The Lives of Sarada Devi

The Lives of Sarada Devi: Gender, Renunciation, and Hindu Politics in Colonial India by Trishia Nicole Goulet A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Religion University of Manitoba Winnipeg Copyright © 2009 by Trishia Nicole Goulet THESIS ABSTRACT Sarada Devi (1852-1920) was the Hindu child bride of the famous nineteenth- century renouncer Ramakrishna (1836 -1886). While Ramakrishna was alive, he worshiped Sarada as a goddess, a woman to be revered but never touched, and ultimately making of her a figure of popular adoration. This thesis addresses the ways in which Sarada has been constructed in devotional and academic texts, in order to not only determine the ways in which different types of followers viewed her and her religious practices, but also to analyze scholarly assumptions about Sarada. It argues that despite Sarada‟s renunciatory practices, both scholars and devotees of Ramakrishna, continued to write about Sarada primarily as a helpmate to Ramakrishna rather than as a guru in her own right. Such constructions fail to adequately take account of the advanced Hindu practices adhered to by Sarada herself. This failure is the result of an over-reliance on traditional (i.e. patriarchal) understandings of what it meant to renounce in colonial India and speaks to the neglect of the study of female renouncers in general. In the case of Sarada, a rereading of key texts through postcolonial and feminist lenses enables us to see more clearly the manner in which her idealization as the Mother of India by the Bengali bhadralok, masks the complexities and contradictions of her life as a renouncer and guru. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Prof. Ian Whicher, for his guidance and patience during this lengthy process. I would also like to thank my committee members, Profs. Dawne McCance and Ravindiran Vaitheespara, as well as Johannes Wolfart, each of whom have offered me valuable advice on my research. Thanks are due to the University of Manitoba for providing financial support through Graduate Fellowships and the J.G. Fletcher Award. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. iii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION. 1 CHAPTER TWO: THE TEXTUAL SARADA. 42 CHAPTER THREE: MOTHER RENOUNCER: SARADA AND RENUNCIATORY PRACTICES 74 CHAPTER FOUR: SARADA AND HER COLONIALIST CONTEXTS 174 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION. 233 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 242 iv CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Sarada Devi (1853-1920), while an historical figure, is somewhat of a mystery. Sarada Devi was the Hindu child bride of Ramakrishna (1836-1886), a famous nineteenth-century renouncer, and grew up to be Ramakrishna‟s devotee in a marriage that was never consummated. There are many anecdotal tales about what she said and did, yet given the plethora of these stories, it is odd to me that her actions and reactions remain unpredictable. In instances of great conflict or despair, she is found utterly silent; in times where lilfe seems peaceful and mundane, she is sassy and vocal. I considered the idea that perhaps Sarada was a shy woman, not willing to disclose her true feelings related to an event, but this does not seem plausible given her apparent willingness to share her thoughts with those writers who eventually wrote them down. Instead, the duality of Sarada—the silently devoted wife versus the independent and indignant renouncer—appears to be dependent on who is writing about her and for what purpose it is written. Therefore, in instances where Ramakrishna is telling Sarada what to do or how to behave, Sarada is silent; one has a vision of acquiessence befitting a devoted wife subordinating to her guru husband. But in instances where Ramakrishna is not around—or perhaps at times when her own followers are telling a story—Sarada responds, often impatient with those who try to tell her what to do. While I prefer to think of Sarada in light of the latter representation, even these are 1 problematized by the fact that there are no writings left by Sarada. Instead, we are reliant on how others perceived her and wanted her to be. What we find, then, are many different Saradas. Interestingly enough, scholars of religion also construct Sarada in specific ways, either as a model of divine femininity as someone who is able to inspire Ramakrishna to experience the Goddess, or as a model of the ultimate householding woman, by articulating her devotion to Ramakrishna as his wife. Sometimes, she is both. In these representations, Sarada is foremost understood in terms of her relationship with Ramakrishna and his followers (her “children”), rather than as a being who functions separately from them. What I found overall, then, was a mix of