Book Review | Study on Ancient Indian Women Skips the Essentials

This book explores ancient Indian literature to try to trace the path of feminism in ancient India. In the opening chapter, the author makes it clear that literature stops being ancient by the Gupta era, around 7th century CE. His sources are sharply defined: the Vedas, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Smritis, the Dharmashastras, the Arthashastra and the Kamasutra. Also included are Buddhist and Jain texts, besides coins and inscriptions. The purpose, according to the blurb, is to try to “liberate Indian feminism from ‘the white mans burden.

A few immediate questions. Did feminism as a school of thought exist in ancient India? Much spiritual literature extant by the 7th century, including the main Upanishads and the Tantric Nisvasa Tattva Samhita, focuses not on persons but on the jivatmas they embody. Since a jivatma could be male in one birth and female in another, or even an animal, the question of gender or caste or species is irrelevant.

To what depth are stories covered? Theres no acknowledgment of back stories behind characters such as Ravana: the book speaks of Mandodaris moral agency when she questions her husbands actions but not the karma that drives him to death and destruction. Ravana was one of three births of one of Vishnu’s gatekeepers, and his choice of punishment drove him to be what he was. He had no agency in the matter. Mandodari herself, in some versions, is the mother of Sita, and theres a prophecy that her daughter will cause Ravanas destruction; so her own agency comes into question. Another version is that Sita is Vedavati reborn to destroy Ravana.

How rigorous and complete is the choice of literature? Some notable omissions: The Upanishads (which lay out the multiple-births-aiming-at-moksha theory/philosophy, and are in that sense incompatible with the notions of agency and feminism), Tantric literature, and the Vishnu Purana (It states that women are meant to achieve the highest spiritual goals and win the worlds simply by being devoted to their husbands and fulfilling their household duties, without needing to perform gruelling sacrifices or lifelong Vedic studies required of men in the upper castes. It also says that women in the Kaliyug are fickle and so on).

Highlighting a small number of exceptional female figures risks conflating individual agency with broader social power. Characters such as Kunti and Draupadi lived in tightly regulated patriarchal structures, but also represent unusually articulate and forceful personalities within wealthy settings. Treating them as indicative may conceal the far narrower range of agency available to most women, even within comparable social strata. The author does acknowledge some limitations late in the book: his three disclaimers refer to geography, theory vs practice, and context. But given the choice of literature, another couple of disclaimers would have sat well.

While the mission to free Indian feminism of its historical white mans burden is praiseworthy and genuine, we are obliged to give credit where it is due and this book, a limited study of Indias social architecture, fails to factor its civilisational or spiritual basis. To my mind, its a prolix example of forcing a modern point of view onto an ancient group of civilisations where it doesnt really belong.

Women in the Womb of Time

By Mukul Kumar

Ink Occam

pp. 317; Rs 799/-