Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Threatening Beauty and Demonic Seduction: Unveiling Hārītī’s Sexuality

Threatening Beauty and Demonic Seduction: Unveiling Hārītī’s Sexuality AbstractThe former child-eating demoness Hārītī is well-known throughout the Buddhist world as a fertility goddess, healer, and protector. However, two eighth-century Chinese esoteric texts, the Da yaochanü Huanximu bing Aizi chengjiufa (Sādhana of the great yakṣiṇī Mother Joy and Priyaṇkara) and the Helidimu zhenyan jing (Sūtra of the mantra of Mother Hārītī), shed light on a more obscure Hārītī, marked by her sexuality and romantic past. This article argues that Hārītī may be understood as a seductress, a potentially sensual deity who remains loyal to her husband but, at the same time, demonstrates the ability to displace her sexuality. More specifically, the article proposes that Hārītī should be recognized as a chaste seductress on two levels: through her relationship with her husband, and through her interaction with those who practice esoteric rituals. Furthermore, Hārītī’s threatening sexuality went beyond Buddhist texts and entered the world of Chinese literature: Song dynasty supernatural tales and Ming era fictional works reveal a less orthodox and more daring way in which the goddess is able to employ her sexuality. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png NAN NÜ Brill

Threatening Beauty and Demonic Seduction: Unveiling Hārītī’s Sexuality

NAN NÜ , Volume 23 (1): 34 – Aug 16, 2021

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/threatening-beauty-and-demonic-seduction-unveiling-h-r-t-s-sexuality-Oar4raZ5KQ

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
1387-6805
eISSN
1568-5268
DOI
10.1163/15685268-02310011
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AbstractThe former child-eating demoness Hārītī is well-known throughout the Buddhist world as a fertility goddess, healer, and protector. However, two eighth-century Chinese esoteric texts, the Da yaochanü Huanximu bing Aizi chengjiufa (Sādhana of the great yakṣiṇī Mother Joy and Priyaṇkara) and the Helidimu zhenyan jing (Sūtra of the mantra of Mother Hārītī), shed light on a more obscure Hārītī, marked by her sexuality and romantic past. This article argues that Hārītī may be understood as a seductress, a potentially sensual deity who remains loyal to her husband but, at the same time, demonstrates the ability to displace her sexuality. More specifically, the article proposes that Hārītī should be recognized as a chaste seductress on two levels: through her relationship with her husband, and through her interaction with those who practice esoteric rituals. Furthermore, Hārītī’s threatening sexuality went beyond Buddhist texts and entered the world of Chinese literature: Song dynasty supernatural tales and Ming era fictional works reveal a less orthodox and more daring way in which the goddess is able to employ her sexuality.

Journal

NAN NÜBrill

Published: Aug 16, 2021

There are no references for this article.