A Female Shankaracharya? the Alternative Authority of a Feminist Hindu Guru in India

Religion and Gender 9 (2019) 27–49

brill.com/rag

A Female Shankaracharya? The Alternative Authority of a Feminist Hindu Guru in India

Antoinette E. DeNapoli Texas Christian University [email protected]

Abstract

This article examines the practices through which a female religious leader (guru) in India by the name of Trikal Bhavanta Saraswati (in shorthand, “Mataji”) constructs women’s alternative authority in a high powered lineage of male Hindu gurus called Shankaracharyas. Mataji’s appropriation of the Shankaracharya leadership demonstrates an Indic example of “dharmic feminism,” by virtue of which she advocates the female as normative and, through that radical notion, advances a dharmic platform for gender equality in institutions in which women rarely figure among the power elite. Through narrative performance, Mataji reshapes the boundaries of religious leadership to affirm new possibilities for female authority in a lineage that has denied women’s agency. Exploring her personal experience narratives and the themes they illuminate can shed light on why her leadership intervenes in an orthodox lineage of male authority to exercise alternative authority and exact transformation of contemporary Hinduism.

Keywords

Hindu Gurus – gender – performance – power – authority – feminism – Sadhus

“Hindu religion respects women. But patriarchal interpretations of it have put many restrictions on women. Akhara Pari will release women from this cage of limitations. Through this akhara women everywhere, like birds in flight, will be free and they will know their true power.” Jagadguru Shankaracharya Trikal Bhavanta Saraswati, 2014 ∵

1 Performing the Feminism of Dharma: A Guru and Her Transformation of Authority

This article calls attention to the ritual and rhetorical practices through which the female religious leader (guru) Trikal Bhavanta Saraswati (henceforth, Mataji) renders explicit the transformation of a traditional category of male religious authority in the high powered lineage of Hindu spiritual teachers called Shankaracharyas.1 As a controversial guru who is striving to end gender- based discrimination against women in Hindu religious institutions, with a focus on women ascetics (sadhus) and their struggles to obtain power and authority, her life and work remain unknown to Westerners. This article fills a lacuna in the scholarship on women gurus in South Asia by shining light on the new leadership of the female Shankaracharya emerging within contemporary Hinduism, through which Mataji confronts the uncomfortable relation between religion and gender inequality sanctioned by an endemic culture of misogyny in Indic society. On April 26, 2016, in the pilgrimage town of Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh (MP) state, Mataji intended to take live samadhi during the Kumbh Mela.2 The day before she declared to the media, the chief minister of the state, and the leaders

1 The Indian language term Shankaracharya characterizes a traditional lineage of Hindu spiritual preceptors (acharya) who have been Brahmin men situated in an apostolic line of succession going back to the first preceptor Adi Shankara. There are five Shankaracharyas who lead monastic centers (maths) located in the four corners of India, with a fifth monastery located in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. 2 The Indian language term “samadhi” denotes in the framework of Samkhya-Yoga the highest state of mental absorption by the adept in the divine. In the context of Mataji’s performance, samadhi became a ritual means to agitate the government officials (or mela authorities) to uphold the protected constitutional rights of women pilgrims and practitioners attending

Religion andDownloaded Gender from 9 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 27–49 07:46:13AM via free access a female shankaracharya? 29 of the All India Akhara Council3 her intention to take samadhi. Her motiva- tion was to draw attention to and combat the oppression of women sadhus in religious organizations known as akharas. To give a brief context, akharas represent “distinctive ascetic institutions” that operate a lot like monastic centers and provide lodging and training facilities for their members (Gross 2001, 66; Lochtefeld 2010; Hausner 2006).4 Twenty-four hours after making her declara- tion, Mataji entered a ten-foot pit dug by disciples and sat in the yogic posture of meditative absorption. With her eyes closed, and as she chanted Vedic mantras (prayers), she prepared to leave her physical body and embrace the ultimate. Devotees offered flowers in reverence and called her a “jagadguru” (world spiritual teacher) who has come to “save” Hindu dharma.5 As the fresh petals fell to the ground where Mataji sat in meditation, two disciples ritually covered Mataji’s body with sacred earth. Within minutes, however, the ritual came to an abrupt end when the Indian police burst onto the scene.Two policewomen entered the pit and pleaded with Mataji to end her samadhi. All the while, police officers forcefully removed the two disciples and the bevy of devotees gathered at the site in support of Mataji. The event culminated in her arrest. According to the leaders of the Akhara Council who gave interviews to the media, Mataji “defied” a 1200 year-old tradition that many of these authorities said began with the first jagadguru, Acharya

the Kumbh Mela to equal treatment and non-discrimination in access to resources, including police protection of women’s camps, on par with those provided by the mela officials to the male akharas. 3 This is a non-sectarian religious organization, or executive council (parishad), which admin- isters the akharas within the loosely organized institution of Hindu renunciation (sannyasa) in India. 4 The akharas are located at the sites of India’s Hindu sacred geography, notably in the pilgrimage centers of India where the Kumbh Mela festivals are held every 3 (Kumbh Mela), 6 (Ardh Kumbh Mela), and 12 years (Maha Kumbh Mela). Sadhus are thought to be itinerant wanderers journeying along India’s pilgrimage cities. By this logic, the akharas offer places of respite for sadhus travelling the pilgrimage routes. Thirteen akharas have been recognized as “official” organizations by the All India Akhara Council. It does not recognize Akhara Pari. 5 Jagadguru denotes “world teacher.” It carries the double signification of “teacher” and the “tradition” transmitted by the guru to disciples.The concept implies that the guru has attained the highest state of wisdom characterized by the attributes of truth (sat), consciousness (chid), and bliss (ananda), which are said to be the properties of God (Brahman) consciousness. It is a title bestowed on spiritual preceptors (acharya). The attribution of acharya to a female spiritual preceptor is not exclusive to Mataji. She may be the first female acharya in Shankara’s lineage, but she is not the first female acharya of India. That distinction has been obtained by Mate Mahadevi who, until her death (March 14, 2019), was the leader of the Lingayat tradition practiced in South India. (See Charpentier 2010). See also Narayanan 2005. (See further Pechilis 2015).

