Contenu | LEAF

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-model href="http://www.tei-c.org/release/xml/tei/custom/schema/relaxng/tei_all.rng" type="application/xml" schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?>
<?xml-model href="http://www.tei-c.org/release/xml/tei/custom/schema/relaxng/tei_all.rng" type="application/xml"
	schematypens="http://purl.oclc.org/dsdl/schematron"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BucknellDSC/heresies/main/CSS/heresies_cwrc.css"?>
<TEI xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0">
 <teiHeader>
 <fileDesc>
 <titleStmt>
 <title>She Who Bleeds, Yet Does Not Die</title>
 <author>Rosemary J. Dudley</author>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Eowyn Andres</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2024-Present)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Haley Beardsley</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2021-2024)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Lyndon Beier</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2023-2025)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Erica Delsandro</persName>
 <resp>Investigator, editor</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Mia DeRoco</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2023-2025)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Margaret Hunter</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2021-2024)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Diane Jakacki</persName>
 <resp>Invesigator, encoder</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Sophie McQuaide</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2021-2023)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Olivia Martin</persName>
 <resp>Editor, encoder (2021)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Zoha Nadeer</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Bri Perea</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Carrie Pirmann</persName>
 <resp>HTR editor, encoder (2023-Present)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Ricky Rodriguez</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2022-2023)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Roger Rothman</persName>
 <resp>Investigator, editor</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Valeria Riley</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2024-Present)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Zaely Rodriguez</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2025-Present)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Kaitlyn Segreti</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2021-2025)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Maggie Smith</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2021-2024)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Maya Wadhwa</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2021-2023)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Kelly Troop</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2023-2025)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Lucy Wadswoth</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2022-2025)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Anna Marie Wingard</persName>
 <resp>Editor (2023-2025)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <respStmt>
 <persName>Olivia Wychock</persName>
 <resp>Graduate Editor (2024-Present)</resp>
 </respStmt>
 <funder>Bucknell University Humanities Center</funder>
 <funder>Bucknell University Office of Undergraduate Research</funder>
 <funder>The Mellon Foundation</funder>
 <funder>National Endowment for the Humanities</funder>
 </titleStmt>
 <publicationStmt>
 <distributor>
 <name>Bucknell University</name>
 <address>
 <street>One Dent Drive</street>
 <settlement>Lewisburg</settlement>
 <region>Pennsylvania</region>
 <postCode>17837</postCode>
 </address>
 </distributor>
 <availability>
 <licence>Bucknell Heresies Project: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0
 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)</licence>
 <licence>Heresies journal: © Heresies Collective</licence>
 </availability>
 </publicationStmt>
 <sourceDesc>
 <biblStruct>
 <analytic>
 <title>The Great Goddess</title>
 </analytic>
 <monogr>
 <imprint>
 <publisher>HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics</publisher>
 <pubPlace>
 <address>
 <name>Heresies</name>
 <postBox>P.O. Boxx 766, Canal Street Station</postBox>
 <settlement>New York</settlement>
 <region>New York</region>
 <postCode>10013</postCode>
 </address>
 </pubPlace>
 </imprint>
 </monogr>
 </biblStruct>
 </sourceDesc>
 </fileDesc>
 </teiHeader>
 <text>
 <body>
 			<div>
				<pb n='112'/>
			
 				<head><title>She Who Bleeds, Yet Does Not Die</title></head>
 				<byline><persName>Rosemary J. Dudley</persName></byline>
			
