Temple Intrigues and Classical Dances: Historicizing the Devadasi System—Arnaaz Zaman

As a student of history, I have been interested in the devadasi system in general and its relevance in the genealogy of contemporary Indian classical dance forms in particular. In my opinion, existing approaches and appraisals fail to adequately historicise the evolution of these dance forms. It is only when I started to pen down this article, a realisation has dawned upon me as to how difficult it becomes to write about something that one is so closely associated with, being an Odissi dancer myself. It is tough to distance my ‘self’ from my years of physical and mental training along with assessments & interpretations that I have encountered in following it as a performing art form.

Dispassionate analysis is perhaps not one of the biggest challenges of reconstructing the history of the devadasi system. It is actually the lack of first-hand accounts of devadasis themselves, that the task is made difficult. The question, therefore, is, how do we get an insight into their lives, when their own voices have been silenced from their histories? Which sources do we consider reliable and which ones do we not? Secondly, it is important to remember that this phenomenon was observed in various regions of medieval India, due to the impetus provided by royal patronage to temple building and activities conducted in their precincts, emphasizing in the process, the overall prominence of the temple as an important social institution. Regions like South India, Odisha etc. were perhaps the  biggest  centres of this  activity. However, there were certain regional differences in the nature of the devadasi system, which hasn’t been explored, again due to a lack of sources.

To give a brief background, the term devadasi literally translates to ‘female servants of God’. It refers to an institution that was prevalent in the medieval period of the Indian subcontinent (c. 8-9^th century CE).  According to this, girls were inducted into the temples on reaching puberty, and ritually married to the deity. Hence, they were expected to completely dedicate themselves to ‘His’ abode. Their role was to perform as singers and dancers, for which they received training. Their dance was seen as the ultimate form of bhakti, which enabled their soul to transcend the physical/ material world and unite with the almighty.

As Indian classical dancers, we are taught a romanticised perception of the devadasi system. We have always imagined the dancer to be a spectacle, in the great temples like Jagannath Temple of Puri, Odisha. Beautifully adorned in jewels and the best of sarees, she dances gracefully to the music of her accompanists, emoting the sensuous verses of the Geetagovindam, dedicated to her husband. It is often said that the devadasis or the Maharis (as they are called in the Odia context), were seen as respectable women in the society, who had devoted their lives to perform the supreme service. They weren’t just trained in various performing arts but were educated and erudite in bhakti literature as well. In what we learnt, the impression was conveyed that the devadasis were apparently independent and were free from the social constructs of marriage. Hence they had the agency to sustain themselves, without having to associate with men to validate their social identity.

It is important to understand that in the backdrop of the then larger socio-cultural reality, the Devadasi system functioned within the over arching patriarchal power structure of society. Firstly, the devadasi was married to the deity, hence she still required a ‘man’ to validate her social existence, and in order to evade the construct of marriage. She was neither independent nor free in the true sense of the words. However, the devadasi questioned and challenged those very patriarchal norms of society, as she used her body within the specific form of dance to sustain herself. Moreover, she dared to establish herself in the public domain, transcending the normative domestic feminine identity. Hence, sexual exploitation that soon plagued the devadasi system, merely reiterated those pre-existing power relations. It is also important to keep in mind that the means of production and material resources were controlled by men, and these women survived on their patronage.

The contemporary classical dance forms claim to continue the legacy of only the ideal perception of this system. The efforts of pioneers like Rukminidevi Arundale in the 1930s, in the context of Bharatanatyam, becomes relevant, as there was a conscious attempt to distance the dance form, from the devadasi system, as by this time it came to be viewed as ‘lewd’ and ‘vulgar’. Hence the dance form was ‘sanctified’ in the minds of the people by locating its origins to the Natyashatra and stressing on devotional themes, not just in the basic repertoire but also in the pattern of pedagogy. This was in line with the nationalist agenda, that was looking for a repository of traditional Indian values and heritage. In this process, the legacy of the devadasis, that managed to develop in a matrilineal context, was appropriated into the larger patriarchal and upper caste dynamics and was guided by new norms.

The other extreme view of the Devadasi system is deeply critical of it, and as mentioned before, sees it as ‘vulgar’. This has its roots in colonialism, where Europeans who were accustomed to Victorian values looked down upon the devadasis and deemed them as lascivious and promiscuous. It should be noted that similar patterns were noted during the Sultanate period. Hence, whatever ritual status they had held was lost and as sexual exploitation became more rampant, they were socially and economically marginalized.

The Devadasi system was officially banned in 1947, by the efforts of Muthulakshmi Reddy and Periyar E. V. Ramaswami who were justified as women were being sexually exploited and forced into prostitution through this. Moreover, by this time, this system had developed a strong casteist nature, as a majority of devadasis were Dalits. However, what I would like to reiterate here is that the devadasis also lost their cultural and artistic capital, as this was appropriated by the revivalists of contemporary classical arts. My larger point here is that the Devadasi system is very complex and cannot be understood on the basis of empirical data alone. There are two extreme schools of thought and it becomes difficult to reconcile  them and reach a middle ground. More significantly, this system has to be understood in a given socio-cultural context. The narrative of the devadasi is somewhat lost in the contemporary classical dance forms and her suffering has long been ignored. I would like to reiterate the significance of the institution as it posed very interesting questions of femininity in an Indian cultural context. This aspect can be further explored vis-a-vis other traditions, like the Gotipua tradition of Odisha, which I have been unable to do here. The fate of the devadasis has been tragic, as the artistic corpus that they honed also got stigmatised due to the nature of this system that they were tied to.