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Adi Shankara. They quickly denounced her claim of having the authority to take live samadhi and to be a jagadguru at all. Some of these leaders went so far as to label her a “false guru.” But what incited the vitriol of the Akhara Council officials involved a revolu- tionary ritual consecration that Mataji performed two years earlier during the Magh Mela in Prayagraj, where her temple is also located.6 On February 10, 2014, along the banks of the Triveni Sangam where the Ganga, Jamuna, and (hid- den) Saraswati rivers form a sacred confluence, Mataji ritually established the first, and the only, women’s akhara of India, namely Shri Sarveshwar Mahadev Vaikunth Dham Muktidwar Akhara Pari (“Akhara Pari”). Declaring herself a jagadguru, and situating her akhara within the lineage of the first preceptor, Adi Acharya Shankara (ca. 9th century), Mataji’s ritual dramatized the alternative authority of a female Shankaracharya.7 Taking live samadhi and consecrating a women’s akhara perform what I term Mataji’s “dharmic feminism.” My conceptualization of dharmic feminism is informed by the work of social anthropologist Emma Tomalin (2011), who has coined the phrase “religious feminism” to describe feminist perspectives synchronized with religious worldviews that critique and transform the patriarchal values of a religion in order to raise women’s social status. As Tomalin has said, “Such a strategy is attractive to women who wish to employ a religious narrative to guide their politics of empowerment, rather than relying on the secular rhetoric of mainstream (Western) feminist discourses.” (2011, 37) To my mind, Mataji’s dharmic feminism demonstrates an Indic “style” of religious feminism taking shape in South Asian contexts. Based on a religious conception of God (Shiva) and Goddess (Shakti) as equal and interdependent, it affirms in theory and in practice the radical idea that the female is as normative as the male, and that women as much as men deserve the equal right to participate in the institutional structures of the power elite. For Mataji, the acquisition of power is neither anathema to the religious path, nor simply a narcissistic grab for absolute control. Rather, exercising power can further

6 “Magh Mela” refers to a religious festival that is celebrated during the month of Magh (January–February) in India. It is considered to be a smaller version of India’s largest religious festival known as the Kumbh Mela (“festival of the water pot”). In October 2018, the Hindu nationalist government, namely the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of Uttar Pradesh changed the name Allahabad to Prayagraj, which the government claims is the original name of the ancient city. This decision came months before the start of Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj in Jan- uary 2019. It was a move favored by Hindu nationalists across the country, as well as sadhus seeking to advance a “Hindu” India. 7 The event was featured in several English and Hindi language news articles. See the references section.

Religion andDownloaded Gender from 9 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 27–49 07:46:13AM via free access a female shankaracharya? 31 goals and values consonant with spiritual and social transformation, and, in the case of women’s leadership, model the “female as normative.”8 To realize this divine vision, Mataji has mobilized the dharmic platform for gender equality around the new leadership of the female Shankaracharya, which aims to extract women’s equal rights and respect in male-dominated Hindu institutions.

2 The Svayambhu Shankaracharya: The Alternative Authority of Female Leadership

Mataji is unique among female Hindu gurus in India and the United States. With feminism as her platform, she is constructing the normativity and, by implication, the alternative authority of the female Shankaracharya by “tap[ping] into an orthodox lineage” of male leadership in India (Narayanan 2004, 150), and surprisingly, without any institutional sanction by the established Shankaracharyas or by the Akhara Council. Her example is unprecedented, and entails redefining the conventional parameters of leadership in contemporary Hinduism.9 Importantly, Mataji’s appropriation of the Shanka- racharya leadership is self-proclaimed, which she announced in the year 2008. She calls herself a “Svayambhu Shankaracharyā.”10 Her training for the role hap-

8 The work of religion scholar Winnie Tomm (1991) has influenced my thinking on Mataji’s dharmic feminism as illustrative of what Tomm has characterized as the “ontological normativity of femaleness.” This notion as developed by Tomm interrogates dominant patriarchal discourses that engender “female as other” illustrated by western “biblical history” and post-Enlightenment thought, and does so on the basis of implicit assumptions of the universality and normativity of maleness. In her elucidation of the “female as normative,” Tomm has accentuated that “female” constitutes the ontological ground in/through which women experience the “fullness of being.” 9 Mataji may be the first woman to claim Shankaracharya leadership, but she is not the only woman holding that title. In August of 2018, another woman ascetic by the name of Hem- anand Giri, a member of the Juna Akhara of sadhus, announced her new leadership in this role, establishing her “seat of authority” (pith) at the Pashupatinath temple in Kath- mandu, Nepal. Like Mataji’s leadership, Hemanand Giri’s has been rejected by religious orthodoxy, including the Akhara Council. (See Sandeep Rawat 2018). 10 Unlike Mataji who is svayambhu, Hemanand Giri claims that her appointment is sanctioned by the Akhil Bharatiya Biddhat Sabha (i.e., she is not a self-proclaimed Shankara- charya). See (Rawat 2018). Before this council appointed her to the role, Hemanand Giri was shortlisted among a list of 200 potential Shankaracharyas for leadership of the Jyotish Pith in Badrinath, North India (it seems she was the only female of the final four contenders for the title), which is currently headed by the Shankaracharya Swami Swa- roopanand Saraswati, who also leads the Dwarka Pith in Gujarat. (See Sheo S. Jaiswal 2017).

