tell me about the role of women in bhakti movement in india
Answers
Hi dude,
The role of women in Bhakti movement in India-
Though many historians have mentioned that this popular nature was due to the bhakti saints, espousing the cause of the common people, one point that remains under emphasized, is the role of women.
It is the large scale participation of women that gave the movement the character of a mass movement. Religion was the only space which was open to women in medieval times.
Through this legitimate space women could define their actions and aspirations and participate in public gatherings, visit pilgrimage places, compose their own songs and through bhakti directly reach God.
In this way they sowed the seed of an idea that women could be agents of their own religious emancipation.
In the Bhakti movements, women take on the qualities that men traditionally have. They break rules of Manu that forbid them to do so. A respectable woman is not, for instance, allowed to live by herself or outdoors, or refuse sex to her husband- but women saints wander and travel alone, give up husband, children and family.”
Tracing the roots of Indian Feminism led us to women in Bhakti, who challenged Brahminical patriarchy through their songs, poems and ways of life. At a time where most spaces were restricted to women, they embraced Bhakti to define their own truths to reform society, polity, relationships and religions. They broke all societal rules and stereotypes, and lived their lives as they pleased.