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.This characterization excludes the widow  (2.32).99We find these lines taken and slightly changed from Rudrayamala, 2.108,and the third line from 2.11b.The Rudrayamala in this context also mentionsthe dream initiation.While there is not space to explore this further in thisbook, it may be worthwhile to note that the connection of women and dreamsmay be read as part of a larger pattern of the representation of women, whichappendix 1 177I discuss in chapter 4 where I talk about women s speech being seen asirrational.I do think it notable that this sixteenth-century brahminical writer main-tains the idea of the woman as guru, which is found in the texts I use for thisstudy.It suggests that in Brahmananda Giri s world a woman guru was notconsidered a complete anomaly, and that some of the ideas of these texts foundacceptance among very respectable persons.Brahmananda Giri, on the otherhand, takes no note of the other elements of the practice centered on womenand respect for women.In another of his writings, the Tara Rahasya (TR), Brahmananda Girioffers alternate versions of the sakta practice, that is, the worship of the goddess.One of these does not include liquor or women in the rite, while the otherversion does include meat, liquor, and the rite of sexual union.100 The firstversion ends with a verse describing this practice as the   Great Chinese/Tibetan Practice  (mahac%2Å‚nakrama), which, however, does not look like anyother versions of this practice, since it does not contain the use of the Five Ms,including liquor and women.The second version, called the sakti sadhana,  Practice with the Woman, or Feminine Power,  does include the use ofwomen, liquor, and meat.This practice describes the rite of sexual union asthe cakra puja involving a group of men and women.101 This is the version wesaw described in the KuT above, which differs from what we see in the BT.Onedifference we see between the TR s version and the version described in theKuT is that in the TR the practioner   bows to the [other] male practioners andto the female practioner again and again  (3.63b).102 We might read this as anadded element of formality introduced in this later text (or practice) to shiftaway from the seeming pandemonium of drunken bodies in the earlier KuTversion.That this brahminical writer does not mention the elements of the practicecentering on women or reverence toward women, even as he mentions textswhere we find the advocacy of treating women with respect, I think indicatesthat official and mainstream attitudes tended not to recognize these practices.However, his acceptance of women as gurus suggests that these practicesnevertheless may have impacted mainstream opinion on some issues regard-ing women, in this case that women could perform the role of gurus.All this may suggest that this practice centered on women, and treatingwomen with respect was perhaps not a practice advocated by writers of someauthority, and not likely by kings or state powers (we are reminded here of theKP s suggestion to the king to not let women be independent), but rather thatthis was a practice that circulated more popularly and with grassroots affilia-tions.In the case of the brahminical writer Brahmananda Giri, we do find that178 appendix 1even as he simply quotes other sources as his method for explaining Tantricpractice, he also quotes selectively, and in this process he also nods toward statepowers, for instance, when he declares that human sacrifice is a prerogativeonly for the king (Saktanandataraxgip%2Å‚, 13.58).We find a similar response from another important brahminical writer of alater period, Ramatoqapa Bhattacarya.Ramatoqapa Bhattacarya s long digest,the Prapatoqip%2Å‚ (PT),103 pulls together quotes from a variety of sources follow-ing a framework guided by subject matter.Ramatoqapa Bhattacarya cites shortsections of the NT and the BT throughout, some thirty-four times.104 He alsocites the verse we found in Brahmananda Giri, which I quoted above,   theinitiation given by a woman is proclaimed to be auspicious  (PT, p.288), andverses that describe a woman who is qualified to be a guru (PT, p.288).Theverses in the PT are similar to those in the Saktanandataraxgip%2Å‚, 2.32ff.Theydiffer in a particular emphasis on the   woman of the clan  (Kulaja).So we findthat Ramatoqapa Bhattacarya also subscribes to the view that women func-tioned as gurus.He in fact does cite the GST s visualization of the female guru,which I discuss in chapter 2.105 Immediately following this he gives also the  Armour Hymn of the Woman Guru  taken from the Matrkabhedatantra, an-other text that Goudriaan and Gupta s History of Indian Literature assigns a latedate and that belongs to the northeast region.RamatoqapaBhattacarya, in his Prapatoqip%2Å‚, also gives the hymn of   armor of a woman guru and the song sung to the woman as a guru (str%2Å‚gurug%2Å‚ta).Interestingly, the hymn to the female guru apostrophizes the female guru asthe goddess Tarip%2Å‚, and the hymn is sung by Siva to Tarip%2Å‚.Separate fromthese he also gives the hymn for the worship of the wife of the guru.106However, like Brahmananda Giri, Ramatoqapa Bhattacarya does not citethe sections of the BT pertaining to women or the special   Kal%2Å‚ Practice,  or thesignature verse we find in most of the texts used for this study.Again, likeBrahmananda Giri, this brahminical authority, even though he is familiar withthe texts that present this practice, and even as he draws elements from thispractice, such as the figure of the woman as guru, nevertheless does not discusswomen s roles beyond these citations.Nor does he draw from the myths in atext like the BT.I also consulted Narasimha s Tarabhaktisudharpava, which I had initiallysupposed would be likely a similar text, especially because its title refers toTara, an important goddess for most of these texts; however, this text s positionis in general much more conservative in terms of its attitudes toward women,and does not contain the attitudes toward women found in the BT or thesignature verse.107 I also did not use writers such as N%2Å‚lambacarya and othersappendix 1 179belonging to the Kamarupa school of dharma sastra, since they do not offer theperspectives on women found in the texts I use and they clearly predate them.Most of these texts, excluding, of course, the Mahanirvapa Tantra, have notbeen translated into English, though three, namely, the NST, KMT, and Nir-uttara Tantra, have Hindi commentaries by S.N.Khandelwal.The third category includes texts from farther afield, such as, for instance,texts from the highly philosophical Kashmiri nondual Saiva tradition, in-cluding those from the Pratyabhijña school of Utpaladeva, Abhinavagupta, andKqemaraja, as well as some of the early Tantric texts affiliated with this regionand the commentaries on some of these texts by members of this school, in-cluding here, for instance, the Netra Tantra, and the Svacchanda Tantra bothwith Kqemaraja s commentaries, or Abhinavagupta s Tantraloka or Tantrasara,or texts such as the Kramasadbhava, the Spanda Karikas, or the Siva Sutras,along with their commentaries.Apart from the distance in time and place thattexts such as these present, they also do not offer the attitudes toward womenthat we find in the group used [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]