Religion and Gender 9 (2019) 27–49 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:46:13AM via free access 32 denapoli pened informally, and, as such, has materialized entirely outside of the orthodox establishment.11 Mataji has not formally studied under any preceptor or mentor to understand the traditional Vedic sources of philosophy. Her understanding of the Vedas and Vedic sanatana (eternal) dharma comes through the cultural discourses, empirical observations that she received from family, the family guru, the larger society around her, as well as her personal visions. To provide some background, the Indian language concept “svayambhu” encompasses two overlapping meanings in the sense that, on the one hand, it describes the title of a “self-declared” spiritual leader like Mataji, who employs the svayambhu title in lieu of the external authority of direct lineage to validate her female leadership as an alternative to the male tradition. On the other hand, it articulates the understanding of a “self-existing” divine power immanent in the cosmos through which transformation, such as that exacted by Mataji’s alternative leadership, is accomplished (she linguistically reinforces her female leadership by stressing the ‘a’ vowel at the end of Shankaracharya). Thus, the svayambhu model makes explicit the new agency of the autonomous (i.e., “self- creating”; not subordinate to a chain of male authority) female preceptor in the Shankaracharya lineage.This new living tradition not only embodies the legacy (and struggle) of the “original” (ādyā) female Shankaracharya (Mataji), but also exemplifies the first and independent, female lineage of Shankaracharyas. Invoking svayambhu enables Mataji’s intervention in an institution that, because of the continuity of apostolic succession in which no precedent for the female preceptor exists (or for whose leadership Adi Shankara made no provisions), has denied the agency of women to lead as Shankaracharyas. Thus, Mataji’s alternative Shankaracharya leadership is transforming traditional religious authority by mapping a Hindu-inspired grammar of feminist goals onto its modalities and meanings. While “dharmic feminism” represents my interpretation of Mataji’s alternative leadership, it remains congruent with her own self-understanding. Mataji has said that “I am and will always be a ‘feminist.’” Let me clarify that Mataji used the English language term ‘feminist’ in response to my invoking the concept during a conversation that occurred at her temple in the year 2014, in which I asked Mataji if she views her leadership through this lens. As Mataji is not an English language speaker (Hindi is her ‘mother tongue’), she asked me what ‘feminist’ means. I responded in Hindi with the statement that, although ‘feminist’ encompasses many view- points, it is based on the common understanding that women are equal to

11 According to a news report in CurrenTrigger (2018), Hemanand Giri holds “the degree of Acharya (Masters).”

Religion andDownloaded Gender from 9 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 27–49 07:46:13AM via free access a female shankaracharya? 33 men, and that they deserve to be treated equally to men in the home, the work- place, the school, and the temple. Following my explanation, Mataji exclaimed her ‘feminist’ identity and stressed that her leadership ushers gender equality into religious contexts (the Hindi she used for gender equality is “ling ki samanta”). Her idea of ‘feminist’ parallels postcolonial, transnational formu- lations that accentuate women’s constitutional rights to equality of resources and representation (Lukose and Loomba 2012; Jeffrey 2001). In Mataji’s understanding, “feminist” articulates the need to change cultural attitudes complicit in women’s oppression in the akharas and Indic society. I met Mataji in the year of 2014, shortly after information about Akhara Pari surfaced in the Indian media, and while I was in the country conducting field- work for a research project on modernization and renunciation (sannyasa). She was forty-five years of age at the time. With the help of a journalist in Delhi, I contacted Mataji and, with her permission, traveled from Rajasthan to Praya- graj and spent time at her ashram, residing there for over a week, in order to work with her and twenty-five of her devotees. Before she became a sadhu in the year 2007 (though she says she took a vow of “mental sannyasa” in 2000), and before she became a self-declared Shankaracharya in 2008 and the founder of Akhara Pari in 2014, Mataji was a middle-class householder with two chil- dren, a boy and a girl separated by five years (the daughter is younger to the son). She not only studied Ayurvedic medicine, receiving the highest level of learning in this field, but also trained to become a mid-wife (dai) at a local hospital in Prayagraj. Dissatisfied with the treatment of women patients, nurses, and staff at the hospital, Mataji left her job and joined a women’s development NGO in Benares, serving in the position of secretary. Her interactions with sadhus, whom she met through that NGO, brought to light their daily challenges within and outside of the akharas. Mataji felt that until she became a sadhu “like them,” leaving behind material comforts and kinship networks, she could not fully comprehend the social realities of their vulnerability and oppression. Since she became a sadhu, Mataji has maintained contact with her daughter, who resides in New Delhi, but has had no contact with her son or former spouse. The data documented here is drawn from conversations and ethnographic research that I conducted with Mataji at her ashram (and temple) in the years 2014 and 2018. She has claimed the uncommon status and power of the Shankaracharya through her “extraordinary charisma,” and with that “gift of grace,” she has attracted a large community of householders and sadhus to Akhara Pari (Wes- singer 1993, 17). Mataji’s charisma is derived from the power of the svayambhu guru Shiva, which describes the principle of the “self-manifesting” deity Shiva immanent in the cosmos. Apart from Adi Shankara, she claims to be the second

Religion and Gender 9 (2019) 27–49 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:46:13AM via free access 34 denapoli acharya, and so far the only female preceptor, to have received direct transmission of power from the svayambhu guru, which authorizes her alternative leadership. Her contact with this power occurs through visionary (darshan) experiences. They began a couple of years after she became a sadhu and in conjunc- tion with her conflict with Hindu religious leaders over the physical and sexual harassment of women in the akharas. The conflict escalated in a personal cri- sis, and just when Mataji was ready to abandon her mission to protect women, the svayambhu guru Shiva “arrived” and has been with her ever since. She says that Shiva has descended into her so that women can “fly” to God. That is, Shiva came through Mataji for women, and Shiva chose Mataji because, in her view, she possesses the moral excellence, the courage, and the fierce independence of mind required to reestablish “the truth of women’s power” on earth. To that extent, insofar as Adi Acharya Shankara represents the masculine manifestation of the svayambhu guru Shiva in another age (purane kal men), Mataji discloses its feminine manifestation for this age (isi kal ke liye). She emphasizes that a female embodiment of the svayambhu guru, and hence the Shankaracharya, is “necessary” to transform the hypermasculine expression of modernity that she suggests India prioritizes. In her teachings, Shiva has both immanent and transcendent aspects. Her understanding of this male principle pulls from the non-dualistic teachings of AdvaitaVedanta and Shakta (goddess) theology, and the dualistic Samkhya-Yoga frameworks to craft a syncretic teaching that affirms divine unity without dismissing differences of sex and gender to embodied experience. This theological eclecticism distinguishes her tradition from the non-dualistic Shankaracharya teaching traditions.12 Mataji’s connection to svayambhu guru Shiva, while paving the way for an autonomous female lineage of preceptors on par with the male tradition (for Mataji, she stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Adi Shankara), is not by itself enough to claim the alternative authority of the female Shankaracharya. She must also draw on the immanent power of Shakti, and through identifica- tion with the goddess, emphasize women’s equal right to leadership. From this angle, Mataji embodies the holistic divinity of the dual-sexed deity, Ardha- narishwara (“half male, half female Lord”). She is both Shakti and Shiva, and her devotees worship her dual incarnation. Thus, her combined divinity creates the mutual authority of women’s and men’s leadership, even as her lineage brings into focus the institutional lacuna of female authority related to a larger history of gender disparities in women’s leadership in the Hindu traditions (Rudert 2017; Lucia 2014; Pechilis 2004).