			
				India is the only country where the Goddess is widely
				worshipped today in a tradition that dates to the Bronze
				Age (c. 3,000 B.c.) or earlier. Dressed and re-dressed, clothed
				in space, skulls or sari, the Great Mother lives in both the
				Great and the Little Traditions, changing, yet changeless.
				The respect She commands at any moment provides a mirror for the honor and status accorded to women in the society which worships Her. Woman, as earthly manifestation
				of Goddess, became in fact the symbol of veneration par
				excellence because of her ability to provide the two prime
				requisites for life from her own body —food and offspring.<note>1.E. O. James, The Cult of the Mother Goddess (New York, Frederick A. Praeger, 1959), p. 22</note>
				That.
				..earthly women could barely be distinguished from heavenly ones is shown in the following form of address used in the
				<lb/>epics: "Are you a Goddess? or a Danavi? a gandharva woman?
				<lb/>an apsaras, a yaksha woman, a snake fairy, or do you belong to
					<lb/>the human race?”<note>2. Heinz Mode, The Woman in Indian Art (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1970), p. 15.</note>
				History indicates that “mother-right organisation in other
				civilizations may not have been so highly advanced and so
				strong as was the case in India."<note>3. O. R. Ehrenfels, Mother-Right in India (Bombay, Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 124</note> This strength made it
				necessary for the Vedic conquerors (1,500 Bc.) to apply extraordinarily cruel means to subdue Goddess worship.<note>4. lbid. Ethnology and Indology," in of the Myste The Mystic Vision, ed. Joseph Campbell.</note>
				From the Indus Valley period, the Goddess went underground, not to emerge until the Gupta era (AD. 320-650).
				One must suspect that the level to which women were debased undoubtedly corresponds to the level to which they
				had once been exalted.
				How then did the Indian Great Goddess survive these
				ruthless attempts of Her Vedic conquerors to rob Her of Her
				power? The answer, as with many of the problems that
				women faced, lay in the control and management of earth
				as a sacred extension of Her own body. Fertility and, by extension, agriculture have always been the special province
				of women, both human and divine. Many scholars hold that
				agriculture was the invention of women as they became
				familiar with seed growth during gathering forays.<note>5. </note> Agricultural communities are most likely to be concerned with the
				twin processes of production and reproduction. Through
				mimesis (imitation), fertility of the land was attributed to
				fertility of the woman:
				..the female’s economic contributions were of first impor
				<lb/>tance. She participated—perhaps even predominated— in
				<lb/>the planting and reaping of the crops and, as the mother of
				<lb/>life and nourisher of life, was thought to assist the earth
					<lb/>symbolically in its productivity.<note>6. Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology (New York, The Viking Press, 1959), p. 139.</note>
				The Indus Valley Civilization (3,000-1,500 B.c.) at its two
				largest centers, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, had as its
				source of wealth, huge granaries. The archeological record
				shows that "no granary in the preclassical world [was] comparable in specialization of design and in monumental dignity to the examples from the two Indus cities.”<note>7. Sir Mortimer Wheeler, The Indus Civilization (London, Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 36.</note> Here, the
			
