This volume brings together compelling new research on South Asian women who have renounced worldly life for spiritual pursuits. Documenting contemporary women's experiences with intimate ethnographic narratives, this book offers feminist insights into Jain, Buddhist, Hindu and Baul ascetic traditions.

This volume brings together new ethnographic research on South Asian women who have abandoned worldly life for spiritual pursuits. All have renounced some combination of the following: marriage, sex, procreation, kin, financial security, concern with beauty, and sensual pleasures. Documenting contemporary women’s experiences with intimate ethnographic narratives, this book offers feminist insights into Jain, Buddhist, Hindu, and Baul ascetic traditions. This collection also considers the hardships endured by women committed to religious paths more commonly taken by men and offers a refreshing antidote to the relentless image of South Asian women as dependent on male kin and defined by their sexual and procreative roles.

Vividly Showcasing New Ethnographic Research On Extraordinary South Asian Women Who Have Abandoned Worldly Life For Spiritual Pursuits, The Contributors To This Collection Offer Feminist Insights Into Jain, Buddhist, Hindu, Baud, And Bon Ascetic Traditions. With Intimate Narratives Documenting Contemporary Women S Experience, Contributors Explore The Lives Of Women Who Have Renounced Involvements Such As Sex, Financial Security, Kin, And The Pursuit Of Beauty, In Favour Of Higher Religious And Spiritual Ideals. The Authors Consider The Hardships Endured By Women Committed To Religious Paths More Commonly Taken By Men And Warn Against Any Easy Romanticization Of These Women S Lives. At The Same Time, The Book Offers A Refreshing Antidote To The Relentless Image Of South Asian Women As Dependent On Male Kin And Defined By Their Sexual And Procreative Roles.

Noted for their haunting melodies and enigmatic lyrics, Bauls have been portrayed as spiritually enlightened troubadours traveling around the countryside in West Bengal in India and in Bangladesh. As emblems of Bengali culture, Bauls have long been a subject of scholarly debates which center on their esoteric practices, and middle class imaginaries of the category Baul. Adding to this literature, the intimate ethnography presented in this book recounts the life stories of members from a single family, shining light on their past and present tribulations bound up with being poor and of a lowly caste. It shows that taking up the Baul path is a means of softening the stigma of their lower caste identity in that religious practice, where women play a key role, renders the body pure. The path is also a source of monetary income in that begging is considered part of their vocation. For women, the Baul path has the added implication of lessening constraints of gender. While the book describes a family of singers, it also portrays the wider society in which they live, showing how their lives connect and interlace with other villagers, a theme not previously explored in literature on Bauls. A novel approach to the study of women, the body and religion, this book will be of interest to undergraduates and graduates in the field of the anthropology. In addition, it will appeal to students of everyday religious lives as experienced by the poor, through case studies in South Asia. The book provides further evidence that renunciation in South Asia is not a uniform path, despite claims to the contrary. There is also a special interest in Bauls among those familiar with the Bengali speaking region. While this book speaks to that interest, its wider appeal lies in the light it sheds on religion, the body, life histories, and poverty.

Myanmar-Burma has one of the largest concentrations of Buddhist nuns and monks in the world today. In Renunciation and Empowerment of Buddhist Nuns in Myanmar-Burma, Kawanami traces the nun's scholarly lineage in modern Myanmar history and examines their contemporary religious position in Myanmar's social and political contexts. Although their religious status may appear ambiguous from a textual viewpoint, it is argued that their large presence is a clear indication as to the important functions Buddhist nuns perform in the monastic community. Sagaing Hill where the main research was conducted, occupies an important educational centre for Myanmar nuns in consolidating their scholarly lineage and spreading the network of dhamma teachers. The book examines transactions that take place in their everyday lives and reveals the essence of their religious lives that make Buddhist nuns an essential bridge between sangha and society. Book jacket.

The book attends to a historical question — how to account for the high numbers of renouncers (sadhvis) mentioned in medieval and ancient texts — which has been acknowledged and raised, but left unaddressed within Jain studies. It does so through ethnographic data gathered through extensive fieldwork among the sadhvis in Delhi and Jaipur. The volume foregrounds the primacy of ‘choice’ and ‘agency’— upheld by the nuns themselves, who associate asceticism with autonomy, freedom, joy, spiritual well-being, self-worth and peace, and grihastha (household) with loss of independence, fettered existence, degradation, burdensome familial obligations and social responsibilities. It also examines whether it may be apt to term Jain nuns as practitioners of an ‘indigenous mode of feminism’. The book challenges the existing sociological theories of renunciation and tests the feminist concepts of agency and autonomy by investigating the culturally coded roles ascribed to women in Jainism, which are variegated, and examines how a fractured discourse and reality is resolved in the subjectivities and identities of female ascetics. The very legitimacy of the institution of female asceticism, and the way in which the society (samaj) upholds and sustains it, renders female asceticism into a socially approved alternative institution — albeit one that allows Jain nuns to create spaces of relative and autonomy and even prestige for themselves.

For young women in early South Asia, marriage was probably the most important event in their lives, as it largely determined their socioeconomic and religious future. Yet there has been little in the way of systematic examinations of the evidence on marriage customs among Buddhists of this time, and our understanding of the lives of early Buddhist women is still quite limited. This study uses ten stories from the Avadānaśataka, the collection of Buddhist narratives compiled from the second to fifth centuries CE, to examine the social landscape of early India. The author analyzes marital customs and the development of nuns’ hagiographies, while revealing regional variations of Buddhism in South Asia during this period.

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.

"This anthropological study addresses religion and gender relations through the lens of the lives, actions and role in Thai society of an order of Buddhist nuns (mae chii). It presents a unique ethnography of these Thai Buddhist nuns, examines what it implies to be a female ascetic in contemporary Thailand and analyses how the ordained state for women fits into the wider gender patterns found in Thai society. The study also deals with the nuns' agency in creating religious space and authority for women. In addition, it raises questions about how the position of Thai Buddhist nuns outside the Buddhist sanhga affects their religious legitimacy and describes recent moves to restore a Theravada order of female monks." -- BACK COVER.

In Envisioning Religion, Race, and Asian Americans, David K. Yoo and Khyati Y. Joshi assemble a wide-ranging and important collection of essays documenting the intersections of race and religion and Asian American communities—a combination so often missing both in the scholarly literature and in public discourse. Issues of religion and race/ethnicity undergird current national debates around immigration, racial profiling, and democratic freedoms, but these issues, as the contributors document, are longstanding ones in the United States. The essays feature dimensions of traditions such as Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism, as well as how religion engages with topics that include religious affiliation (or lack thereof), the legacy of the Vietnam War, and popular culture. The contributors also address the role of survey data, pedagogy, methodology, and literature that is richly complementary and necessary for understanding the scope and range of the subject of Asian American religions. These essays attest to the vibrancy and diversity of Asian American religions, while at the same time situating these conversations in a scholarly lineage and discourse. This collection will certainly serve as an invaluable resource for scholars, students, and general readers with interests in Asian American religions, ethnic and Asian American studies, religious studies, American studies, and related fields that focus on immigration and race.