12 (See Cenkner 1995).

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Interestingly, unlike her relationship to the male Shiva principle, which is achieved through direct transmission of power (similar to the male model of power transmission from guru to disciple investing the successor with authority), Mataji does not require any kind of power transmission, visionary or otherwise, by the female Shakti principle to engender her alternative authority. That is, from her perspective, the Goddess does not give anything to Mataji that she does not already have or embody because of her biological femaleness. Her experience of the Goddess affirms the oneness and essential unity of woman and goddess as the same primordial, creative, and dynamic female life force. When the Goddess appears to Mataji, the Goddess reminds Mataji of her ultimate (and divine) female power, rather than bestows any authority or power on Mataji. In this way, Mataji understands that her biological female sex “naturally” connects her to the transformative divinity of the Goddess. That connectivity also links her to a female public within and beyond Akhara Pari’s parameters. In the remaining discussion, I examine the practices through which Mataji performs the normativity of femaleness to construct women’s alternative authority in the akharas and the normativity of the female Shankaracharya. Although her leadership contributes to the guru role the understanding of “female as universal,” an idea that the historian of religion Karen Pechilis has elucidated in The Graceful Guru (Pechilis 2004, 10), it extends that insight to highlight an understanding of the female as normative and to locate the feminist modalities and agency of Akhara Pari. Through narrative performance, Mataji reshapes the dominant boundaries for religious leadership by empha- sizing three themes around which this article is organized. They are women’s equal right to an independent akhara; the equal value of ordinary women sadhus to lead them; and the sanctity of female bodily functions to women’s worship in akharas. Exploring these motifs can shed light on why this woman guru intervenes in an orthodox lineage of male authority to exercise her alternative leadership and exact the transformation of contemporary Hinduism.

3 “Let’s free the power from its cage”: Constructing Women’s Right to Their Own Akhara

One of the key issues addressed through the platform of Mataji’s dharmic feminism concerns creating a women-led and women-centered environment in which sadhus flourish. The founding of Akhara Pari turned a fundamental goal into a social reality. What better way to claim that female is normal than to create an akhara where, as Mataji says, “women can be free.” Affirming women’s

Religion and Gender 9 (2019) 27–49 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:46:13AM via free access 36 denapoli right to have and lead an akhara of their own demystifies the dominant under- standings of “female as other” that have become entrenched in the running of akharas. The notion of female as other may seem strange in a Hindu religious tradition replete with Goddess symbolism. But akharas are typically not places where Goddess symbolism thrives. They have traditionally been ascetic worlds created by and for men. The Akhara Council’s official rhetoric has largely emphasized an ideology of the irrelevance of gender in the akharas (Khan- delwal 2004; Hausner 2007; DeNapoli 2018). Since the atma is ungendered, a sadhu’s gender, in theory, makes no difference to the kinds of facilities and accommodations available to him or her. Similarly, since a sadhu is expected to be detached from the desires of the physical body, which symbolizes the locus of death, the kinds and nature of the facilities available to them should be of no concern. Be that as it may, the gap between the ideal and women sadhus’ social realities in these institutions is wide. Contrary to the official discourse, gender impacts daily life in the akharas in structural, material, and discursive ways. Only a few of them, like the Juna Akhara, which is non-orthodox, accept women into its folds. The majority of akharas, though, reject women’s eligi- bility to join on the basis that sadhus are required to wander naked, which is considered across renunciant traditions to represent the high virtue of worldly detachment. Some officials have gone on record stating that the sight of a naked woman would be a “corrupting” influence on society, and therefore, deny women membership. Many of the akharas are characterized as “naga” (“naked”) sects whose (male) members wander naked to signify their detachment from the world of name and form, and as significantly, from the physical body. By this logic, what better way to communicate one’s “death to the world” than to wander naked and live as a human penumbra on the edge of society. Nevertheless, linking “naga” with the concept/phenomenon of akharas implicitly embeds the expected requirement of maleness and the normativity of the male body for admission into such renunciant institutions. The preferential treatment extended to men in and by many of the akharas also has to do with their martial history. Sadhu akharas are divided into two types, namely “astra” (“sword”) and “shastra” (“scripture”) (Gross 2001, 62). As early as the 9th century, the sadhu akharas were developed for the prag- matic purpose of protecting Hindu teachings and traditions from the perceived heretical influences of Jains and Buddhists. Perhaps as early as the 13th century, but definitely by the 16th century, militant forms of asceticism appeared and formed into organized regiments sustained through an exten- sive network of akharas (Ibid, 62). These akharas used militant tactics to defend renouncers and the spiritual preceptors of monastic orders, such as

