University of Florida Press
Review
Reviewed Work(s): Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women by Julia Leslie
Review by: Mitali R. Pati
Source: Journal of Third World Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2, THIRD WORLD CRISES (FALL,
1994), pp. 514-516
Published by: University of Florida Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/45197503
Accessed: 05-06-2025 01:53 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
University of Florida Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Journal of Third World Studies
This content downloaded from 152.58.123.112 on Thu, 05 Jun 2025 01:53:07 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
JOURNAL OF THIRD WORLD STUDIES
Leslie, Julia (ed.). Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women.
Rutherford/Madison/Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson Univer-
sity Press, 1991. 267 pp.
Julia Leslie's anthology is valuable insofar as it pro-
vides a ready source of reference for the religious roles
assigned to Hindu women in Hindu scriptures and rituals. The
purpose of the anthology is explanatory rather than cross-cul-
tural because very few cross-cultural comparisons are made in
the essays. However, clearcut historical comparisons are pre-
sent between ancient Hindu rituals and their modern counter-
parts.
The emphasis of Leslie's volume seems to lie in redis-
covering the influence of the past in the present, even where
the interviews attempt to document women's contemporary
voices. The editor comments that: "The most persistent theme
throughout the volume, however, is the notion that the only
religious path open to women is that of the good wife. This in
turn leads to obvious tensions between the religious demands
made of women as wives (that is, the traditional requirements
of stridharma) and the spiritual or soteriological aspirations of
individual women." (p. 12) The ten constituent essays of this
book are divided into four units: 1. The Ritual Wife, 2. Power
in the Home, 3. The Ritual of Dance, 4. The Pursuit of Salva-
tion.
In the first unit of two essays on 'The Ritual Wife," the
emphasis is on the survival of historical practices. Interviews
are discussed to emphasize the persistence of traditional ritu-
als. However, most of the interviewees are women in their
fifties. In other words, most of the women interviewed are of
the generation relatively untouched by the women's movement
of the nineteen eighties. Frederick M. Smith in "Indra's Curse,
Varuna's Noose" discusses the place of women in Vedic rituals
where women are the recipients of Indra's curse and suggests
that pre-classical" sexuality is re-enacted in Vedic rituals.
Werner Menski discusses Hindu marital expectations in the
ancient world and in the twentieth century pointing to the
514
This content downloaded from 152.58.123.112 on Thu, 05 Jun 2025 01:53:07 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Book Reviews
increasing divorce rate in India. The second unit of three
essays deals with "Power in the Home." Among the subjects
addressed in this unit are the problem of spiritual liberation,
marital felicity as the primary goal, child care practices, the
fear of the evil eye, and ambivalent role models for women in
ancient Sanskrit lore.
In the third and fourth units of essays, there are critical
variations on the traditional roles of Hindu women. Yet, the
interpretations seek to affirm the continuity of the present
with the past. The third unit of two essays examines 'The Rit-
ual of Dance" with a clear focus on the history of the temple
dance form named Bharatnatyam. The revival of Bharat-
natyam outside the temple among the upper and middle class
girls in contemporary Hindu communities in India and over-
seas is interpreted by Anne-Marie Gaston as "a social accom-
plishment, and as a means of learning about and expressing
traditional Hindu social and artistic values.. .among the edu-
cated middle class, dance training culminating in the first pub-
lic performance has become the social accomplishment par
excellence ." (p. 154) The final, and fourth unit of three essays
on 'The Pursuit of Salvation" examines the confusing and con-
troversial practice of "sati" or the burning of widows on the
funeral pyres of their husbands, women saints, and the con-
cepts of Hindu female asceticism. The Hindu female ascetic is
presented as the vary antithesis of the socially and ritually
constricted wife and mother: "In female ascetics, we meet
women who, however few in number, lead lives that are fully
religious but, in a manner of speaking, selfishly so. They do not
adhere to the traditional religious duties of women ( stridhar -
ma), and they undertake no fasts or ritual observances on
behalf of others. They seek only their salvation, release from
the transient world." (p. 230).
Leslie's anthology will continue to be a valuable
resource for scholars studying the roles of women in the Hindu
tradition. The essays are thoroughly researched and are sound
in scholarship. An additional unit of essays on the women's
movement in India and its influence on Hindu society as well
515
This content downloaded from 152.58.123.112 on Thu, 05 Jun 2025 01:53:07 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
JOURNAL OF THIRD WORLD STUDIES
as the potential effects of Hindu fundamentalism would update
this anthology as a resource book on Hindu women.
Mitali R. Pati Voorhees College
Aziz, Abdul. Decentralized Planning: The Karnataka Experi-
ment. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1993. 141 pp.
India has always been a difficult country to administer
as every successive government foreign or indigenous has dis-
covered. The subcontinent's vast complexity and myriad of peo-
ples, religions and cultures defies most rational organization.
The Republic of India has wrestled with the subcontinent's
problems for nearly a half century and has experienced its
share of setbacks and disasters.
Abdul Aziz's slender volume of decentralization in Kar-
nataka State provides an interesting view of recent local devel-
opments. Aziz presents a study that is readable, something one
cannot always expect in development studies. He examines
decentralization models and then uses Karnataka as a test case
for them. On the whole, Azizvs model is rational and devoid of
ideology. The author seeks a system which combines the best of
national and local government, with significant input from the
people to whom the policies are directed. This works very well on
paper. But what about when applied to the real world?
Aziz spends considerably more time on theory than he
does on practice. On several occasions, he notes the people of
Karnataka do not use the assistance rendered them properly.
Smokeless stoves, for example, ar either sold for profit or their
pipes are used to irrigate farmland. Financial aid disappears
into the Black Market. Obviously, some people in Karnataka
perceive their aid differently than the government does. This
would lead some observers to conclude that the population and
state government may be working at cross purposes to some
516
This content downloaded from 152.58.123.112 on Thu, 05 Jun 2025 01:53:07 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