accounts of what and who Sarada is. This certainly speaks to the varied sources available about her, as well as how she was perceived by the authors and compilers of such texts. That said, I am working within limited primary material specifically on Sarada Devi, including works by Swamis Nikhilananda, Gambhirananda, and Tapasyananda, as well as edited compilations of collected stories by her followers and followers of Ramakrishna. But while these sources are minimal, I am making use of secondary, academic data in order to reinterpret the primary source. And so, this work attempts to draw out the many faces and representations of Sarada, not only to shed light on the ways she has been constructed as a personality, but also to provide my own understanding of her. I believe that in doing so, I can locate the political and cultural implications of Sarada as a personality, as well as identify what I believe are faulty assumptions by scholars in terms of their understandings of women and religion in Hinduism. 2 My primary argument is that Sarada is unacknowledged as a “true” renouncer or ascetic because of how she is represented in various sources, including both devotional and scholarly narratives. In my view, scholars need to re-examine writings about Sarada with an eye to providing a new understanding of her life and religious practices within colonial Bengal. My aim is not to identify an „historical Sarada‟ or „true Sarada‟, which would be difficult given the lack of primary sources by Sarada, as well as tentative timelines. Instead, I want to draw attention to the way Sarada has been constructed by devotees and scholars, each group having very particular goals. For example, the limited understandings that result from these constructions largely neglect the nature and importance of Sarada‟s renunciatory practice, as well as her role as a guru. Ramakrishna worshiped Sarada as a goddess, and viewed her as a woman to be revered but never touched; this view, arguably, forced Sarada to lead the life of celibacy. After Ramakrishna‟s death, Ramakrishna‟s disciples continued to revere Sarada as a model and object of spirituality; however the emphasis on Sarada as divinely-inspired shifted over time (Sil marks origins in 1891—in full swing by 1896)1 from a general representation of a divine goddess to a more specific image as Mother of India. As the Mother of India, Sarada was a model of Hindu nationalism which household women could follow; yet Sarada also continued her renunciatory practices such as fasting, intense devotional practices and celibacy, which appear to contradict not only expectations for women in colonial India in terms of day-to-day living but the representations of her as a symbolic „mother‟. Scholars such as Narasingha Sil and 1 Narasingha Sil, Divine Dowager, The Life and Teachings of Saradamani the Holy Mother (London: Associated University Press, 2003), 65-66. 3 Jeffrey Kripal understand Sarada as a woman who reluctantly participated in renunciatory practices which contrasted to her private desire to be a mother. This is a distinct, even nationalist understanding, of Sarada as a symbolic representation of [Hindu] motherhood. Sil and Kripal‟s analyses of Sarada‟s life are an alternative to devotional narratives, yet they do not adequately address the conflict between householder ideals and renunciatory practices. In Sil‟s case it is due to a lack of historical context, while in Kripal‟s it is due to the brevity of his work on Sarada. This thesis redresses this inadequacy. Despite Sarada‟s unique living situation as a married renouncer, very little academic work has been done on her. As suggested earlier, extant writings can be put into one of two categories: 1) devotional works by practitioners, and 2) academic works by contemporary scholars. Both of these bodies of work primarily focus on Ramakrishna, tracking Sarada‟s life and practices only in relation to him. This work is also weakened by contradictions and arguments that arise when biography blurs the difference between hagiography and scholarship. In hagiographical accounts, Sarada practiced asceticism and extreme devotional prayers as a young girl, prior to meeting Ramakrishna.2 However other scholars, including Kripal and Sil, question the validity of such claims by implication, arguing that she foremost wanted to have a family. Other arguments occur over the type of renunciation Sarada is said to have practiced. Roman Rolland, for instance, argues that Sarada practiced traditional renunciation, without taking critical account of the fundamental differences between male and female practices. Academic studies such as those written by Meena Khandelwal and 2 Solange LeMaitre, Ramakrishna and the Vitality of Hinduism, translated by Charles

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