Religion andDownloaded Gender from 9 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 27–49 07:46:13AM via free access a female shankaracharya? 37 the Shankaracharya, from attack by competing sadhu sects, thieves and thugs, or non-Hindus. Around the mid-eighteenth century, the British government began campaigns to control the militant akharas, and colonial attempts to sub- due them became so repressive that, by the early nineteenth century,the British had “successfully crushed the independent militant ascetic groups who were raiding and harassing British holdings, especially in Bengal” (Gross 2001, 73). Thus, as their martial history attests, akharas were primarily places for military training and exercise directed toward developing physical strength and power. In this male world, God symbolism is predominant. Images of the celi- bate and powerful monkey-god Hanuman are prominent in the akharas, and the male sadhus with whom I have worked have used Hanuman’s example to suggest the masculine “spirit” and ethos of akharas. The gendered masculine connotations of “akhara” continue to linger semantically in meanings such as “gymnasium,” “military regiment,” and “army” (Gross 2001; Lochtefeld 2010, 144). Against this backdrop, the scholar of religion Catherine Wessinger’s insight articulated almost a quarter of a century ago that “women religious leaders are prominent in those groups in which the male divine is de-emphasized” is applicable in the case of the akharas (1993, 125). Constructing a new narrative of the normativity of femaleness appears to go against the grain of this male-centric institution. Not surprisingly, the pushback combined with condemnation by Hindu religious leaders in response to founding Akhara Pari confirmed Mataji’s suspicion of the secondary status accorded women in the akharas. One event sticks out in her mind. In January 2013, at the Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, women sadhus formed a “camp” exclusively for sannyasinis of the Juna akhara.13 It would be housed in a separate area of the Kumbh Mela and provide women their own facilities. Its leader, Devya Giri, lauded the event, suggesting that it would enable a more egalitarian environment for women sadhus of the akhara. The news made the headlines, and being in India at the time, I recall discussion about having amenities like separate toilets for women swaying the Akhara Council’s decision to vote in favor of a separate sannyasinis’ camp. For Mataji, the event felt like a setback rather than a step forward. It magni- fied the perceived inferiority of women in the akharas. Her goal was to facilitate the institutional autonomy of a separate women’s akhara, not subordinate it to men. Autonomy would not be possible as long as the women’s akhara was folded into the mostly male leadership of a male akhara. What really unsettled Mataji during these negotiations concerns the word that the sadhus leading the

13 (See Sanyal, Amitava 2013).

Religion and Gender 9 (2019) 27–49 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:46:13AM via free access 38 denapoli campaign used to identify this new, female world, namely, “bada.” The news- papers glossed it as “camp,” but bada also describes an animal shed. Mataji’s narratives illuminate her concern with the ways in which female otherness is normalized in the akharas. She says,

In the 2013 Kumbh Mela, there was a lot of discussion going on about the matter of making a women’s akhara. It went all the way up to the officials. But after many individual and group decisions, the [male] leaders said, “You can make a mai bada [women’s enclosure].” So they made a mai bada. By hearing this bada word, it seems we are worse than animals. When we have mother power [matri-shakti] in our Ved-Puran-Shastras, they tell us that women belong in a barn [bada]. These akharas want to put the real power in a cage … I didn’t like this word bada. It means they have separated females. They made a bada and said women will live here like animals in a shed. So, I told them, why bada? There should an akhara also. It’s time to release the real power from its cage.

Mataji’s choice of words for Akhara Pari is instructive. “Pari” has multiple lin- guistic meanings like “angel,” “fairy,” and “beautiful woman.” While her usage of the term cuts across these signifiers, she is careful to parse out her idea of a “beautiful woman.” Mataji emphasizes that “beautiful” describes the woman with the “freedom to explore the depths of herself” beyond, as she says, the “lakshman-rekha” (lit., “line drawn by Lakshmana”; fig., cultural conventions not to be crossed) in which women’s lives are often circumscribed. Her provoca- tive use of the lakshman-rekha motif, which is drawn from the widely popular Hindu epic Ramayana, rhetorically cues the dominant societal expectations for women to marry, procreate, and serve their families that, in her view, constrict their lives within male-defined parameters of prescribed gender norms and roles. Especially problematic for Mataji is that the conventional cultural men- tality characterized by the lakshman-rekha of patriarchal gender expectations runs in the male-dominated akharas as well and limits women’s advancement. It surfaces in the ritual prohibitions placed on women due to the perceived impurity of female menstruation and in the inequities of their less than equal access to the facilities of akharas and leadership opportunities. But Mataji wants to “break” the restrictions that institutionalize the ontological status of female as other within the akharas and, as the term bada implies, subordinate women’s autonomy. Mataji’s clever use of the word “Pari,” therefore, indexes her desire for women to “fly” outside of the lakshman-rekha of male-defined akhara restrictions as they take flight toward God. As her narratives underscore, it is “time to release women from the cage” of patriarchal

Religion andDownloaded Gender from 9 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 27–49 07:46:13AM via free access a female shankaracharya? 39 enclosures like the lakshman-rehka and “set the real power free.” In this light, her selection of “Pari” for an akhara connotes the emancipatory role of the dharmic feminism of Akhara Pari. Its name affirms the equality and the normativity of women, whether they are sadhus or householders, to exercise their freedom of mind and being to soar independently to the highest levels of spiritual and social development. As significantly, “Pari” suggests that women who advance their personal interests are good for the society and not a potential danger to it.

4 “All sadhus are equal”: Affirming the Value of Ordinary Sadhus in the Akharas

Another issue tackled by the dharmic feminism of Akhara Pari involves affirming ordinary women sadhus to run akharas, rather than only the virtuosos (that is, the spiritually exceptional or those having advanced spiritual training) on whom the authority of leadership is often bestowed. While it is not the norm, one encounters women leaders in the akharas. They have served in prestigious roles from mahamandeleshwars (lit., “supreme lord of the region”)14 to mahants (abbots), and because of their visibility in the Kumbh Melas, akhara officials rebuke the notion that akharas discriminate against women. Based on the public statements of some of the akhara officials, the visibility of women leaders is conflated with gender equality in religion. From Mataji’s perspective, the root of the matter concerns the question of which women sadhus become authorized to lead akharas, and as she sees it, leadership constitutes a function of exceptionalism.15 The ideology of exceptionalism and authority are intertwined in akharas. According to Mataji, this ideology manifests in the hierarchical language of “important” and “ordinary” deployed in the discourse of akharas to distinguish between virtuosos and non-virtuosos, respectively. Constructing the equal value of so-called “ordinary sadhus,” Mataji says,

We have women sadhus in lakhs [thousands]. And the officials only give a place to the special sadhus. They give posts to those women who are

14 (See James Lochtefeld 2010, 145). 15 (See Antoinette E. DeNapoli 2014). Meena Khandelwal (2004, 199) discusses that the sadhus with whom she worked in Haridwar, North India, distinguished themselves from householder women, and by doing so, rhetorically legitimated their authority to take sannyasa by virtue of perceiving themselves as “exceptions to the norm.”

Religion and Gender 9 (2019) 27–49 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:46:13AM via free access 40 denapoli

important to them. But I have to show women the correct path. Those who are important already have their place. I have made this akhara to make those women who are not important to the officials important.They should also become important; they should also have a place. For the ordinary [sadharan] sadhus, this akhara has been made to give women facilities and respect. All women sadhus will get recognition in Akhara Pari. Proudly, they can come to this akhara. And with pride, they can say, “we are the mahant [leader] of this akhara; we are the mahant of this ashram.” I’m talking about all women sadhus. The meaning of “ham” is not “I.” All these sadhus will have pride. They will feel that this akhara is their home.

As her narrative discloses, Mataji founded Akhara Pari for the women whom family, community, and society have forgotten, exploited, and thrown away, to make their voices carry and affirm their place in the world. When the status of female as other combines with the ideology of exceptionalism, the effects can be deleterious for women. According to Mataji, since a large number of women in the akharas are non-literate and, in most cases, have not been given any “special” status, these sadhus become tasked with the mundane (and low status) work of cleaning, cooking, and caretaking by those sadhus with status and authority. Overlooked, though, is that the sadhus with structural power have often come from privileged social backgrounds and have received an education. Mataji understands that religious advancement represents the “fruit” of spiritual and social factors. Both affect one’s state of consciousness and sense of identity. Thinking about the interrelation of charisma and authority in women’s religious leadership, I asked Mataji how, and the extent to which, the svayambhu guru principle applies to ordinary women in akharas. After all, her alternative authority seems to be anchored to an ideology of exceptionalism. As she understands the issue, though, Akhara Pari and the female Shankaracharya constitute the “same” body, and people initiated by the Shankaracharya also gain the power of the svayambhu guru. In theory, everyone has access to the guru’s charisma and is eligible to run the akharas with an equivalent charis- matic status. As a result they can also lead in the Shankaracharya lineage by participating in the cosmic body of Akhara Pari. In this light, Mataji represents an exemplar particularly for the women of her akhara, not the exception.16

16 Angela Rudert (2017a, 143; 2017b, 158–159) makes a comparable insight with the feminist worldview of the female guru Anandmurti Gurumaa. Rudert says that Gurumaa self-

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But, as Mataji says, an alternative Shankaracharya tradition requires making available to all sadhus “correct training,” and thus the education of women remains a crucial issue for Akhara Pari. Its platform posits a conjunctive relationship between women’s lack of equal access to education and their exploita- tion in the akharas. For Akhara Pari, “correct training” involves transmitting knowledge about the “power of women” (stri ki shakti) and their human value to society. Importantly, Mataji associates the lack of “correct” education among both impoverished and privileged classes of Indian women with cultural practices like son preference. By the same token, she feels that the principle of male preference operates in akharas and renders women’s oppression possible. In her view, the practice of exploiting of women sadhus is evident in what she calls the “dasi parampara” (“servant lineage”) that is running in the akharas. She explains,

The women sadhus have a bad reputation in the akharas. Nobody wants to make them a guru. The jati tradition of gender discrimination [ling- bhed] is happening. The man is always higher, whether he is old or young. And the woman is always [reduced] to a dasi. Even if she is older, she is seen as a dasi. This dasi parampara is going on in the akharas. The women [sadhus] have so much power but they are not using that power to benefit themselves. In the akharas, they serve the guruji and [the rest of the] men by making the food, washing the clothes, cleaning the utensils, sweep- ing the floors, and so forth. This is their sadhana. They are told that the seva of the guru is sadhana. The ones with the real power are reduced to dasis. This is the biggest irony [bidambara] of India. We have to create an atmosphere that is good for women. We have to give them equal facilities, training, and respect. Only then will our India become a golden country. This is my thinking. And it will happen. The women sadhus are restless. They want change.

To actualize the kind of training that she envisions will alter the conditions of women’s lives within and outside of the akharas, Mataji draws on the help of local social workers, advocates, journalists, and university professors and graduate students from the nearby University of Allahabad to craft a multi- pronged curriculum that combines spiritual and social elements. While con-

represents as a model for every woman, not as an exception to them. Gurumaa rejects the ideology of exceptionalism, because of which women devotees feel they cannot realize the state of consciousness attained by Gurumaa, or, as Rudert suggests, become gurus like her.

Religion and Gender 9 (2019) 27–49 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:46:13AM via free access 42 denapoli ducting research, I observed that Mataji spent a lot of her time in meetings with individuals and groups devoted to the structural development of Akhara Pari and fundraising. Right now these trainings are given at Pari’s main headquar- ters in Prayagraj. Mataji has appointed three other women to lead the trainings along with her and, the last time we spoke in 2018, she plans to make them Shankaracharyas, each of whom will run a monastery at a different location in India. Currently, Mataji is trying to grow her constituency so that she can raise the funding required to create semi-autonomous centers of learning in Delhi and elsewhere.

