Slaves to the goddess of fertility
June 11th, 2007
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As children their parents gave them to serve Yellama - the goddess of fertility. Her cult is thousands of years old, her followers spread across southern India. “Being devadasis means we are slaves of the goddess. We have to visit this temple. We wear necklaces of pearls to show we are bound to Yellama. We give blessings and perform her rituals,” says Imla, a devadasi in her 40s who is swathed in a pink and yellow sari.When girls dedicated to Yellama reach puberty they are forced to sacrifice their virginity to an older man. What follows is a life of sexual slavery, they become sanctified prostitutes.
This article here tells us about the life of sexual slavery that devadasis apparently lead. Have always wanted to explore this issue a bit more, especially since there are always mixed opinions in any discussion around them. Mixed opinions in terms of what kind of live they apparently/actually lead, whether they can generally be classified as sex workers or is it a cult close to extinction?
There is another piece here that has been written by Santhaa Reddy, a member of National Commission for Women discussing the history of devadasis and the way their reputation has been maligned and their rightful de taken away from them!
Quoting directly from the article, she argues that “No one else in history seems to have been as much misunderstood as devadasis. No one has been as badly maligned as devadasis. There can be no other example of the truth being twisted in a most blatant manner.”
The truth is that devadasis were an essential part of Indian temples. They performed useful functions at temples like cleaning of temples, lighting lamps, dressing the deities etc. They sang devotional songs and danced in devotion to the deities. They taught music and dance to girls. They kept alive and developed a tradition of classical music and dance. Beyond these historical facts is a vast area of myths and false propaganda.
Go read the full article to see the argument on how the devadasis need to be given their rightful place as an artist as an upholder of classical arts in society.
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