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International Journal of Research ISSN NO:2236-6124

The Demonic Body: An Evaluation in the light of Gender and Sexuality

Ms. Neethu S, Assistant Professor in English, Department of Taxation, Mata College,Thrikkakara. Email: [email protected]

Abstract Myths and legends have influenced human beings from times immemorial. They serve as the backbone of any culture. Hindu civilization is mainly renowned for its myriad myths and legends. like and Bhagavatha serve as an eye opener to our cultural heritage. It serves as an answer to all kinds of dilemma faced by people even today. The role of puranas is thus significant in layman’s life as he/she takes it as an authentic record of his/her cultural past. The paper intends to analyse the treatment of certain women who are characterised as demonesses in Puranas who are categorized so just because they are the desiring subjects, throwing light on two mythical characters Shoorpanakha (from Ramayana) and Poothana (from Bhagavatha) who are portrayed as evil in the Puranas as they express overtly their repressed desires.

Keywords: sexuality, female body, desire. ------Ramayana, the story of Srirama, has been among one of the favourites of people belonging to almost all age categories. It tells the story of , the prince of Ayodhya, his wife , daughter of king Janaka and the king of Lanka. The story of Ramayana has been thus told innumerable times. The enthralling story of Rama, the incarnation of lord , who slew Ravana, the evil demon of darkness, is known to every Indian. In the pages of history, as always, it is the version told by the ones who hold the weight of victory. In this postmodern era a time has arrived where Ravana is no more portrayed an evil or a demon but someone who is a devout disciple of Lord and one who captures Sita in order to worship her. Counter- histories have been written in order to reconstruct many mythical characters who were initially portrayed in a dark light so as to bring them to the limelight as it is the need of the hour as we live in a postmodern world that accepts the multiplicity of truths. This has increased peoples’ concern for characters like Ravana and . Women being the subjects of desire can complicate the smooth running of a patriarchal society, and in order to get back the poise of such a society, there arises a need to suppress the voice of such a category of women. This is done through a series of strategies. Here arises the need to analyse the body of a woman. The female body is a place where all kinds of paraphernalias conjoin. Desire is essentially human and social. It is relational. It is part of a two-fold platform because where desire exists, there always co-exist an object of desire. Expressed through language and cultural symbols, desire is culturally and communally determined. Desire is, thus, inseparable from the social influences that give it shape and meaning. For women, as well as for men, desire tells a cultural and gendered story.

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Although many women writers have tried to bring out an expression of female desire as a liberating experience, most of them have failed to do so falling into the old pattern of conceiving female sexuality and the female body as subservient to, or depending upon male desire. It is mainly because they are not liberated from the patriarchal discourse mainly because they succumb to guilt. This guilt originates in the split experienced by the female subject, torn between patriarchal traditions and the desire for self-fulfilment. It includes social, psychological, intellectual and sexual fulfilment. Women, at a time, has to confront her own erotic desire as well as the expectations of the society on her. In “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Helene Cixous proposes l’ecriture feminine as a model that allows feminine desire, the language of the body, to reconstitute expression as a revolutionary movement against the masculine rhetorical structure that has defined language over time. By employing the medusa image, Cixous deconstructs Jacques Lacan’s phallocentrism and Sigmund Freud’s misogynist psychoanalytic closure of women. She counters Freud’s model of passivity for women with one that offers uninhibited freedom through the body and the mind. As per 's Ramayana, Shoorpanaka was an ugly woman (gora mukhi), pot bellied and cross- eyed. She has thin, brown hair and a grating voice that is harsh on the ears. She had oversized breasts, which can be translated to mean a heart full of wickedness. The concept of docile body can be a solution to the aporia of the identity of Shoorpanaka. According to Foucault, as mentioned earlier body is a paraphernalia where all cultural ideologies conjoin. The body of Shoorpanaka thus becomes a site where one can explore the traits of racial, sexual, patriarchal as well cultural ideologies. Most of the versions of Ramayana portrays Shoorpanaka as a demoness who tries to woo Rama and as a result gets mutilated. The reason for such a portrayal needs attention. Shoorpanaka belongs to the clan, and is considered to be Ravana’s sister and demoness Thataka’s grand daughter. This gives an idea of the situation that she is part of an evil lineage. This estranges our sympathy for her. She makes advances of love to Rama. The story takes a major turn here. Shoorpanaka is characterised as an evil as she, being a woman, made romantic advances towards an , a member of the elite class. Rama and after making fun of her, decides to amputate her senses. Her nose is stripped of by Lakshmana. In the Kamban version of Ramayana, Shoorpanaka’s breasts are also mutilated. Mutilation of breasts and nose has a greater implication in this research. Breast, often considered to be the symbol of femininity is a major element in studies regarding female body. It is portrayed as stupendous and over-sized. This actually implies the concept of beauty surmounting femininity. Beauty is a major yardstick that helps to assess the quality of the female body. The juxtaposition of Shoorpanaka with Sita makes clear to the reader the disparity between the good and the evil. The reason behind the portrayal of Shoorpanaka as evil is her desire to become a subject. Race as well as patriarchy never allowed females to advocate their desires as they feared the empowerment of the former. She becomes a demoness like Medusa whose sexuality frightens even the warriors. Portraying women who wish to become desiring subjects as monstrous will enable the patriarchal society to condition the thoughts and perspectives of the layman as it always conveys the false message that such women do not fit in an ordinary patriarchal society. Combining Foucault’s theory of the body with the theories of Cixous and de Beauvoir, the female body is inscripted with the patriarchal and cultural ideologies as a means of suppression.