			
				majority of statues uncovered are of the Mother Goddess or
				of women.<note>8. Ibid., p. 91 and Mario Bussagli, ed., 5,000 Years of the Art of India (New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., ?) p. 47</note> [see illustration on pg. 113] Today in India, as
				5,000 years ago, agriculture predominates. Eighty percent of
				India’s populace still live in farming villages, isolated from
				modernity. Every village has its Sapta Matrikas (Seven Mothers) and the majority of Gramadevata (village deities) are female. Thus, due to strong patriarchal and pastoral pressures, the Goddess changed, but did not die.
				If woman and the Goddess were associated with the fertility of the earth and its seasons of cyclical growth, then
				the first rites should have sprung up around these physiological cycles of women. The word “rite” itself may have developed from the Sanskrit word “ritu,” meaning both “any
				settled point of time, fixed time, time appointed for any
				action (especially for sacrifices and other regular worship)
				and "the menstrual discharge. .., the time after the courses
				(favorable for procreation);.. sexual union at the above
				time."<note>9. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, ed. by Sir Monier Monier-Williams (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1899), p. 224</note> In Vedic days a woman, ten days after the onset of
				her period, was thought to be "cleansed ceremonially and
				physiologically, by the menstrual blood [and had taken al
				...purificatory bath following the stoppage of the flow.”<note>10. P. Thomas, Indian Women Through the Ages (Bombay, Asia Publishing House, 1964), p. 163</note>
				Water, as a symbol of the amniotic fluid, would naturally
				enhance a woman’s fertility. Originally, ritu was probably
				the fixed time of sacred cohabitation with the priestesses
				or apsaras — of the Mother Goddess, which presumably occurred in the rooms adjoining the Great Bath at Mohenjodaro."<note>11. D. D. Kosambi, Ancient India: A History of Its Culture and Civilization (New York, The World Publishing Company, 1965), p. 68.</note> That the ritu was once a sacred time for cohabitation
				<lb/>and that we must have coined our word “rite” from here
				<lb/>seems conclusive.
				In theorizing about the origin of rites and their connection with women’s bodies, the question of "taboo” must
				first be resolved. “Taboo” is defined as: “Set apart or consecrated for a special use or purpose;... inviolable, sacred,
				forbidden, unlawful."<note>12. The Complete Oxford English Dictionary (2 vols.) (New York, Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 3,217.</note> Bleeding women were certainly not
				considered impure, nor were they the only persons under
				the edict of ceremonial rules. Frazer cites “divine kings
				chiefs...homocides, mourners, women in childbed, girls at
				puberty... and so on”<note>13. Sir James George Frazer, The New Colden Bough, ed. by Dr. Theodor H. Gaster (New York, Criterion Books, 1959), p. 166.</note> as examples of those held sacred
				Clearly, what is attributed to these individuals and what
				connects them is awe for their condition—power, not
				morality. Again, Frazer says: "As the garments wbich have
				been touched by a sacred chief kill those who handle them,
				so do the things which have been touched by a menstruous
				woman."<note>14. Ibid., p. 167</note>
				Power—the power over life and death—is synonymous
				with blood. A wounded person, suffering loss of blood, inevitably weakened or died. The potency of blood for energy,
				healing, purification, and sacred power is well documented
				from prehistory onward. But if ordinary blood was deemed
				powerful, menstrual and lochial (postbirth) blood must have
				seemed twice so because of its association with birth as
			
 			<figure>
 			<caption>Alida Walsh. Earth Mother Godess. Polyester resin and fiberglass. 12' x 9'. 1973.</caption>
 			</figure>
 				<pb n='112'/>
 				
