UNITED STATES, December 13, 2021 (Religion News, by Deepti Hajela): When Sushma Dwivedi started seriously thinking about performing wedding rites and other Hindu religious blessings in New York City and elsewhere, she knew who she needed to talk to — her grandmother. Together, they went through the mantras that are recited by pandits, the priests who perform Hindu religious rituals, to find the ones that resonated with what Dwivedi was trying to do — offer Hindu blessings and services that were welcoming of all, irrespective of gender identity, sexual orientation, race, any of it. Her grandmother isn’t a pandit — in India, as well as in Indian diaspora communities, that’s been a domain that is largely populated by men, with cultural mores at play. But she had a wealth of religious knowledge, of ritual, of proper pronunciation, to share with her granddaughter.
Those who study the religion and its traditions say that while there aren’t a lot of women priests (although that is changing in India and in other places), women in Hinduism globally continue to take on leadership roles in other ways — building communities, taking on positions in organizations, passing on knowledge. Hinduism encompasses a range of practices and philosophies, and has a pantheon of divine figures encompassing both male and female. There is no central authority, like an equivalent to the role the pope plays in Catholicism. So leadership, in India as well as Indian immigrant communities, is decentralized and diverse, encompassing religious scholars, Hindu temple boards and more, said Vasudha Narayanan, a religion professor at the University of Florida who studies Hinduism in India and in the Indian diaspora. “I would also say that women sometimes create the spaces where they can be leaders in all these other ways,” she said.
Read more:
https://religionnews.com/2021/12/13/in-hinduism-women-create-spaces-for-their-own-leadership/
Read the full series: Women’s Evolving Influence in Male-Led Faiths: https://religionnews.com/category/women-influence/