Both Orr’s book and Soneji’s article – two scholars whom I have had the chance to hear talk on campus in the last couple months - investigate the temple women traditions in India – both focusing on the traditions found in the south. The term chosen to be used in both of these pieces for reference to these women was problematic in the authors’ eyes. Soneji chose the term devadasi. Although there is a great deal of problems associated with this term – which Soneji clearly outlines - he decided to use it because “they [the temple women still alive today] insist on referring to themselves as devadasi, despite the extreme social stigma attached to this identity.” (Soneji 31) Soneji comments that the women favour the term devadasi because is links them to spiritual and temple traditions. Words such as bhogam or sani were offensive to the majority of the women in his study as “these terms appear to have acquired a more severely pejorative connotation in the early part of the twentieth century.” (Soneji 45 n.4) This is the same time when their identity as “prostitutes” was becoming more common and solidified. Orr sticks with the less overtly problematic term “temple women,” as she focuses on how their identity should be seen as defined by location – by the temple with which they are dedicated to. In this week’s response I wanted to focus on these women’s identity – mistaken or otherwise – as “prostitutes.”
Often when hearing about temple women this term comes up, alone with a number of questions. Did they have sexual relations with the priests, possibly as a form of worship? Did they have relations with patrons? Etc. Orr focuses on the Chola period and she believed the temple women were clearly sexually active at this time, but this was not significant to their identities (Orr 174). In Soneji’s article it is clear that these women did take lover’s – but having one lover who may have supported them as patron is not necessarily “prostitution.” Indeed Soneji writes “Most of the women I have encountered have had only one partner in their lives.” (Soneji 41) This is very similar to a marriage – the only difference is it is not official. I do not see how this could be mistaken for prostitution, even if the man did pay for his relations with the women so too do many husbands – who are expected in this society to take care of the woman’s financial needs.
Although Orr’s book does not focus on the issue of Temple woman’s reputation of prostitution it is still an important issue that appears multiple times in her book as she claims that it is beyond the scope of this particular study to interpret the significance of the term “prostitute” in the inscriptions she looked at (Orr 50). Although she does not focus on the issue she definitely takes measures to problematize this association – similar to Soneji’s work.
She outlines how their identity and association with “prostitution” has evolved over time and should not be seen as a constant across time nor place – as different regions across India viewed them differently, even if the devadasi tradition is often defined as a pan-Indic tradition. Though this very argument is problematic if one focuses on the “degeneration of the tradition from the past. This is due to the Orientalists romantisization of the past, of an imagined “golden age”. Therefore this focus on the role of the devadasis having evolved over time from a position of prestige to a position as “whores” is possible only an imagined evolution. We know little of the past – and especially little concerning the actual role of women as they are often left out (a topic discussed by Orr herself). It is therefore easy to imagine them once having more freedoms. For example, emphasis is often made on their being allowed to attained rituals in the Vedas, but not in later periods.
Soneji talks of Haimavati who remembers being mistaken for a jogin – Dalit prostitute – and expected to perform as a jogin would perform. He writes “She told me how requests for songs that implicated the -identities of devadasis as prostitutes became frequent” (Soneji 38) Over time in the “post –scocial reform period” these women started to gain a new identity as “whores.” Did this new form identity ultimately lead to their demise? It may not have been the prude British colonialist who were the first to apply such an identity to these women. Yet, if they are introduced to the women under the context of their new (mistaken) identity of “whore” it is easy to see how their prudish sensibilities were offended and thus banned the traditions. This banning of the traditions ironically caused a “self-fulfilling prophecy” (Soneji 39) as many young women indeed turned to prostitution once their temple funds stopped flowing.
It is difficult to define how these women were perceived at all stages in time. They have created their own pasts – reminiscing about their long disappeared prestige – as well as being victims of the romantisization of the West which elevated as long disappeared “golden age.” It does appear though – at some level – that over time in both the European and Indian imagination the temple women’s representation as a prostitute has become solidified, as this is generally a common term used in association with the traditions and obviously remains a large topic of concern.
Referring back to their pan-Indic identity, Orr does make it clear that different terms were used in inscriptions across India to refer to these women – which would signal that they were indeed not viewed the same across the subcontinent. From the inscription found in the North 25% refer to the women as “prostitutes”. In Karnataka 29% of the inscriptions use a similar term. Yet in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu – the regions both these studies focused on – only 3% of the inscriptions which mentions temple women have any mention of them being associated with “prostitutes.” (Orr 49) In the Agama texts Orr looked at, interestingly, half of the references to the women associated with the temples are referred to in terms meaning “prostitute.” (Orr 215 n.14) Therefore the arguments set forth in both Soneji’s article and Orr’s book really only apply to the areas of study and not the entire subcontinent – these are traditions that should not be understood as pan-Indic. Both authors make this distinction clear. Orr states that the women may have been prostitutes in North India and Karnataka but not in Tamil Nadu – particularly not in the Chola period which is her time of study (Orr 50).
Our association of these women and their traditions with prostitutes and prostitution continues to need to be problematized and unravelled – but as Orr says the scope of the topic is far too vast (as is evident in my far too long post...)
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