Dissent and Articulation: Women’s Voices in the Kathāsaritsāgara

Abstract

One of the significant problems pertaining to women as agents of history is the deliberate silencing of their voices by the dominant patriarchal order. This voicelessness reduces them to being an ‘inarticulate’ persona, subsequently making them largely invisible in the historical records. The search for women’s voices, therefore, is a means of empowerment that represents a vital aspect of feminist theory and practices since the 1960s. Notwithstanding the rigorous attempts to silence them, there are instances of several exemplary women in the past who articulated against the biased societal set-up and gendered prejudices. The historical literary traditions of the Indian subcontinent are replete with references to such dissenting voices of women speaking for themselves against the patriarchal hegemony. These records of women are left hidden or neglected for a very long time, as history itself has always been male-centric, with the task of transmission and interpretation vested in men. Nevertheless, it is high time now that such voices be heard and recognized. This article thus seeks to bring out such women’s voices of dissent and articulation from Somadeva’s Kathāsaritsāgara, an eleventh-century text of Kashmir.