Women in Ochre Robes: Gendering Hindu Renunciation
Meena Khandelwal offers an engaging and intimate portrait of extraordinary Hindu women in India who wear "ochre robes," signifying their renunciation of marriage and family for lives of celibacy, asceticism, and spiritual discipline. While the largely male Hindu ascetic tradition of sannyasa renders its initiates ritually "dead" to their previous identities, the women portrayed here are very much alive. They struggle with, and joke about, the tensions and ironies of living in the world while...
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Meena Khandelwal offers an engaging and intimate portrait of extraordinary Hindu women in India who wear "ochre robes," signifying their renunciation of marriage and family for lives of celibacy, asceticism, and spiritual discipline. While the largely male Hindu ascetic tradition of sannyasa renders its initiates ritually "dead" to their previous identities, the women portrayed here are very much alive. They struggle with, and joke about, the tensions and ironies of living in the world while trying not to be of it. Khandelwal juxtaposes the common refrain that "in renunciation there is no male and female" with arguments that underscore the importance of gender. In exploring these apparent contradictions, she brings together worldly and otherworldly values within renunciation and argues that these create tensions that are at once emotional, social, and philosophical.
AcknowledgmentsNotes on TransliterationIntroduction: Sannyasinis as Persons1Ch. 1Gendering Hindu Renunciation23Ch. 2Walking a Tightrope: Renunciation as Love47Ch. 3Real Saints Don't Need Sleep: Renunciation as Service79Ch. 4(Ir?)reconcilable Tensions: Individual Existence as Spiritual Journey117Ch. 5The Genuine and The Fake: What's Attitude Got to Do with It?141Ch. 6Sannyasinis as Women175Notes203Glossary215Works Cited219Index235
