Indian Female Gurus in Contemporary Hinduism: A Study of Central Aspects and Expressions of Their Religious Leadership. By Marie-Thérèse Charpentier. Åbo: Åbo Akademi University Press, 2010. 394 pp. €56,25.

Marie-Thérèse Charpentier offers a detailed and intimate series of portraits of four female gurus (gurvī) living in contemporary India. She marries ethnography and gender studies with William E. Paden's comparative approach to the history of religions (religionswissenschaft) to generate what she calls a macroscopic understanding of the overlooked phenomenon or patterns of female guruhood in India today. She argues that female guruhood as well as female spiritual leadership stands in sharp contrast to the various stereotypes of female subordination that we often see in orthodox Hindu religion, particularly the textual tradition where women are typically expected to be “passive,” “submissive,” and “worship their husbands as Gods” (p. 14). Furthermore, she points out that as a category of human religiosity, female gurus have been typically neglected or treated asymmetrically vis-à-vis male gurus and draws on the recent work of Karen Pechilis, Lisa Hallstrom, Daniel Gold, Maya Warrier, Meena Khandelwal, and others to frame her discussion.Charpentier's rather lengthy study is organized into nine chapters beginning with a historical survey of the guru paradigm in Hindu tradition from its first use in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (VIII.15.1) to its centrality in tantric traditions. By relaying the stories of four female gurus: Madhobi Ma (1954–) from Delhi; Anandmurti Gurumaa (1966–) from Haryana; Sai Rajarajeshwari (1947-) from Karnataka; and Shakti Devi (1953–) from Tamil Nadu through participant-observer strategies including in-depth interviews, hagiographies, biographies and devotee testimonials, as well as drawing on seventy additional ethnographies of female gurus surveyed between 1999–2006, Charpentier documents the growing presence and day-to-day concerns of female spiritual leadership across India. We learn about who these female gurus are, what draws women in India to the spiritual path and how their families respond to their explicit religious experiences including trance states, fits, hearing voices, precognitive dreams, performing miracles, healing the sick, and transmission of energy. Drawing on this data, the author charts significant patterns of psychological and religious aptitude among women and develops strategies for analysis using a variety of categories including varṇa, education, and location to flesh out constructive identities of female leadership. Charpentier frequently cross-references her subjects thereby adding to the rich history of biographical narrative traced in her book.Chapters 5, 6, and 7 address issues relevant to female spiritual leadership such as marriage and celibacy, householdership (gṛhastha) versus renunciation (sannyāsinī), tensions between the public and private spheres, access to scriptural and oral authority, transmission of śaktipāta, lineage and religious affiliation, the centrality of motherhood and issues of embodiment, and charisma. Charpentier is aware that in these particular spheres of influence the role of the female guru is often a traditional role. However, female religious leaders require both traditional underpinnings as well as innovation. The author's ability to distinguish between these shifting markers shows how female gurus navigate ‘the spiritual’ and ‘the social’ in conservative as well as in radical and transgressive ways. The author portrays her subjects as ultimately challenging “restrictive social conventions of gender” and the “norms of womanhood” (strīdharma) in order to claim for themselves independent lives dedicated to self-realization and God. Though many of the women Charpentier studies display ambivalence and/or conservatism concerning the rules of hierarchy and varṇāśramadharma, as well as restrictions for ritual impurity (menstruation) and pardā and could therefore be called “traditional” or “conservative” (p. 265), others demonstrate a decidedly progressive or modern view by standing up against discrimination, the “brutal treatment of girls”, and practices such as “female infanticide and foeticide” (p. 276). It seems that by all accounts emerging roles for women in the public religious sphere are as varied as those held by men.Female Gurus in Contemporary Hinduism is an important study documenting the ‘lived’ experiences of women in respected positions of leadership. As such, it is recommended for anyone studying female religiosity in contemporary India either at the graduate or undergraduate level. The volume includes an extensive index of Indian female gurus living in India, as well as related internet and textual sources, a list of all of the aśramas visited by the author, a helpful table outlining personal details including varṇa, maritial status and education of the gurus interviewed, and a glossary of terms. Finally, this study would be useful to practitioners of Hinduism who are interested in living female religious leaders.

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