Tales of Women's Suffering

Draupadi and other Amman Goddesses as Role Models for Women

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7100150
AutoresAlleyn Diesel (autor de correspondencia)
Año2002
Volumen17
Número1
Páginas5-20
Fecha de publicación2002-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Contemporary Religion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1353-7903 • E-ISSN: 1469-9419
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13537900120098138
OpenAlexW2078324650
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas15

Although Hinduism offers the greatest living resource for the veneration of the Goddess, there is an obvious discrepancy between the respect paid to these divine images and the daily realities of the lives of Hindu women. However, I believe that the ancient, indigenous south Indian Amman religion, dominated by female deities and brought to KwaZulu-Natal by the original Hindu immigrants, offers a unique and valuable form of Goddess veneration. It presents myths and rituals of women, both divine and human, violated, betrayed and exploited by men, but whose courage and purity brought them victory against males threatening to disrupt the social order. These powerful female figures, especially Draupadi, Mother Goddess and patron of firewalking, offer women empowering role models, encouraging them to challenge patriarchal structures and injustice perpetrated against women. Recovering knowledge of some of the Amman Goddess mythology could provide women (and men) with a potent feminist theodicy and a post-patriarchal spirituality with the possibility to bring about social transformation

Ancient history · Courage · Hinduism · Indigenous · Injustice · Mythology · Political science · Sociology · Spirituality · Theology · Veneration · Victory · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Classics · Gender Studies · History · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Psychology · Religious studies · Social Psychology · South Asian Cinema and Culture