Bose, Mandakranta. Women in the Hindu Tradition: Rules, Roles and Exceptions. London: Routledge, 2010. Print.
At the beginning of my shelfie process, I initially wanted a book on Jainism and its beliefs in karma. However, I was unable to find anything substantial or relevant. I then turned my focus on women in Hinduism. After doing research on the One-Child Policy, in China, last year, I’ve become interested in how women are/have been perceived and treated in different cultures and religions. As a result, I wanted to further expand my knowledge of women in the Hindu tradition. Thus, I searched the terms “Hinduism” and “Women” into the Lafayette Library Catalog. The first few results did not satisfy me so I kept scrolling. The 15th result was the book Women in the Hindu Tradition: Rules, Roles and Exceptions, by Mandakranta Bose, which contained the information that I had been looking for.
At first glance, the cover of the book looks very bland; however, the content of the book is not. The book is divided into four sections, excluding the introduction and conclusion. These sections are “Gendered divinity”, “Shaping women’s lives: the role of ancient Hindu texts”, “Women poets of Hinduism”, and “Sanctuary: women and home worship”. While flipping through the book, I noticed that Bose goes into great detail about many of the goddesses that we have discussed in class as well as some of the Epics, including the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. This connection to class on information that we have already learned made it easier to get a picture of what Bose was arguing. Everything that I found in this book is what I had expected to find after searching for women in Hinduism. If I were to write a paper on this topic, I would read the introduction and the chapter on the impact of ancient Hindu texts on women’s lives. I was immediately drawn to this chapter because the influence that some of these sacred texts have amazes me as they have the power to impact ones life. I would need to do more research, but this would be a great starting point.
There were many other fascinating books near the one written by Bose. These books covered religions from Jainism to Hinduism to Buddhism. One book, in particular, that stood out to me was Women in Epic Mahabharata, by Kevin McGrath, which could potentially help me write my paper. Other than this book, most of the other books were very broad and covered every aspect of a specific religion.