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At the end of Shoorpanaka’s story, she gets a chance to become the wife of Lord , but even then, she seems to be disfigured. She has her rebirth as Kubja, the hunch-backed wife of Lord Krishna. No matter whoever a woman is, she is not assigned the permission to desire for something disapproved by the males of the society. If at all she expresses her desire, she becomes a monster or is portrayed as grotesque, causing havoc in a normal society. By removing Shoorpanaka from the trajectory of the epic, a deliberate attempt is made to throw her into oblivion from the human minds. Even now, when people read about her, she exists in their mind as the demoness who was instrumental in the cause of Rama-Ravana war. Leaving aside the patriarchal readings of Ramayana, Shoorpanaka ,the woman, though marginalized, could be seen as a major character of the epic without whom, Ramayana would not have had such an ending. This also gives a proper backdrop to the story of Poothana. Poothana, considered to be a noble lady during the period of the reign of King Bali, condescended to the position of a demoness during the incarnation of Krishna. In , Poothana is a demoness, who is killed by the infant-god Krishna. Poothana is also considered as a foster-mother of Krishna as she breast-fed him, though it was with the motive of killing Krishna by poisoned milk. By offering her milk, Poothana had performed the supreme act of maternal devotion in the shadow of her evil motives. The myth is told and retold in Hindu scriptures and some Indian books, which portray her variously as an evil hag or a demoness who surrendered herself to Krishna, though she initially came with evil motives. Poothana is also interpreted as an infantile disease or bird, symbolizing danger to an infant or desire respectively, and even as a symbolic bad mother. She is included in a group of malevolent Hindu mother goddesses called the and also in the group of and Grahinis (Seizers). Ancient Indian medical texts prescribe her worship to protect children from diseases. The legend of Poothana and Krishna is narrated in many like , (part of ), Vaivarta Purana, , Garga and Prem Sagar. Poothana, the "killer of infants", was sent by Krishna's evil uncle to kill Krishna. Poothana assumed the disguise of a young, beautiful woman and came to Gokul, Krishna's home-town. Her beauty resulted in her being mistaken by gopas as a manifestation of goddess . Stunned by her beauty, Krishna's foster-mother allowed Poothana to take the infant Krishna in her lap and suckle him. Poothana had smeared her breast with a mandana, an intoxicant, to kill Krishna. However, Krishna squeezed her breasts and sucked her life, as well as her milk. In pain, Poothana screamed, pleading for her release, but in vain. She ran out of the town with Krishna still clinging to her and finally fell dead. She then assumed her real demonic form, turning trees to a distance of three gavyuti (a unit of distance equivalent totally to 12 miles) to dust. The people of Vraj cut Poothana's body, burying her bones and feet and burning the flesh and skin. The fragrant smoke rose out of the flames, as Poothana was cleansed of all sin by breast-feeding Krishna and she attained the same heaven that Yashoda acquired. Thus, Poothana, like Yashodha, is also considered as a foster-mother of Krishna as she breast-fed him. In later versions of the myth, the intoxicant smearing on Poothana's breast is replaced with poison or the milk itself is said to be poisoned. Another version of the tale portrays Poothana as stealing Krishna at night, when everyone else is asleep. K. M. Munshi had a totally different take on the myth in his Krishnavatara series. Though Poothana came with evil intentions, she is portrayed as being happy to see Krishna and her maternal instinct rises. Overjoyed and forgetful of her poisoned breasts, she took Krishna in her lap and suckled him. In the process, she surrenders to him completely. Further, Poothana is purified and liberated from her mortal body by Krishna.

