The book brings to light the little known, and often marginalized, lives of female Hindu sadhus in the North Indian state of Rajasthan. It offers a new perspective on the practice of asceticism in India today, a phenomenon the author refers to as “vernacular asceticism.” Examining the everyday religious worlds and practices of primarily “unlettered” female sadhus, whose ages cut across the lifespan and who come from a variety of castes, the book illustrates that the female sadhus interviewed by the author experience asceticism in relational and celebratory ways and view their lives as a path o ... More

The book brings to light the little known, and often marginalized, lives of female Hindu sadhus in the North Indian state of Rajasthan. It offers a new perspective on the practice of asceticism in India today, a phenomenon the author refers to as “vernacular asceticism.” Examining the everyday religious worlds and practices of primarily “unlettered” female sadhus, whose ages cut across the lifespan and who come from a variety of castes, the book illustrates that the female sadhus interviewed by the author experience asceticism in relational and celebratory ways and view their lives as a path of singing to God. This is the first book-length study to explore the ways in which female sadhus in a certain region of India perform and create gendered views of asceticism through their singing, storytelling, and sacred text practices, which is characterized here as the sadhus’ “rhetoric of renunciation.” This book brings together two seemingly disparate fields of study in religious studies scholarship, those of yoga/asceticism and bhakti, through use of the orienting metaphor of singing bhajans to understand vernacular asceticism in contemporary India. The book demonstrates that female sadhus’ performances serve as constructive acts through which these extraordinary women legitimate their uncommon life choices and construct a non-institutionally based female sadhu tradition that has been underrepresented in academic studies on asceticism. This book will interest scholars and non-scholars alike, and makes a compelling contribution to gender studies, anthropology, folklore studies, and religious studies.