The essays in this book discuss the status of women across various Indian religions, keeping in sharp focus the various religious practices that concern them. Nine distinguished women scholars address issues pertaining to the position of women in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Baha’i, and tribal religions. Some of these issues include female foeticide, ordination, salvation, divinity, and acceptance of children of mixed parentage. The essays—threaded together by an underlying need to dismantle gender stereotypes within a religious framework—also discuss marriage reform laws, exclusion of females from important memberships, and the politics of conversion. This book will appeal to a wide cross-section of academics interested in aspects of religion, gender and society, as well as to the general reader.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Arvind Sharma
ARVIND SHARMA was born in Varanasi, India. He earned a B.A. in History, Economics, and Sanskrit from Allahabad University in 1958 and continued his interests in economics at Syracuse University, earning an M.A. in 1970. Pursuing a lifelong interest in comparative religion, Dr. Sharma gained an M.T.S. in 1974 and then a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University in 1978. He succeeded to the Birks Chair of Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and was the first Infinity Foundation Visiting Professor of Indic Studies at Harvard University. He has published over fifty books and five hundred articles in the fields of comparative religion, Hinduism, Indian philosophy and ethics, and the role of women in religion. Widely cited as an authority on Hinduism, amongst his most note-worthy publications are The Hindu Gita: Ancient and Classical Interpretations of the Bhagavadgita (1986), The Experien-tial Dimension of Advaita Vedanta (1993), Our Religions: The Seven World Religions Introduced by Pre-eminent Scholars from Each Tradition (1994), The Philosophy of Religion: A Buddhist Perspective (1995), Classical Hindu Thought: An Introduction (2000), and The Study of Hinduism (2003).
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