Paper short abstract:

This paper explores effigies constructed by Hindu women as objects of veneration by the side of the Ganges River where it flows at the edge of the city of Benares.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores effigies constructed by Hindu women as objects of veneration at the side of the Ganges River where it flows at the edge of the city of Benares, also called Varanasi, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, North India. Because these effigies are not temple icons but temporarily constructed wayside or "street" shrines (although not officially on a street), they also can do things that conventional temples cannot: they invite practices and interpretations that may fall outside the norms of "official" religion, in this case especially on the part of women, who are the primary worshipers of these effigies. The worship that takes place at the shrines I discuss has some basis in Hindu scriptural prescriptions, but their nature as informal shrines ungoverned by orthodox institutions opens them up to unconventional interpretations and practices. I argue that it is precisely the "wayside" or "street shrine" nature of these shrines—especially the fact that they reside fully outside of male-controlled, institutional space—that enables Hindu women to appropriate them, both narratively and ritually, for their own purposes and in ways that highlight women's values and concerns.