Navaratri: Paving the way for women's liberation



Lakshmi (Photo by Ranveig)

During Navaratri, the festival of “Nine Nights,” Hindus throughout the world honor The Great Divine Mother, Shakti.  In honoring Shakti, they are also honoring the divine female energy within themselves. 

This energy - most active within females, but also present within males – is associated with many types of creativity.  Wikipedia reports that it is also referred to as the Goddess, or as the Tridevi (the three main Goddess forms of Shakti – including Saraswati (arts, culture, learning), Lakshmi (fertility,  wealth), and Parvati/Durga (power, love, spiritual fulfillment).

Hinduism Today states that “no other major religion of the world acknowledges God as part female, or is willing to fully depict Her as the Goddess.”  Navaratri therefore becomes “an affirmation of femininity.  Girls and women are often venerated at this time.  However, the question still remains:  What level of respect are they given during the rest of the year?

Some studies indicate that during the early Vedic period (circa 1700-1100 BCE), the women of India “enjoyed equal status with men in all fields of life.”  However, by about 500 BCE, women’s rights were on the decline.  According to Wikipedia, influences from the Smritis (texts on Dharmic tradition), from the Mughal Empire, and from Christianity all contributed to the weakening of female status in Indian society.  Some of the obvious signs of this intensifying oppression were child marriages, “honorary”

self-immolations, and the ban on widow remarriages.

Although the Jains, Sikhs and Bhakti Hindus lobbied for increased women’s liberation, their views were slow to catch on within the general population.  Eventually, the British began passing some laws to address this inequity.  In 1829, Sati (the sacrifice of a living widow on her husband’s funeral pyre) was officially abolished.  Mapsofindia.com reports that in 1865 the Hindu Widows Remarriage Act was passed, and in 1872 the Brahmo Samaj Marriage Act “set four essential conditions for a valid Hindu marriage” (monogamy, sound mind, marriageable age, and the parties should not be too closely related).

Although today’s India is led by a female president - under the auspices of a constitution “which guarantees to all Indian women equality” – there is still a long way to go before the Goddess is freely honored all year round.

Resources

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=3073

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_India

http://india.mapsofindia.com/india-forum/womens-in-india.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakti

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma

Copyright September 28, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved