This book maps the spiritual history of women in the context of societal structures through historical time and space. The study looks at the issues of gender inequalities in the context of dominance and power and the debates over female sexuality and salvation. In the process spirituality emerges as a powerful form of women’s self-expression finding its voice in the various ‘cathartic’ spiritual movements. Manifestations of female spirituality in particular societies, whether feudal, quasi-feudal or colonial, varied from tacit conformism (to male spiritual/social leadership) to deviance and even defiance. The author goes back in historical time to the ‘material-spiritualism’ of the Sangam Tamils and forward into the era of colonial transition. The Deccan and the region south of the Vindhyas form the geographical liminalities of this study which opens up the possibilities of a wider study of women, society and spirituality in the broader context of the South Asian region.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Vijaya Ramaswamy
Vijaya Ramaswamy is a Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies in the School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Ramaswamy's first book, Textiles and Weavers in Medieval South India was published by the Oxford University Press in 1985 (the second revised edition has appeared in 2006 from OUP). From economic history, she has broadened her interests to cover such varied fields as South Indian folklore, religious studies and gender studies. Oxford University Press brought out her second book, Divinity and Deviance: Women in Virasaivism in 1996. In 1997, the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla published her book, Walking Naked: Women, Society, Spirituality in South India. The book won the prestigious "Best Woman Historian" award from the Indian History Congress in 2001. In 2003, she published her first edited book, Re-searching Indian Women from Manohar Publishers, New Delhi. Her other co-edited book, Biography as History: Indian Perspectives, will be published by Orient Longman shortly. Her book, the Historical Dictionary of the Tamils is in the press and is being brought out by the Scarecrow Press, Maryland. She is an alumni of the School of Oriental and African Studies and was a Fulbright Fellow at Berkeley in California in 1988-89. Between 1992 and 1995, she researched on the spiritual history of women as a Fellow at the Indianj Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. She was on an Indo-Canadian Fellowship at York University, Ontario in 1998. She got the prestigious UGC social scientist fellowship in 1999 and completed her book, Tamil Women from the Underside of History in 2002. She was elected the Sectional President for Medieval India in the 64th session of the Indian History Congress held at Mysore in 2003. She is currently engaged in the writing of two books - Crafts and Craftsmen in South Indian History and Tamil Myths and Legends.
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