Table Of ContentThe Authority of
Female Speech
in Indian Goddess
Traditions
Devi and Womansplaining
Anway Mukhopadhyay
The Authority of Female Speech in Indian
Goddess Traditions
Anway Mukhopadhyay
The Authority
of Female Speech
in Indian Goddess
Traditions
Devi and Womansplaining
Anway Mukhopadhyay
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Kharagpur, West Bengal, India
ISBN 978-3-030-52454-8 ISBN 978-3-030-52455-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52455-5
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A
cknowledgements
I would like to thank a lot of people for the way they enthused me through-
out my work on this book. I thank my parents and sister, my colleagues
and students and the various Shakta scholars, friends and acquaintances
who, in diverse ways, contributed to this project indirectly. I especially
thank the various monks and devotees of the Ramakrishna Math and
Ramakrishna Mission who have provided me with various kinds of neces-
sary information on Shaktism in Bengal and have also facilitated my under-
standing of the persistence of the matribhava, the maternal feeling, of Ma
Sarada through the male monks of the Math and Mission. In this context,
special mention must be made of Swami Pararupanandaji, Matrimandir,
Jayrambati, West Bengal, and Swami Alokanandaji, Ramakrishna Advaita
Ashrama, Varanasi. In the same vein, I also thank the Matajis of the Sri
Sarada Math and Ramakrishna Sarada Mission, Dakshineswar, Kolkata,
and the Sri Sarada Math, Varanasi. I heartily thank the ashramites of the
Ma Anandamayee Kanyapeeth, Varanasi, including Jayadi, Geetadi and
Guneetadi, for the help they have extended to me, time and again. Thanks
are also due to the librarians of the University of Burdwan. Sri Utkarsh
Chaubey must be thanked for the way he supplied me with texts on
Shaktism and information on Indian spirituality in general. Professor
Vanashree, Professor Emerita at the Department of English, Banaras
Hindu University, has always been a maternal figure for me and a great
support and source of encouragement. I would also like to acknowledge
the consistent support and affection I received from Professor B. L. Tripathi,
Professor K. M. Pandey, Professor Anandprabha Barat, Professor
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Angshuman Khanna, Professor Lata Dubey, Professor Banibrata Mahanta,
Dr Madhvi Lata and Dr Vishwanath Pandey at Banaras Hindu University,
Professor Nandini Bhattacharya and Dr Arpita Chattaraj Mukhopadhyay
at the University of Burdwan, Professor Suchorita Chattopadhyay and Dr
Debashree Dattaray at Jadavpur University and Professor Ashok Kumar
Mohapatra at Sambalpur University. In my present workplace, that is, the
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of
Technology Kharagpur, I keep receiving academic stimulation from all my
colleagues. I thank them heartily. However, special mention must be made
of the following people: Professor Narayan Chandra Nayak, Professor
Manas Kumar Mandal, Professor Suhita Chopra Chatterjee, Professor
Chhanda Chakraborti, Professor Anjali Gera Roy, Professor Priyadarshi
Patnaik, Professor Pulak Mishra, Dr Jayashree Chakraborty, Dr Jenia
Mukherjee, Dr Anwesha Aditya, Dr Archana Patnaik, Dr Anuradha
Choudry, Dr Somdatta Bhattacharya, Dr Dripta Piplai (Mondal) and Dr
Bornini Lahiri. I am especially indebted to Professor Partha Pratim
Chakrabarti, Professor at the Department of CSE, IIT Kharagpur, and the
former Director of the institute, for the way he shared with me valuable
information about spiritual sadhana in the traditions of Kriya Yoga and
gave me his beautiful book on his Guru Ma, Mata Sharbani. I can never
thank enough Dr Shreya Matilal, faculty member of the Rajiv Gandhi
School of Intellectual Property Law, IIT Kharagpur, and Dr Annapurna
Matilal, faculty member at the Midnapore College (Autonomous), for the
warm support I keep receiving from them, as a member of their extended
family. I regularly have intellectually stimulating discussions on the Indic
religious traditions with both Mr and Mrs Matilal. In the same vein, I
would also thank Dr Tapas Kumar Bandyopadhyay, Dr Uday Shankar and
Dr Arindam Basu of the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property
Law; Dr Somnath Ghoshal of the Centre for Rural Development, IIT
Kharagpur; Dr Sujoy Kumar Kar of the Department of Metallurgical and
Materials Engineering, IIT Kharagpur; and Professor Somnath Bharadwaj
of the Department of Physics, IIT Kharagpur. I also thank Dr Soumyatanu
Mukherjee, previously my colleague at IIT Kharagpur and presently a
Lecturer in Finance at the Southampton Business School, UK, and his
wife, Shreya. I would also like to thank the research scholars who are
working under my supervision – Bijetri Datta Majumder, Ishrat Ara
Khatun and Sudipta Chakraborty. Thanks are due to Neha Chatterjee as
well, who was working with me as a research scholar before joining a
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
college as an Assistant Professor. Special thanks go to Dr Arghya Dipta
Kar, who pursued his doctoral research under the supervision of Professor
Madhu Khanna, for the stimulating discussions on Shaktism and tantra
that I have had with him and the interesting works on goddess cultures he
presented me with. In fact, it is Dr Kar who presented me with the book
Durgamangal, in which the beautiful piece “Parvatipurana” is included. I
also thank Shouvik Narayan Hore and Viraj Shukla, for the help they
offered to me, regarding the insertion of diacritical marks in this book.
