Date of Award:

5-2026

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

History

Committee Chair(s)

Ravi M. Gupta

Committee

Ravi M. Gupta

Committee

Patrick Q. Mason

Committee

Barbara A. Holdrege

Abstract

This thesis examines gender and womanhood in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (Bhāgavata), a Sanskrit text from the 10th century CE that holds an important theological and cultural position in contemporary Hindu traditions. It decodes the Bhāgavata’s unique perspectives on the following: (1) gender, sex, sexuality, and reproduction, (2) women’s social normativity, and (3) women’s personhood and agency. This thesis argues that the Bhāgavata contains a unique theorization of gender and sex as well as a positive valuation of femininity, and that it imbues its narratives with practical resources and actions to recognize and expand the agentive capacity of women.

For scholars of Hindu traditions and text- and narrative-centered religious traditions more broadly, this thesis demonstrates the advantages of deciphering the social logic or worldview underlying a pre-modern religious text. A quantitative, representative analysis of women in the Bhāgavata reveals its positive orientation towards women. While unconventional in Religious Studies research, such digital humanities approaches open up possibilities for more comprehensive investigations on subjects such as gender and womanhood. Finally, an in-depth study of Devahūti, a lesser-known woman featured in the Bhāgavata, shows the text’s endorsement of women’s access to self-determination, choice, knowledge cultivation, independent action, initiative, social and sacral power, and transcendence. Overall, this thesis demonstrates the Bhāgavata’s continued relevance to the study of gender and women in religion.

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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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