			<pb n='113'/>
			
				well as death. In fact, the ancient belief that menstruation
				was a part of the same process as childbirth,<note>15. N. N. Bhattacharyya, Indian Mother Coddess (Calcutta, R. D. Press, 1971), p. 17</note> was held as
				late as the first century AD: "Aristotle, Pliny and other
				naturalists. .. believed that the embryo is formed from the
				blood retained in the uterus after the stoppage of menstruation.”<note>16. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vols. 1 and II, ed. by James Hastings (New York, Charles Scribner’s, 1951), p. 716</note> Some scholars feel that the practice of marking
				tabooed people with blood formed its original pattern from the principle of menstrual
				and lochial blood being considered the
				blood of life.<note>17. G. Thompson, Studies in Ancient Greek Society (London, Lawrence, 1949), p. 205.</note> Menstruating women wore
				ochre to warn men of their tabooed state.
				Today, in India, this is the mark of the spiritual adept.
				Women’s sacred ceremonies of taboo
				may be viewed as blood rites, based on real,
				physiological changes like birth, consummation or menstruation. Unlike male rites,
				they are not a symbolic reenactment of
				birth, nor do they entail a sudden and often
				violent break from the maternal or natural
				world. Having inside oneself the potential
				for birth and rebirth, one doesn't need animitation of it: Tat Tvam asi or "That Thou
				art."
				Group female rites of passage are based
				on changes in internal body rhythms, such
				as the incipience of menstruation. Yet today
				most initiations must be conferred individually. Louise Lacey, author of Lunaception,
				however, concludes that at one time all
				women menstruated together—at the new
				or full moon. It is now known that light controls the pituitary gland, which regulates
				ovulation. Lacey’s theory is based on the
				fact that artificial light is responsible for
				establishing varying menstrual cycles<note>18. Louise Lacey, Lunaception, quoted by Anne Kent Rush in Moon, Moon (New York, Random House, 1976), p. 300</note>—
				thus necessitating individual initiations.
				Nevertheless, a significant number of women today still
				bleed at either the full or new moon, and women living in
				close proximity soon experience synchronous menses. The
				group character of early female initiations is described as
				being:
				...under the direction of their older female relatives (as in
				<lb/>India) or of old women (Africa). These tutoresses instruct
				<lb/>them in the secrets of sexuality and fertility, and teach them
				<lb/>the customs of the tribe and at least some of its religious
				<lb/>tradition. .. The education thus given is general, but its essence is religious; it consists in a revelation of the sacrality
				<lb/>(divinity) of women.<note>19. Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation (New York, Harper and Row, 1958), p. 42.</note>
				The fertility festivals still celebrated in India that often
				culminate in ritual dances by women date back to the
				Bronze Age, as is shown on one pot-sherd from Navda-Toli
				(Mahesvar) c. 1,600 B.c. Girls today still dance this hataga in a
				circle, holding hands.<note>20. D. D. Kosambi, Myth and Reality (Bombay, Popular Prakashan, 1962), p. 49</note> [see illustration on title pagel Women
				dance together in Bengal in their worship of Gauri, the Corn
				Goddess.<note>21. Bhattacharyya, p. 28.</note> Holi, celebrated to this day by bonfires, is thought
				by some to commemorate the death by fire of a wicked
				witch, known as the aunt of the boy Prahlada in the story of
				Vishnu incarnate as Man-Lion (Narasimha).<note>22. Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson, The Rites of the Twice-Born (London, Oxford University Press, 1920), p. 281.</note> Once this holy
				day (holiday) was celebrated in honor of Vasantasena, Goddess of Love and Spring—when the festival takes place. During the festivities lascivious songs and dances are performed,
				and red dye, symbolic of menstrual blood,<note>23. Lowell Thomas, India: Land of the Black Pagoda (Carden City, N.Y., Garden City Publishing Co., 1930), p. 85.</note> is thrown on all
				who venture out-of-doors. The newborn, carried by their
				mothers once ’round the fire, are not considered pure until
				this ceremony. Perhaps women originally celebrated their
				own purification and personal transformations on these
			
 				<figure>
 					<caption>Great Goddess with pannier headdress. Harappa (Indus Valley Civation).</caption>
 				</figure>
			
