The Authority of Female Speech in Indian Goddess Traditions Devi and Womansplaining Anway Mukhopadhyay The Authority of Female Speech in Indian Goddess Traditions Anway Mukhopadhyay The Authority of Female Speech in Indian Goddess Traditions Devi and Womansplaining Anway Mukhopadhyay Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur Kharagpur, West Bengal, India ISBN 978-3-030-52454-8 ISBN 978-3-030-52455-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52455-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland A cknowledgements I would like to thank a lot of people for the way they enthused me through- out my work on this book. I thank my parents and sister, my colleagues and students and the various Shakta scholars, friends and acquaintances who, in diverse ways, contributed to this project indirectly. I especially thank the various monks and devotees of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission who have provided me with various kinds of neces- sary information on Shaktism in Bengal and have also facilitated my under- standing of the persistence of the matribhava, the maternal feeling, of Ma Sarada through the male monks of the Math and Mission. In this context, special mention must be made of Swami Pararupanandaji, Matrimandir, Jayrambati, West Bengal, and Swami Alokanandaji, Ramakrishna Advaita Ashrama, Varanasi. In the same vein, I also thank the Matajis of the Sri Sarada Math and Ramakrishna Sarada Mission, Dakshineswar, Kolkata, and the Sri Sarada Math, Varanasi. I heartily thank the ashramites of the Ma Anandamayee Kanyapeeth, Varanasi, including Jayadi, Geetadi and Guneetadi, for the help they have extended to me, time and again. Thanks are also due to the librarians of the University of Burdwan. Sri Utkarsh Chaubey must be thanked for the way he supplied me with texts on Shaktism and information on Indian spirituality in general. Professor Vanashree, Professor Emerita at the Department of English, Banaras Hindu University, has always been a maternal figure for me and a great support and source of encouragement. I would also like to acknowledge the consistent support and affection I received from Professor B. L. Tripathi, Professor K.  M. Pandey, Professor Anandprabha Barat, Professor v vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Angshuman Khanna, Professor Lata Dubey, Professor Banibrata Mahanta, Dr Madhvi Lata and Dr Vishwanath Pandey at Banaras Hindu University, Professor Nandini Bhattacharya and Dr Arpita Chattaraj Mukhopadhyay at the University of Burdwan, Professor Suchorita Chattopadhyay and Dr Debashree Dattaray at Jadavpur University and Professor Ashok Kumar Mohapatra at Sambalpur University. In my present workplace, that is, the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, I keep receiving academic stimulation from all my colleagues. I thank them heartily. However, special mention must be made of the following people: Professor Narayan Chandra Nayak, Professor Manas Kumar Mandal, Professor Suhita Chopra Chatterjee, Professor Chhanda Chakraborti, Professor Anjali Gera Roy, Professor Priyadarshi Patnaik, Professor Pulak Mishra, Dr Jayashree Chakraborty, Dr Jenia Mukherjee, Dr Anwesha Aditya, Dr Archana Patnaik, Dr Anuradha Choudry, Dr Somdatta Bhattacharya, Dr Dripta Piplai (Mondal) and Dr Bornini Lahiri. I am especially indebted to Professor Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, Professor at the Department of CSE, IIT Kharagpur, and the former Director of the institute, for the way he shared with me valuable information about spiritual sadhana in the traditions of Kriya Yoga and gave me his beautiful book on his Guru Ma, Mata Sharbani. I can never thank enough Dr Shreya Matilal, faculty member of the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, IIT Kharagpur, and Dr Annapurna Matilal, faculty member at the Midnapore College (Autonomous), for the warm support I keep receiving from them, as a member of their extended family. I regularly have intellectually stimulating discussions on the Indic religious traditions with both Mr and Mrs Matilal. In the same vein, I would also thank Dr Tapas Kumar Bandyopadhyay, Dr Uday Shankar and Dr Arindam Basu of the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law; Dr Somnath Ghoshal of the Centre for Rural Development, IIT Kharagpur; Dr Sujoy Kumar Kar of the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, IIT Kharagpur; and Professor Somnath Bharadwaj of the Department of Physics, IIT Kharagpur. I also thank Dr Soumyatanu Mukherjee, previously my colleague at IIT Kharagpur and presently a Lecturer in Finance at the Southampton Business School, UK, and his wife, Shreya. I would also like to thank the research scholars who are working under my supervision – Bijetri Datta Majumder, Ishrat Ara