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 demon- strates 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 lead- ership 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 contem- porary Hinduism. Keywords Hindu Gurus – gender – performance – power – authority – feminism – Sadhus © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/18785417-00901002Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 02:32:37PM via free access 28 denapoli … “Hindu religion respects women. But patriarchal interpretations of it have put many restrictions