5 “God is in this body”: Sanctioning Female Bodily Functions for Akhara Ritual Worship

Women sadhus’ perceived ontological status as “other” surfaces most explicitly in the akharas with the ritual prohibitions of purity and pollution (chua-chut) placed on them in contexts of menstruation. In the rituals performed at Akhara Pari, Mataji emphasizes that “God enters women’s bodies to change the world.” Her words heighten the sanctity and power of female embodiment while ques- tioning predominantly Brahmanical ideologies that conceive of menstruation through the orthodox ritual language of impurity. Thus, a third issue addressed by the feminist platform of Akhara Pari involves constructing the purity of female bodily functions. Akharas vary in the degree and extent to which ritual customs of purity and pollution are practiced. With few exceptions, akharas typically accept sadhus across the differential lines of caste, and so their adherence (or not) to traditions of chua-chut depends on their cultural outlook, which is often informed by family customs. As the work of the anthropologist Kirin Narayan (1989) has illuminated in the case of the Hindu guru Swamiji, sadhus do not necessarily relinquish their caste identities and, for that matter, the ritual customs of purity and pollution implied by normative caste hierarchies when they renounce the world.17 The ideological basis for the strict norms of ritual conduct expected of women sadhus on their menses is that they are said to be ritually unclean for five days. During that time, they must limit their physical contact with divine and human beings and refrain from worship and other practices (like food preparation) until the end of the fifth day to prevent transmitting impu-

17 Kirin Narayan (1989). See also Hausner (2006), Khandelwal (2004), and Gross (2001).

Religion andDownloaded Gender from 9 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 27–49 07:46:13AM via free access a female shankaracharya? 43 rity to others. Mataji speaks at length about the ritual norms that menstruating women are expected follow in akharas. She says,

The akharas restrict women in many ways. Take the custom of chua-chut. It is said that women are untouchable for five days in a month when they menstruate. They are not allowed to do the puja for five days and are expected to stop their activities. Tell us in which Ved-Puran-Shastras it is written that women cannot do all this? Why do you call women impure? Nothing wrong has happened to her. But women are treated like they have a disease. I want to break this tradition. After breaking so many fetters, I am here.

Her strong reaction to chua-chut customs comes curiously close to the feel- ings she discloses in response to a sannyasinis’ bada: disappointment and anger with the culturally sanctioned separation of women due to physiolog- ical functions that distinguish female bodies from the purportedly normative male body.For her, chua-chut customs reinforce the secondary status of women in akharas. It dramatizes female as other by removing women from everyday spheres of life and placing them on the periphery of their social worlds where they are neither seen nor heard. By contrast, Mataji performs the view that menstruation is a “normal” function of female bodies and suggests women’s ritual authority to worship continuously. Recognizing the challenge for women to internalize this idea, Mataji talks about her experiences and says,

I have done this on myself. I thought, can anything bad happen if I do the puja when I have my period. So, I did puja, I did sadhana when I had my period. I wanted to see if God would appear in front of me, or run from me because I am menstruating. It is said in our Shastras that God is everywhere. I am telling the women of India, our mothers and sisters, that God is in our bodies, too. God is with us all the time. In our breath, in our hearts, and in our bodies. When God is living inside us, where does God go when I have my period? Do I have to throw God away? Is God inside the icon [murti] or inside me?

Against this backdrop, a feminist Shankaracharya imbues women with the confidence to conceive of their bodily functions through the affirmative lens of purity and power by teaching that God is in their breath and the blood their bodies shed during menses. Mataji indicates that menstruation can be a source for women’s personal agency and power across socio-religious contexts. Her social consciousness and dharmic feminism are fueled by the powerful con-

Religion and Gender 9 (2019) 27–49 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:46:13AM via free access 44 denapoli nection she suggests she experiences with the divine through menses. Notice that she also creates connection with a female public by including herself in the category of menstruating woman. When I met Mataji in 2014 she was, in fact, still having menstrual cycles (albeit she had already entered perimenopause some years earlier) and considered menstruation a source of her religious power. In 2018, she told me that her menstrual cycles had stopped in the year 2015. Hence, grounded in the sanctity of her own personal experience of menstruation, Mataji affirms the relevance of gender to embodied experience and the normality of women’s bodily functions to larger human experiences of the divine, rather than claim the social irrelevance of gender and the female body to accommodate the universal male norm of embodied religious experience. Although Mataji uses the masculine language of “God” (bhagvan) in her narrative, Goddess symbolism (and language) is vital to the feminist platform of Akhara Pari. Constructing the purity and sanctity of female bodily functions is largely possible due to the interrelatedness of women and goddess that Mataji accomplishes through performance. She stresses that women more so than men embody the great goddess Shakti, who creates, sustains, and destroys the universe (Erndl 1993).18 But Shakti is more than a divine feminine life-force to Mataji. She is also a divine female who menstruates like human women. Without Shakti’s menstruation, Mataji says that the world could not exist. She emphasizes that “Blood comes out of our bodies because it came out of Mother’s body first.” The mother with whom she identifies is the goddess Kamakhya. Describing the Shakti pitha in Assam, where Kamakhya is wor- shipped, she says,

Our mother Kamakhya Devi too has her period and her blood is wor- shipped for power [shakti]. It is so powerful. People from all over India come and take Mother’s menstrual cloth. Whenever Mother Kamakhya has her period, after three, five days, people come and take her cloth as prasad [blessed offering] to perform big, big work; to get big, big power [siddhis]. How can we call women impure when we worship Kamakhya’s blood?

Her narrative performance is multivalent. The image of the menstruating “mother” heightened through storytelling refers to Kamakhya, the cosmic goddess, as well as to Mataji, the human goddess. Goddess and guru represent

18 Kathleen M. Erndl (1993).

Religion andDownloaded Gender from 9 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 27–49 07:46:13AM via free access a female shankaracharya? 45 interdependent signifiers of equivalence of female purity and power. But a deeper layer of meaning woven into this telling involves the idea that menstruating women also embody the female power and purity of goddess as guru, and vice versa. Menstruation connects women’s material bodies to that of the Goddess-Guru and renders transformation possible. Through this narrative telling, Mataji transforms a perceived ritual state of female impurity in the Brahmanical worldview by constructing the purity of a universal bodily function. The materiality of women’s bodies correlated with the Goddess’s divine materiality in the generative processes of world creation and regeneration becomes the ultimate basis to affirm female as normative. In this framework, menstruation is reimagined positively to sanctify a purportedly female universal and, through the use of goddess symbolism, accord it divine status.

