the discourses of class and patriarchy in the Puranic narratives served the dual purpose of dominating the lower castes/class people on the one hand, and maintaining control over women on the other. Needless to say, over the successive centuries, the power and hold of patriarchal social structures, buttressed by the religious discourse, changed not only the positioning of female goddesses, but also of women in social and familial contexts. I will undertake a comparative study, as mentioned earlier, of Chandi Mangal and Devi Mahatmya to show the validity of the hypotheses I have outlined. The latter half of this study will be devoted to the contradictions and the paradoxes, inherent in the divine feminine, which patriarchy tends to reduce to rigidly defined binary oppositions. Adapted from the source document.