				occasions in the name of the Coddess
				One of the most beautiful epithets of the Goddess reflects Her sanguineous wonder: "She who bleeds, yet does
				not die.” In accordance with this belief, the blood rites and
				body changes of both birth and menstruation were held
				sacred or taboo. These auspicious occasions called for retreat to a sanctuary, or sacred space, often
				triangular and symbolic of the womb.<note>24. Eliade, p. 49</note> A
				man might be warned "to avoid thereafter
				the footpaths used by women or any other
				place where he might encounter them."<note>25. Paul Radin, Primitive Religion: Its Nature and Origin (New York, Dover Publications, Inc., 1937), p. 86.</note>
				How awesome these bloody phenomena
				must have seemed! Birth, with its ever attendant risk of death, must have seemed
				especially dangerous. Despite some yearning after the life-creating power of women
				men probably felt fortunate to be excluded
				from the mostly agonizing birth process.
				Women, too, benefited from the seclusion
				in terms of rest, recuperation, and immunity
				from infectious disease. The Sanskrit word
				for ceremonial "impurity” after childbirth
				or miscarriage, "sutaka,” is closely related
				to "sutika-gada, meaning "puperal sickness, fever or sickness of any kind supervening of childbirth."<note>26. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, p.1,240.</note> Here is a clear connection between isolation and preventive
				medicine
				Birth, at one time, was entirely under the
				province of women. Midwives, Indian and
				otherwise, knew the herbal secrets both
				for easy delivery and easy abortion.<note>27. Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (Oyster Bay, N.Y., Glass Mountain Pamphlets), p. 1.</note> These
				were women from the lower classes, married to barbers — the surgeons of their times
				These women additionally supervised the
				diet of the mother-to-be.<note>28. Millicent Pommerenke, Asian Women and Eros (New York, Vantage Press, 1958), p. 37.</note> Tsee illustration
				on p. 114.
				An Indian woman traditionally secludes herself for thirty-seven to forty-five days after her child’s birth, at which
				timę she rejoins her husband. During this period she devotes
				herself solely to her infant and her own recuperation. Often
				she returns to her own mother’s home to give birth and remains there for some six months. After this time she and the
				baby are given presents and then return to the mother's
				married home.<note>29. Stevenson, pp. 16-17.</note>
				Two events occur on the sixth day after birth when the
				danger to the health of the mother and child is over. The
				first is the placing of an auspicious red mark on the foreheads of mother and child by a woman believed to have the
				power to bestow good fortune. The second event involves
				the worship of Shasti, Goddess of Childbirth, and Her five
				sisters. The paternal aunt performs this rite by throwing a
				mixture of lime, red tumeric water, and grains of wheat onto
				a stool covered with red and arranged with seven sacred
				Pipal (fig) leaves. By doing so, she takes the luck or karma of
				the baby upon her own head<note>30. lbid, p.10.</note>—a feat only a woman can
				attempt. This entire night the females of the household
				keep vigil, for this is the time when the Goddess enters to
				write the child’s destiny on its forehead.<note>31. P. Thomas, Hindu Religion, Customs and Manners (Bombay, D.B. Taraporevala Sons &amp; Co., 1971), p. 79.</note>
				The color red has always been associated with sex and
				fertility and, obviously, blood. Some say the vermillion forehead mark, which is placed at the location of the regulating
				pituitary, is reminiscent of blood originally shed in human
				sacrifice.”<note>32. S. K. The Mother Coddess (Poona, The International Book Service, 1943), p. 76.</note> Probably it is blood more directly associated
				with fertility since only the married Indian woman properly
				wears it. Indian women, in fact, are traditionally married in
				red! The Tamil word for Siva, consort of the Mother Goddess,
			
			<pb n='114'/>
 				<figure>
 					<caption>Woman giving birth. South India. 18th century.</caption>
 				</figure>
			
