Book Title: Sacred Sins: Devadasis in Contemporary India Author: Arun Ezhuthachan Translator: Meera Gopinath Publisher: Hatchette India, 2023 Pages: 239 India has never been magnanimous to women. Ancient India was quite brutal in the treatment of women with such practices as sati and devadasi. If a woman was unfortunate to outlive her husband, she had to immolate herself on her man’s funeral pyre. The men who made that rule made sure that the rule, like many others of the kind, had divine sanction. The husband’s death when the wife is still alive indicates the sins of the woman’s vagina. The punishment decreed by the gods is the woman’s death. After her death, she will be made a goddess! Adolescent girls were dedicated to temples in the name of devadasis, maids of gods. These girls were expected to live their life worshipping goddess Durga in her various avatars though it could be any other deity as well. In reality, however, these girls were exploited sexually by...
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