Death is a Woman: A Mahabharatan Framework for Postcolonial Hindu Feminism

Abstract

Oppressive gender structures, sourced in and supported by particular canonical Hindu texts, have been used throughout the history of colonial and postcolonial India to imagine, construct, and maintain communal identity in opposition to British political, social, and cultural domination until Partition and independence in 1947. Combating the power of these narratives, rather than simply dismantling or reinterpreting them, requires the counterforce of a similarly powerful myth. The Sanskrit-language epic narrative poem the Mahābhārata, with its enduring significance and success as not only a grand narrative but also as a significant philosophical and political tract, is an apt and powerful basis for the creation of a new narrative of gender and sexuality.

This thesis addresses three key questions. Firstly: how are women, womanhood and female sexuality framed through language and narrative within the Sanskrit-language version of the Mahābhārata? Secondly: how do these depictions and philosophical teachings subvert or contradict the current framing of women in modern conservative Hindu discourse? Thirdly: how does the Mahābhārata, as a text firmly entrenched in the orthodox Hindu canon, offer a framework for postcolonial Hindu feminism in a modern, global India?