COURTESAN TO CELIBATE: A PSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE ON AMRAPALI AND KAMALA

Registration ID: IJNRD_201547

Published ID: IJNRD2307180

DOI: Click Here to Get

RITAM GUPTA

Courtesan, sexuality, autonomy, body, corporeality, agency, performativity, spiritual awakening

Despite the work undertaken by humanities, the liberal arts and activism – social, political and spiritual – in multiple issues concerning sex work and women’s liberation, there is a considerable dearth of mainstream scholarship dealing with the process of spiritual awakening of ancient Indian courtesans, especially in relation to Buddhism. Through an exploration of the narratives of two figures – the historical Amrapali of Vaishali and the fictional character Kamala from Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha (1922) – from the standpoint of feminism and performance theory as detailed by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble, this research endeavours to venture into disconcertingly uncharted territory within Indology, i.e., the necessity for supposed redemption of the aforementioned women by following into the footsteps of a male God-like personage, which can be interpreted as cleansing the female body of literal and salvaging the spirit from figurative impurities. Rather than a simplistic, biased outlook that often tends to be reductive – in that, it casts erstwhile Indian courtesans and prostitutes into fixed moulds or extreme unchanging categories – this indagation hopes to advance a layered understanding of the situations surrounding Amrapali and Kamala, and their ultimate repudiation of the sensual, utilizing Butler’s theorizations of the body and the soul.

Published Paper   E-Certificate

RITAM GUPTA (July-2023). COURTESAN TO CELIBATE: A PSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE ON AMRAPALI AND KAMALA. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NOVEL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, 8(7), b705-b722. https://ijnrd.org/papers/IJNRD2307180.pdf

Volume 8 Issue 7, July-2023

Pages : b705-b722

Paper Reg. ID: IJNRD_201547

Published Paper Id: IJNRD2307180

Downloads: 000122003

Research Area: Arts

Country: Delhi, Delhi, India

Published Paper PDF: https://ijnrd.org/papers/IJNRD2307180.pdf

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