TY - JOUR
AU - Sengupta, Saswati
AB - Ṣaṣṭhī is considered to be the patron deity of childbirth, infant mortality, and children's welfare for the contemporary Hindu Bengali. This essay on Ṣaṣṭhī explores a twin problematic in the representation of the goddess. First: if Ṣaṣṭhī is ubiquitous to the mother-child relationship, why does she play such a minimal role in the broader sphere of religious culture shaped by upper caste male interest? Second: does the association of the cult of Ṣaṣṭhī with childbirth and women accord with the widely documented and much criticised association of women with regulated procreation, or can her distinctive maternal significance offer another, more independent and less regulated perspective on representation of women through Hindu goddesses? A range of sources such as āstrik and laukika texts, proverbs, popular verses, and rituals reveal several Ṣaṣṭhīs: a group of rain goddesses, a group of foster mothers, a wife, an old woman, a goddess of the lying-in-chamber after childbirth, and also forgotten forms of tree worship. Thus we are reminded that the cult of feminine fertility has not always been a patriarchal project. It has also been a religious tradition that reflects the distinctive experiences of women themselves.
TI - Ṣaṣṭhī: Between the Forest and the Lying-in-Chamber: The Formation of a Goddess
JO - The Journal of Hindu Studies
DO - 10.1093/jhs/hiq016
DA - 2010-07-15
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/a-h-between-the-forest-and-the-lying-in-chamber-the-formation-of-a-JzzANEfdex
SP - 216
EP - 237
VL - 3
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -