Paper short abstract:

Ritual roles of women are ignored in Sanskrit texts. Women's ritual agency is transmitted orally and in performance, while male ritual agency is text based. The analysis of recently printed ritual handbooks for women demonstrates the need to see female agency as part of a "network of agencies".

Paper long abstract:

This contribution deals with ritual roles and agency of women. The concrete case study is a prenatal life-cycle ritual of the ritual repertoire of a South Indian Brahmin tradition, and my reflections are informed by Brahmanic ritual texts in Sanskrit and by participant observation and interviews conducted during many stays in South India. I will show how women are denied publicly valued ritual roles and how their existing ritual roles are not publicly acknowledged. I will show how women's ritual agency is transmitted differently from male agency, namely orally and through performance, while male ritual agency is text based. This becomes visible only if we shift our focus from canonical textual authority to actual practice on the ground. This touches upon the questions as to what counts as "ritual", and who has the power to define actions as "ritual." In a next step, I will focus on the rather new trend of putting women's ritual knowledge into writing, too, and the issues arising from this, namely that we need to see female agency as part of a dynamic "network of agencies" (Sax) rather than assuming an essence where none exists.