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Garga Samhita (a work on the life of Krishna) and further tell of the previous birth of Poothana as Ratnamala, the daughter of demon king Bali. When she saw , the previous incarnation of Krishna, she felt a desire to have him as her son and suckle him.. Krishna knew her desires and allowed her to fulfil her desire. One theory interprets Poothana as being the first foe faced by Krishna (further numerous demons are sent by Kamsa to kill Krishna) or as the first obstacle of possessive maternal instinct faced by . The legend assures devotees liberation if they treat god as their own son. In Vishnu Purana, it is explicitly stated that Poothana should work in the dark, symbolizing the lack of illumination of knowledge. Her ear-rings are described not as radiant, but as quivering, signifying her unstable nature. Agrawal equates Poothana to , the Vedic god of darkness and chaos in the water. As Varuna pollutes life-giving water, Poothana mixed her breast milk with poison. Thus, Poothana stands for and darkness. Whatever be the story of Poothana, she is represented as a demoness who tries to kill infant Krishna. It was her ardent desire to breast feed Vamana that caused all kinds of havoc much later. Poothana’s body is also inscripted with patriarchal ideologies. The patriarchy insists her to be subservient, and to be an object of desire rather than a desiring subject. The ideologies that Manu propagated seems relevant at this point as he makes mention in that women do not wander around to satiate their desire just because they are unable to grab the right chance, right person and right place or what is called “Man, Mileau and Moment”. The uncontrolled feelings of motherhood aspired for by Ratnamala metamorphoses her to Poothana, the demoness. In her next birth, when she is born as Poothana, she is assigned the task of killing infants of Vrindavan by breastfeeding them. On seeing Krishna, she feels sorry for him but she was forced to feed Krishna in fear of Kamsa, Krishna’s uncle. Here, she becomes a mere puppet in the hands of Kamsa. One can easily identify her, thus, as a Medusa who is much under the control of the patriarchal society. Breasts, being a symbol of femininity, have great significance in the cases of both Shoorpanaka and Poothana. Shoorpanaka’s Breasts are mutilated (as per the Kampan Version) and Poothana dies as a consequence of breastfeeding. Poothana, like Mahaswetha ’s Sthanadayini is being commodified by the Patriarchal society. Thus, by amputating Shoorpanaka’s breasts, the patriarchal society is stripping her of her femininity. Poothana’s Breasts in turn becomes the tool for her own destruction. By deeply analysing both these characters we come to a conclusion that both of them are ordinary women with genuine feminine desires who are misrepresented as demonessess so as to control their sexuality. The patriarchal gods have made two ordinary women who might have been liberalists of the then society fearful Medusas who did not possess the uncontrolled power that the real Medusa had. The epics serves as an eye opener to the ardent readers of them that a society guided by Manusmriti and Patriarchal ideologies would never accept a women with all her vigour, vitality and desires.

Altekar, A.S. The Position of Women in Hindu Civilization. Delhi: Banarsidass Publishers, 1959. Print. Bhattacharya, Narendra . History of Erotic Literature. New Delhi: Kirpal Printing Press, 1975. Print. Cixous, Hélène. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Reading Rhetorical Theory. Ed. Barry Brummett. New York: Harcourt, 2000. Print.

Conley, Verena Andermatt. Hélène Cixous. Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1992. Print.

Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison. Trans. A.Sheridan. Harmondsworth: Peregrine, 1977. Print.

---The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Trans. R.Hurley. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978. Print.

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