Khatun and Sudipta Chakraborty. Thanks are due to Neha Chatterjee as well, who was working with me as a research scholar before joining a ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii college as an Assistant Professor. Special thanks go to Dr Arghya Dipta Kar, who pursued his doctoral research under the supervision of Professor Madhu Khanna, for the stimulating discussions on Shaktism and tantra that I have had with him and the interesting works on goddess cultures he presented me with. In fact, it is Dr Kar who presented me with the book Durgamangal, in which the beautiful piece “Parvatipurana” is included. I also thank Shouvik Narayan Hore and Viraj Shukla, for the help they offered to me, regarding the insertion of diacritical marks in this book. However, unfortunately, I could not avail myself of this help due to the COVID-19 crisis in India, which led to a nationwide lockdown, thus mak- ing it impossible for Shouvik and me to sit together and work on the dia- critical marks. This is what has led to the disturbing absence of diacritical marks from this book. Hence, for the absence of the diacritical marks, it is the coronavirus which is to be blamed. Finally, I must thank Amy Invernizzi, my editor at Palgrave Macmillan, and the peer reviewers for their help and suggestions. I cannot but thank Dr Patricia Dold heartily for her immensely helpful suggestions and appre- ciative comments. In the same vein, I must thank Vinoth Kuppan for pro- viding me with necessary guidelines about the technicalities of the submission of the final manuscript. In fact, Amy and Vinoth have both been very co-operative throughout this project, and I cannot thank them enough. c ontents 1 Introduction: What the Goddess Said—What Her Speech Means to Us Today 1 2 Authoritative Female Speech and the Indic Goddess Traditions: An Overview 13 3 Divine and Divine-Human Speeches of the Devi: The Speech Contexts and the Dynamics of Authority in the Devi Gitas 41 4 Authority of Female Speech, Efficacy of Female Guidance: The Goddess and Women in Tantric Contexts 69 5 Two “Devis”, Two “Gurus” Speaking with Authority: Sarada Devi and Anandamayi Ma 93 6 Modifying Masculinity: Tantric Culture, Female Speech and Reframed Masculinities 123 7 The Beauty of Womansplaining: The Authoritative Speech of Devi in India, in the World 151 Index 157 ix A bbreviAtions AU Annapurna Upanishad BDP, MK Brihaddharma Purana, Madhya Khanda BDP, PK Brihaddharma Purana, Purva Khanda BM Bangmayi Ma BM Bhu Bhumika in Bangmayi Ma DB The Srimad Devibhagawatam (Devibhagavata Purana) DG The Devi Gita (from the Devibhagavata) DU Devi Upanishad KCT Kulachudamani Tantra KU Kena Upanishad KuP, PB Kurma Puranam, Purva Bhaga LT Laksmi Tantra MBUP Shri Mahabhagavata Upapurana MRH Mother Reveals Herself NTT Nigama Tattvasara Tantram PN Pithanirnayah (Mahapithanirupanam) RV Rig Veda SB Srimad Bhagavatam SDV Sankara-Dig-Vijaya SP The Siva-purana SRU Sarasvati Rahasya Upanishad SSC Shri Shri Chandi SSMK Shri Shri Mayer Katha TR Tripura Rahasya YT, PK Yogini Tantra, Prathama Khanda xi CHAPTER 1 Introduction: What the Goddess Said—What Her Speech Means to Us Today In the contemporary discussions on mansplaining (Solnit 2014a, b, Chap. 1; Pot’Vin-Gorman 2019, 54–55; Turner 2017), what is foregrounded is the arrogance of male speech that sees listening as the responsibility of the dominated and speech as the privilege of the dominant (Solnit 2014a, Chap. 1, subheading 1). As Rebecca Solnit points out, “Being told that, categorically, he knows what he’s talking about and she doesn’t, however minor a part of any given conversation, perpetuates the ugliness of this world and holds back its light” (Solnit 2014a, Chap. 1, subheading 1). What mansplaining denies systematically is “equiphony” (a la Isabel Santa Cruz [Amoros 2004, 344]), the right of women to speak and to be heard as much as men are entitled to. What is at stake here is the attitudinal dimension of the patriarchally sanctioned socio-cultural interactions. Within the circuits of such interactions, women have to constantly fight for establishing the legitimacy of their speeches: “Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being” (Solnit 2014b, Chap. 1, subheading 2). Mansplaining, one may argue, is a cross-c ulturally evident phenomenon. It is not confined to specific geo-cultural cartogra- phies. The Brahmin man mansplains to his wife in the most orthodox social scenarios of India, just as the white male boss of a (white/non- white) female employee does in his office, located in a Western metropolis. It is quite difficult to find out the “innocent” man, the humble listener to © The Author(s) 2020 1 A. Mukhopadhyay, The Authority of Female Speech in Indian Goddess Traditions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52455-5_1