				means "red” as well. Another of his names, Rudra, is
				also synonymous with the word red.<note>33. Ajit Mookerjee, Tantra Asana (Basel, Ravi Kumar, 1971), p. 44.</note> A red slip or wash has
				been used from prehistoric times to enhance the life-giving
				properties of terracotta figurines, a practice still current in
				India today. Indian village deities are "coated with red pigment, red lead in oil, ochre, or cheaper scarlet colouring
				matter. The colour is a substitute for blood."<note>34. Kosambi, Ancient India, p. 47.</note>
				In an agricultural setting, a large family is highly desirable. In addition, many offspring were needed in ancient
				times to compensate for the many who died young. What
				first was woman’s crowning glory, however, became hernemesis if she conceived too often, if she could not conceive, or if she brought forth solely daughters. Indian sons
				were prized more highly than daughters after the time came
				when only they could save their father’s souls from hell by
				proper execution of the funeral ceremonies, and only the
				birth of a son could save his mother from the fear of a second wife.<note>35. Stevenson, p. 4.</note>
				Consummation was another body change haunted by the
				awesome power of blood and was celebrated by ritual. Many
				Indian accounts tell of a virgin who offers herself in a
				temple to a stranger, or to a person especially appointed
				to that task. Because the shedding of a woman’s blood
				was no small matter, husbands or lovers who did not wish
				to assume this responsibility could, through a surrogate,
				avoid hymenal blood. No sense of shame was attached
				to the temple fertility rituals, as temple "prostitution” was
				a respectable Goddess custom which dated back to the
				culture of the Indus Valley. Of the sacred rites taking
				place in the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro, it has been said
				that "it was part of the ritual for men...to cohabit with
				the female representatives of the Mother-Goddess to
				whom the citadel complex belonged.”<note>36. Kosambi, Ancient India, p. 68.</note> Another source
				tells us that "there were nigh twelve thousand such priestesses in Madras in quite recent times."<note>37. B. Z. Goldberg, The Sacred Fire: The Story of Sex in Religion (New York University Books, 1958), p.78</note> Other accounts
				supporting male dread and awe of hymenal blood include
				the Santal decree which states that a girl “must once in
				her life cohabit with a stranger in the temple of Talkupi
				Chat."3’ The Nagas, a hill tribe, have a ceremony where a
				marriage badge (tali) is tied around the neck of a young
				girl after her first menstruation. Originally, this “tali-tier
				was obligated to perform ritual defloration as well.<note>38. Ibid., p.68.</note>
				Menstruation, in many ways, is the most important of
				all blood rites of passage, and marks the threshold of
			
			
				womanhood, makes possible conception and birth, and
				establishes a cyclic inner rhythm. The word menstruation
				still retains its connection between Mena and the moon;<note>39. Dikshit, p. 123</note>
				Mena being the mother of the Goddess Uma and the
				daughter of Mt. Meru. In India, the lunar calendar, possibly one of the first of its type, is still in use today. The
				month is divided into two fourteen day periods: the dark
				half and the bright half. The total of twenty-eight days is
				both a menstrual and lunar cycle, with the full moon as a
				cosmic representation of pregnancy, and the new moon
				standing for the promise of rebirth. These beliefs are apparently universal, for the lunar markings found on pre-historic bone fragments are thought by many to represent
				women's cycles.“<note>40. Alexander Marshack, The Roots of Civilization (London, Weiden feld and Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1972), pp. 136-137.</note>
				At Mohenjo-daro many statues of the Mother Goddess
				were found covered with a red slip, for Goddesses are subject to the same physiological rhythms as their earthly