However, unfortunately, I could not avail myself of this help due to the
COVID-19 crisis in India, which led to a nationwide lockdown, thus mak-
ing it impossible for Shouvik and me to sit together and work on the dia-
critical marks. This is what has led to the disturbing absence of diacritical
marks from this book. Hence, for the absence of the diacritical marks, it is
the coronavirus which is to be blamed.
Finally, I must thank Amy Invernizzi, my editor at Palgrave Macmillan,
and the peer reviewers for their help and suggestions. I cannot but thank
Dr Patricia Dold heartily for her immensely helpful suggestions and appre-
ciative comments. In the same vein, I must thank Vinoth Kuppan for pro-
viding me with necessary guidelines about the technicalities of the
submission of the final manuscript. In fact, Amy and Vinoth have both
been very co-operative throughout this project, and I cannot thank
them enough.
c
ontents
1 Introduction: What the Goddess Said—What Her Speech
Means to Us Today 1
2 Authoritative Female Speech and the Indic Goddess
Traditions: An Overview 13
3 Divine and Divine-Human Speeches of the Devi: The
Speech Contexts and the Dynamics of Authority in the
Devi Gitas 41
4 Authority of Female Speech, Efficacy of Female Guidance:
The Goddess and Women in Tantric Contexts 69
5 Two “Devis”, Two “Gurus” Speaking with Authority:
Sarada Devi and Anandamayi Ma 93
6 Modifying Masculinity: Tantric Culture, Female Speech
and Reframed Masculinities 123
7 The Beauty of Womansplaining: The Authoritative Speech
of Devi in India, in the World 151
Index 157
ix
A
bbreviAtions
AU Annapurna Upanishad
BDP, MK Brihaddharma Purana, Madhya Khanda
BDP, PK Brihaddharma Purana, Purva Khanda
BM Bangmayi Ma
BM Bhu Bhumika in Bangmayi Ma
DB The Srimad Devibhagawatam (Devibhagavata Purana)
DG The Devi Gita (from the Devibhagavata)
DU Devi Upanishad
KCT Kulachudamani Tantra
KU Kena Upanishad
KuP, PB Kurma Puranam, Purva Bhaga
LT Laksmi Tantra
MBUP Shri Mahabhagavata Upapurana
MRH Mother Reveals Herself
NTT Nigama Tattvasara Tantram
PN Pithanirnayah (Mahapithanirupanam)
RV Rig Veda
SB Srimad Bhagavatam
SDV Sankara-Dig-Vijaya
SP The Siva-purana
SRU Sarasvati Rahasya Upanishad
SSC Shri Shri Chandi
SSMK Shri Shri Mayer Katha
TR Tripura Rahasya
YT, PK Yogini Tantra, Prathama Khanda
xi
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: What the Goddess Said—What
Her Speech Means to Us Today
In the contemporary discussions on mansplaining (Solnit 2014a, b, Chap.
1; Pot’Vin-Gorman 2019, 54–55; Turner 2017), what is foregrounded is
the arrogance of male speech that sees listening as the responsibility of the
dominated and speech as the privilege of the dominant (Solnit 2014a,
Chap. 1, subheading 1). As Rebecca Solnit points out, “Being told that,
categorically, he knows what he’s talking about and she doesn’t, however
minor a part of any given conversation, perpetuates the ugliness of this
world and holds back its light” (Solnit 2014a, Chap. 1, subheading 1).
What mansplaining denies systematically is “equiphony” (a la Isabel Santa
Cruz [Amoros 2004, 344]), the right of women to speak and to be heard
as much as men are entitled to. What is at stake here is the attitudinal
dimension of the patriarchally sanctioned socio-cultural interactions.
Within the circuits of such interactions, women have to constantly fight
for establishing the legitimacy of their speeches: “Most women fight wars
on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for
the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession
of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being” (Solnit 2014b,
Chap. 1, subheading 2). Mansplaining, one may argue, is a cross-c ulturally
evident phenomenon. It is not confined to specific geo-cultural cartogra-
phies. The Brahmin man mansplains to his wife in the most orthodox
social scenarios of India, just as the white male boss of a (white/non-
white) female employee does in his office, located in a Western metropolis.
It is quite difficult to find out the “innocent” man, the humble listener to
© The Author(s) 2020 1
A. Mukhopadhyay, The Authority of Female Speech in Indian
Goddess Traditions,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52455-5_1
