PUNE, India - This year, Preeti Agarwal, a
30-year-old housewife, broke tradition during
February rituals to worship the birth of
Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge.
For the first time, she invited a female
priest to her home to conduct the puja, or
ceremony, to mark the auspicious day when children
learn to read and write their first letters or
words. Families dress in yellow - symbolizing
spring and the blossoming of mustard flowers - and
gather to pray for the blessing of knowledge in an
elaborate ceremony set against a background of
chants and drumbeats.
In the past, Agarwal
has followed customary practice and invited
a
male
priest - known as a pandit - to observe the
tradition.
"Most of the time, a pandit
would be so busy that he would just chant the
mantras and finish his job and leave," says
Agarwal. "He wouldn't explain the meaning of the
mantras or the meaning behind the rituals. This is
not the case with women priests. I first saw a
woman conducting religious rituals at a friend's
place and was impressed. I decided that the next
time there was a puja at my place, I will
invite a woman priest only."
This year,
the puja was different, she says. Her
seven-year-old daughter asked lots of questions
and Sunita Joshi, the female priest who conducted
it, answered them all patiently.
Agarwal
lives in Pune, a university city in the western,
progressive part of India some 190 kilometers
south of Mumbai where women are joining the
priesthood even as they are barred from entering
temples in other parts of the country. Pune led
the first efforts in India to draw girls into
school and educate them, and was also one of the
first cities to allow widows to remarry, a concept
that was once largely absent in traditional Hindu
culture.
Although a few women have trained
as pandits in the southern city of
Hyderabad, Pune is on the vanguard. While Hinduism
does not technically bar women from becoming
priests, it is not accepted as standard practice
in most of India. Even in Pune the idea is novel,
and people have taken time to accept it. Women who
have taken up the work have faced strong
resistance from male pandits.
Formal
training in women's school Pune's
revolution to allow women into the priesthood
began in the early 1980s, when Shankarrao Thatte -
owner of a premier marriage hall in the city, the
Udyan Karyalaya - launched the Shankar Seva
Samiti, a school to train female priests.
The casual - and often hurried - approach
of the male priests toward the rituals and
ceremonies prompted Thatte to start four-month
training courses for women. Today, Pune has two
schools for female priests, Thatte's Shankar Seva
Samiti and Jnana Prabodhini.
Vishwanath
Gurjar, who heads the priesthood division of Jnana
Prabodhini, says that women have an equal right to
moksha, the Hindu concept of the liberation
of the soul from the continual cycle of birth,
life, death and rebirth. According to him, there
is nothing in the scriptures to suggest that women
are not equal to men.
Several years ago,
according to news reports, an important priest,
Shankarcharya of Puri, denounced the induction of
women into priesthood. He felt that the Vedas were
a male domain and should remain so. However,
Shankarcharya's disapproval has made no dent on
the enthusiasm of the women priests.
"Nowhere is it written that women cannot
recite the Vedas. In fact, there were female
scholars like Ghosha, Lopamudra, Romasha and
Indrani in the Vedic period and women philosophers
like Sulabha, Maitreyi and Gargi in the
Upanishadic period," 52-year-old Vasanti Khadilkar
was quoted as saying at the time.
According to Khadilkar, there is a verse
from the Bhihadaranyakopanishad which
translates as "a well-to-do man always thinks that
his daughter should be a scholar".
Headmaster Gurjar agrees: "It is only the
mindset of people that stops them from accepting
women in certain roles." His school in Pune
started out with three-month courses for female
priests and has since expanded to eight months. So
far, 12 classes of 30 to 35 students each have
completed the course.
Personal interests,
professional gains Interest in the
scriptures and rituals of worship are generally
the inspiration for women to study the priesthood,
says Gurjar. Some do it for their personal
education, others out of interest in the
profession. Pandits earn a fee for each ritual
they perform, ranging between US$1.25 and $3, but
customers also tip them a little extra if they are
happy with the rites.
Sandhya Kulkarni, a
scholar and purohit - another word for
pandit - started practicing professionally
some 10 years ago. She has completed a doctorate
in Sanskrit, the classical language in which the
most important Hindu scriptures are written.
"Initially I decided to study scriptures
because I was very interested in the Sanskrit
language," she says. "Later I developed a genuine
interest in the priesthood and decided to take it
up as a profession. Apart from that I also felt
that I should not blindly follow the rituals but
should know the reasoning behind them."
Hinduism is the world's oldest major
religion and contains a vast body of scriptures,
which contemplate mythology, philosophy and
theology and expound on the practice of religious
living. The important scriptures include the four
Vedas, as well as the Manusmriti, Ramayana,
Bhagvad Gita and Mahabharta. Primary tenets
include moksha and karma, the belief that
actions have subsequent reactions. The divine
takes many forms and rituals are often observed at
home on a daily basis.
Women have made
headway in routine religious rituals like
marriage; the thread ceremony, a rite of passage
for boys; or the house-warming ceremony. But
rituals and ceremonies related to death still
continue to be observed only by male
pandits. Kulkarni is one of the few female
priests who has conducted death rites, partly
because women are by tradition not allowed to
enter the cremation ground and cremation itself is
done by the male members of the family.
Shortage of men for
festivals Initially, women were
invited to conduct rituals only when male
pandits were unavailable during the hectic
festival season, from the end of August to
November. Many times female priests found the
appointment canceled because an elderly member of
the family objected to them.
"There is a
marked difference in the attitude of the people in
the last three to four years," says Kulkarni.
"There is an increased acceptance of women priests
in the city now. In many instances, they are
preferred over male priests. Women do it with a
sense of mission and that is the main difference.
People appreciate that we explain the meaning of
chants and mantras."
Their acceptance as
pandits has been eased by a recognition
that the priesthood did not come to them by
inheritance, but rather as a result of genuine
interest and hard work to prove their worthiness.
When men inherit the job they do not necessarily
receive an education or training, and there is a
general disaffection with male pandits among some
Indians who believe they take the work for
granted.
Female priests do face some
cultural barriers. For instance, a menstruating
woman is considered impure and is traditionally
not allowed to enter a temple or to take part in
rituals. The female pandits keep that in
mind and don't conduct any rituals during those
days.
Madhuri Karavade has been a
purohit for the last seven years.
"My in-laws are very traditional and I
didn't know much about the rituals so I decided to
come here to study," Karavade says. "I liked it so
much that I took it up professionally."
She says her most satisfying moment came
when she was able to conduct the upnayan
rite, which initiates a young boy into Hinduism.
Her ceremony included both boys and girls.
Gagandeep Kaur
is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi.
(Republished with permission from
Women's eNews a prize-winning, non-profit daily
Internet-based news service covering issues of
particular concern to women and their allies.
Copyright 2008 Women's eNews.)
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