				counterparts. In Bengal, a four-day ceremony called ambuvaci is held after the first burst of rain. During this time
				the Goddess is considered to be menstruating in preparation for Her fertilizing work to come. All farm labor comes
				to a halt during this period.<note>41. Bhattacharyya, p. 16.</note> In the Travancore ceremony
				called trippukharattu (purification), it is believed the Goddess menstruates eight or ten times a year. At these periods
				"a cloth wrapped around the metal image of the Goddess
				is found to be discoloured with red spots and is subsequently in demand as a holy relic."
				<note>42. Robert Briffault, The Mothers, abridged by C. R. Taylor (New York, Atheneum Press, 1977), p. 253</note> 
				In Assam, the Goddess Kamakhya is worshipped by only a "yoni-shaped"<note>43. When not worshipped in sculptural or representational form, the yoni or vulva is often depicted in symbolic imagery as one or
				more triangles with downward apexes, and used as a focus for meditation (yantra). A yonic or womb symbol is nearly unknown
				as a term in Western culture, while its opposite, “phallic,” is a household byword.</note>
				stone smeared with vermillion. ..During the new-moon
				week Her shrine is closed to all”<note>44. Bhattacharyya, p. 16.</note> because this is the time
				when the Goddess is believed to menstruate.<note>45. lbid., p.17.</note> In addition
				to Bengal, Travancore and Assam, puritication ceremonies
				are popularly celebrated in Changanur, Kerala, the Punjab
				and the Deccan.<note>46. lbid., p. 16.</note> In all of India the times when the Goddess rests and refreshes Herself may vary, but usually
				these are associated with the new or full moon.
				It is in the Tantric worship of the Mother Goddess that
				the veneration of Her earthly double is most obvious. This
				applies to Tantric beliefs concerning menstruation as well.
				In one rite "a menstruating virgin is worshipped as
				Sodashi."<note>47. Mookerjee, p. 86.</note> The Sanskrit word sodha means “purification,
				cleansing...; correction, setting right."<note>48. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, p. 1,091.</note> How different
				this is from the later Dharma Shastra scriptural rule which
				states that the sin of a monthly abortion accrues to a father
				who delays in the marriage of his daughter after the onset
				of her menses.<note>49. Prof. Indra, The Status of Women in Ancient India (Banaras, Motilal Banarsidass, 1955), p. 46.</note>A wasted ritu, or opportunity for conception, had by then become the equivalent of a missed opportunity for life. Tantra prescribes menstruation as the
				best time for ritual intercourse from the woman's point of
				view because, at this time, her "red' sexual energy is at
				its peak."<note>50. Philip Rawson, Tantra: The Indian Cult of Ecstasy (New York, Bounty Books, 1973), p. 24.</note> This sect considers “that menstrual blood is
				not only invigorating but also sedative.”<note>51. Mookerjee, p. 39</note> A woman’s body
				is recognized to be allied to the phases of the moon. One
				Tantric diagram shows:
				a female figure illustrating positions of Amritakala, which have
				<lb/>to be energized on respective dates of the white and dark
				<lb/>halves of the month for successful tantric asanas (yogic
				<lb/>postures). The eighteen focal centres in the female body
				<lb/>mentioned in Ratirahasya<note>52. Ratirahasya means"the mysteries of love,” and is the name of an erotic work by Kokkoka, according to A Sanskrit-English Dictionary.</note> can be excited by the adept
				<lb/>when harmonized with the exact location of the chandrakala
				<lb/>(digits of the moon) on [thesel respective dates.. <note>53. Mookerjee, p. 88.</note> (see
				<lb/>illustration)
				The antiquity of customs and rites may often be traced
				through the history of tribal peoples in India who were
				indigenous or who retained historical cultural purity
				through their isolation due to the caste system. This is
				evidenced by many noncaste peoples who continue to
			
