Role of a Nineteenth Century Woman's Divinity in Self-Formation
Anutosh Sinha
Advances in Media, Entertainment, and the Arts June 24, 2022 DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-6572-1.ch001 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Divinity Biography Theme computing Bengali Hinduism Religious studies Religious experience Literature Gender studies Theology |
| Key points | Argues that Rashsundari Devi encodes her discontent with patriarchal norms within a framework of religious devotion rather than outright transgression. |
Abstract
Rashsundari Devi's autobiography, the first of its kind by any Bengali woman, Amar Jiban is the testimony of a 19th century Bengali woman's ordeals. It not only highlights the theme of women's education through her yearning for knowledge of letters; it also calls for equal spiritual status for women as she personally yearns for God. She chooses to rewrite her life in this autobiography, broadly in alignment with God's life. She attributes to God every good or bad thing happening around, even her life with transgressions. The chapter showcases how the re-presented self of Rashsundari follows the broad religious codes, yet not in the customary way and her personalized fantastic experiences, like precognitive dreams, help her mould the shape of her God. The author invokes the guru-shishya dynamics and looks through the glass of a few religious texts of Hinduism, especially the Bhagavad Gita, to analyse whether she transgresses from the whole religious system or actually encodes her discontent uniquely on the bedrock of religious following, adherence, and devotion.