Description: Through the use of epigraphical evidence, Leslie C. Orr brings into focus the activities and identities of the temple women (devadasis) of medieval South India. This book shows how temple women's initiative and economic autonomy involved them in medieval temple politics and allowed them to establish themselves in roles with particular social and religious meanings. This study suggests new ways of understanding the character of the temple woman and, more generally, of the roles of women in Indian religion and society.
Review Quotes: "This work operates at the highest levels of scholarship and regularly yields gems of insight on the problems of South Indian historiography. . . . The true value of this book lies not in historicism or comparison but in its portrait of women's agency within a 'broader context of relationships' (35) during their own time."--Journal of the American Academy of Religion