6 Conclusion: “The Satis are Rising”—The Transformative Force of Dharmic Feminism

With the “wings” of Akhara Pari, and Mataji’s inspiring example, women sadhus gain the strength, confidence, and skills to “rise” high above the male-defined world of akharas, in which their opportunities for leadership remain limited. As the name “Pari” suggests, they can “fly” toward a new horizon of possibilities for creating a female world where they are “free” to chart their lives and their destinies and push women-centered interests and values to the center of their everyday lives. In Mataji’s words, “the satis19 are rising.” Women sadhus are attaining unprecedented status and power in what have traditionally been male institutions of authority. Their ascension has been fueled in part by the confluence of broader human rights-based discourses and social justice frameworks illustrative of the feminisms of global modernities. The entry of feminist-inspired worldviews and activism into South Asian Hindu religious contexts, while not new, appears to be increasing, and to some extent, localizing around the guru role. The recent book publication by the scholar of religion Angela Rudert titled, Shakti’s New Voice: Guru Devotion in a Woman-Led Spiritual Movement (2017a), illuminates this trajectory in her anal-

19 Mataji’s use of “sati” in her teachings carries a wide semantic scale to encompass vari- ous classes of “virtuous women” in the Hindu traditions, such as women sadhus, gurus, brahmacaris, bhaktas, and women possessed by the goddess. Her usage of the term, therefore, discloses Hindu religious women in general, and by implication, Akhara Pari’s work of emancipating women from the shackles of ways of thinking and acting that diminish their well-being.

Religion and Gender 9 (2019) 27–49 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:46:13AM via free access 46 denapoli ysis of the “feminist theological stance” of the high-profile and well-educated female guru Anandmurti Gurumaa (2017b, 150). Rudert suggests that “Gurumaa is in a strong position from which to offer critique” of dominant patriarchal constructions of “tradition” and gender norms because of the powerful fusion of charisma and moral authority signified by the guru role (see Hallstrom 1999). The dharmic feminisms of Gurumaa and Mataji are, in fact, remarkably similar. Both leaders contest “religious misinterpretations … that have denied women’s aptitude for enlightenment or otherwise stripped them of religious authority” (Rudert 2017 b, 153). While plugged into an orthodox lineage, Mataji’s alternative authority recon- structs Shankaracharya leadership by combining female categories of authority with her grassroots feminism to make space for women’s transformative leadership. Her power, and her authority, come from the dual-sexed Shakti-Shiva divinity within her, not from any human teacher or established lineage. Her practices show that she brings God-Goddess symbolism and God-Goddess consciousness to bear on her leadership in ways that benefit women’s concrete lives. Affirming the “fullness of [female] being” through feminist interpretations of a women-centered symbolic and Hindu dharma traditions, Mataji transforms traditional categories of male authority to include the female as normative and create equal opportunities for women to participate in an independent female lineage and in the life and leadership of the akharas (Tomm 1991, 80). Even without institutional sanction, Mataji forwards Akhara Pari’s feminist platform because she understands that unless women prioritize themselves, the societies they live in will not. As she sees it, the power of dharmic feminism lies in accentuating the salvific wisdom of women’s equal right to give themselves that which they often give to others in their kinship and community networks. Mataji presses on the idea that women deserve as much as men to stake for themselves the goods of spiritual and social well-being without reap- ing punitive consequences. Until gender expectations change, societies will, as she says, “stay the same.” Rudert contributes a similar insight about Gurumaa’s feminist theology. Speaking about Gurumaa’s householder devotees, in partic- ular, Rudert observes, “The reality for women … is that taking time away from domestic roles is not an easy thing to do … Women give to their families. They give to their careers. But on the spiritual path, [they] give something to themselves … In her life example and in her words, Gurumaa says, ‘Yes, you can and you must!’” (2017b, 162). Mataji would agree. For a woman Shankaracharya such as Mataji to create and transmit an autonomous knowledge tradition to and for women, one which infuses the idea of female with normative value and ontological primacy, carries the cultural

Religion andDownloaded Gender from 9 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2019) 27–49 07:46:13AM via free access a female shankaracharya? 47 weight heavy enough to create an alternative narrative of women’s leadership. Perhaps it takes a feminist religious leader to motivate the change that can free women sadhus from the patriarchal cage of their “circumscribed ontological status” in renunciant akharas (Tomm 1991, 72). Like the sacred Triveni Sangam river, the birthplace of Akhara Pari, whose sacred waters are said to transform lives, Mataji’s words and rituals perform change and transform women’s lives by making an akhara of their own possible.

Acknowledgments

This article is based on a paper I presented at the annual meeting of the Amer- ican Academy of Religion in 2017 in Boston, MA, that was part of a panel on female gurus organized by Karen Pechilis. I am grateful to Professor Pechilis for inviting me on the panel, and to Amanda Lucia who served as the respondent, and whose comments helped me to clarify points. I thank June McDaniel for making comments on a draft of the article, and the group of scholars who par- ticipated in a workshop held in Heidelberg, Germany, in 2018 titled, “Female Agency in Hinduism and Buddhism,” organized by Ute Huesken at the Univer- sity of Heidelberg’s South Asia Institute. Finally, I thank the two anonymous peer reviewers for their constructive critique. With one exception, in this article I have refrained from using diacritical marks to facilitate ease of reading for non-specialist audiences. The article is based on ethnographic research that I conducted in the years 2014 and 2018 through the assistance of a research grant from the American Academy of Religion (2014), the Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society (2018), and a Mid-Career Sum- mer Research Grant (2018) and a Research and Creativity Grant (2018) from Texas Christian University. This article is dedicated to the memory of my late mentor, Kathleen M. Erndl.

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