Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Philosophy and Gender

Veena R. Howard is Professor of Asian Religious Traditions in the Department of Philosophy at California State University, Fresno, USA. She holds the Endowed Chair in Jain and Hindu Dharma, and currently serves as the Director of M. K. Gandhi Center: Inner Peace and Sarvodaya.

• Notes on Contributors Editor’s Note1. Introduction: Gender Conceptions in Indian Thought: Identity, Hybridity, Fluidity, Androgyny, and Transcendence, Veena R. HowardPart I. Gender Essentialism2. The Unbearability of the Male Gaze: A Phenomenological Exposition of Sa?khyan Philosophy of the Body Through Feminine Eyes, Ana Laura Funes Maderey3. Women’s Liberation in Jainism: Understanding Philosophical Debates and Cultural Dialectics, Veena R. Howard 4. Woman as Maya: Gendered Narrative in the Bhagavata Purana, Gopal K. GuptaPart II. Gender Negotiation5. The Gendering of Voice in Medieval Hindu Literature, Nancy M. Martin6. Given, Taken, Performed: Gender in Tamil Theopoetics, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad7. Gender in the Tradition of Shri Ramakrishna, Jeffrey D. LongPart III. Androgyny, Gender Hybridity, and Fluidity8. Divine Androgyny and the Play of Self-Recognition: Revisiting Some Issues in Gender Theory through an Un-Orthodox Interpretation of Ardhanarisvara, Geoff Ashton9. Gender in Pali Buddhist Traditions, Carol S. Anderson10. Narrative of Amba in the Mahabharata: Female Body, Gender, and the Namesake of the Divine Feminine, Veena R. HowardPart IV. Gender and the Feminine Divine11. God the Mother and Her Sacred Text: A Hindu Vision of Divine Immanence, Rita D. Sherma12. The Story of Sa?jña, Mother of Manu: Shadow and Light in the Markandeya Purana, Raj BalkaranPart V. Gender Transcendence13. Male-Female Dialogues on Gender, Sexuality, and Dharma in the Hindu Epics, Ruth Vanita14. The Vision of the Transcendent One: Feminist Hermeneutics and Feminine Symbolism in the Sikh Scripture, Nikky-Guninder Kaur SinghIndex

This important collection provides a guide to how gender and sexuality appear sometimes as mere binaries, other times as fluid mysteries and rich multiplicities, in Indian thought. Drawing on a wide range of ancient and modern texts, the essays offer an exciting lens for exploring the classic questions of how to live, what is the self, and where transcendence might be found.