			<pb n='115'/>
			
				celebrate the onset of the menses as a joyous and festive
				occasion. The main characteristics of these rites are:
				"Seclusion in huts, pandals especially constructed for this
				purpose, ritual baths, and a final coming-of-age ceremony."<note>54. Ehrenfels, p. 16.</note> Among the Pulayan or Cheruman, for example:
				<lb/>A girl’s first menstruation is celebrated with a certain
				<lb/>amount of luxury. The girl remains secluded in a menstrual
				<lb/>hut for seven days. A feast is arranged by the mother on the
				<lb/>first and last day. Seven girls accompany the initiated one,
				<lb/>bathe her in oil and water, and afterwards paint their faces
				<lb/>yellow.<note>55. Ibid., p. 51</note>
				Some high caste Hindus, especially in the South, also
				celebrate female puberty rites. The Dikshitar Brahmins
				enjoy processional and caste festivities <note>56. Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari, Castes and Tribes of South India, quoted by Ehrenfels, p. 109</note> while the Dehast
				Brahmins seat the girl on a little throne, accompanied by
				a maidservant. Female relatives pay visits, bring gifts, and
				wash the young woman in perfumed oil.<note>57. H.H. Risley, Censi, quoted by Ehrenfels, p. 109.</note>
				The Tantrics say that the menstrual discharge "is not
				only composed chiefly of blood potent with ova-energy,
				but also contains other properties, together with a large
				amount of estrogenic substances (arsenic, lecithin and
				cholesterol)."<note>58. Mookerjee, p. 39.</note> Scientifically, the existence of estrogen in
				the discharge has been verified, along with the observation
				that the blood itself is non-coagulatory.<note>59. Williams Obstetrics (14th ed.), ed. by Louis Hellman (New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971), pp. 104-105.</note> While in its idle
				state in the womb, this blood is the purest in the body
				The monthly occurrence of menstruation is once more
				being seen in a more positive light. Certainly it is a fine
				way of aligning oneself with the cosmic rhythms of the
				lunar cycle. A new consciousness will be born when women begin to note and record the date and time of their
				very first lunar cycle. The concept of menstruation as purification and cosmic attunement, rather than "curse," might
				<lb/>possibly engender a whole new response to the discomfort
				<lb/>some women now experience during their cycles.
				It was some time after the first century B.c. that the high
				regard given to a woman during her menses changed to its
				opposite — denigration. Then and even now "women are
				considered ceremonially impure during this period. Even
				a Brahmin woman. . degenerates into a Chandali (outcaste)."<note>60. P. Thomas, Hindu Religion, Customs and Manners, p. 81.</note> Once considered a Goddess herself, today an
				Indian woman during her period cannot even enter a
				temple!
				Currently, when rural women menstruate, they move
				into huts set aside for the purpose of rest and seclusion.
				Often they sit on broken earthenware pots. City women,
				however, remove themselves to a specific area of a room
				or part of a house and their look and their touch is regarded with fear.
				If women’s physiological functions were once the very
				models and methods through which the Goddess was
				venerated, how do we explain the fact that both were
				divested so thoroughly of their power and influence? Some
				of the theories for this loss of prestige have been postulated as follows: Discovery of the true facts of conception
				(that males have a role in it), scriptural and mythological
				suppression and interpolation, a worldwide cataclysm at
				the end of the Bronze Age, the pacific nature of agrarian societies, the preliterate nature of these societies or the
				fact that their languages remain undeciphered even today,
				and male control of women, their bodies, and all institutions.
				As the Great Goddess was stripped of Her sovereignty,
				so, too, was the power of woman as Living Goddess, as
				living ancestor, wrested from her. Split like the Goddess,
				woman became a power divided against her own selt.
				Today, though women’s rights are guaranteed under the
				1949 Indian Constitution, the editorial consensus of a
			
 				<figure>
 					<caption>In Tantic yogic practice the eighteen focal centers shown on the female body ought to be energized at corresponding phases of the moon.</caption>
 				</figure>
			
				survey taken by that government in 1974 is: “Large masses
				of women in this country have remained unaffected by the
				rights guaranteed to them.. "<note>61. Department of Social Welfare, Govt. of India, Towards Equality: Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India (New Delhi: Printing Press Institute for the Deaf, 1974), p. following</note> Since religion plays such
				a major role in the vast majority of Indian lives, it is the
				responsibility of concerned scholars —especially women—
				to examine these changed myths and to reinvest such
				sacred texts with the power of the Living Goddess. Hindu
				law reformers, realizing that their scriptures and beliefs
				were fluid and at times contradictory, used this broad base
				as a means to change many restrictive social laws—often
				involving women—by reference to older or interpolated
				scriptural authority.
				The sacred rites of the Goddess are the sacred rites of
				women everywhere. With reclamation of this ancient
				spirituality, women will sense the latent power of their full
				potential, deriving both from the Goddess without and the
				Goddess within. We need now to rejoin and reclaim both.
				Om. Sa hum.
				© Rosemary ). Dudley 1978.
				<lb/>Excerpted from a forthcoming book and dedicated to
				<lb/>N. N. Bhattacharyya
				FOOTNOTES
			
			<pb n='116'/>
			
			
			
				<lb/>copyright.
				<figure>
					<caption>Hannah Wilke. Stills from SuperT-Art. Performance. 1974.</caption>
				</figure>
			</div>
 </body>
 </text>
</TEI>