banks of the Ganges. Yet the devotional realm of Krishna’s carefree sport is far
removed from the realm of real human relations that tend to occupy the space
of Hindu women’s lives. Krishna’s marriage to Tulsi, celebrated so enthusiasti-
cally on the banks of the Ganges, reflects the world of values and conventions
that shape and inform human conjugal relations. When Krishna comes to
Benares to adorn his new bride with the ornaments of a suhagin, a properly
married woman, he enters that world.
In her analysis of women’s symbols, Caroline Walker Bynum notes that
women’s images and symbols tend to continue or enhance women’s ordinary
experience rather than break with that experience (Walker 1996: 74). The
imagery surrounding Krishna and Tulsi that is invoked in the pu ̄ja ̄– raising
Krishna to marriageable age, then arranging and participating in his wedding
to Tulsi – has deep social resonance for Hindu women, whose lives revolve to a
great extent around their roles as brides, wives, and mothers. The child Krishna
frolics eternally in Vrindavan; yet the sons and daughters of women who par-
ticipate in Ka ̄rtik pu ̄ja ̄grow up, and when they do, their weddings have to be
arranged. The erotic love play between Radha and Krishna expresses the yearn-
ing of the soul for intimacy with the Divine; yet human women marry, and when
they do, they yearn for a proper husband with whom they can share the earthly
joys of marriage and family. Like Tulsi, many of the married women in Benares
who participate in the pu ̄ja ̄were also carried off after marriage to an uncertain
future in their in-laws’ house; their daughters, similarly, grow up and leave their
natal homes to take up residence in their husbands’ villages and towns. Kirin
Narayan observes that in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, where Tulsi’s wedding
during Ka ̄rtik is also performed, some women make an explicit link between
Tulsi’s life and the lives of human women, identifying Tulsi’s marriage and sub-
sequent uprooting with human women’s marriage and departure for the in-
law’s house (Narayan 1997: 37). In Benares, too, the marital drama unique to
women’s Ka ̄rtik traditions is continuous with the norm of women’s lives, repre-
senting in ideal form the marital and parental destiny of numerous Hindu
women in contemporary India.
Notes
1 The epithet used here for Krishna is “Mohan Rasiya ̄ .” The epithet “Mohan” indi-
cates Krishna’s nature as divine “enchanter.” The epithet “Rasiya ̄ ” points to his
nature as an “enjoyer” or “taster” of the emotions associated with devotion. Each
line of song text is repeated twice. In this chapter, all songs are translated in ways
that emphasize clarity of meaning, not literal accuracy.
2 This chapter is based on a larger book project currently in process. Support for this
project was supplied by the American Institute of Indian Studies, the National
Endowment of the Humanities, the American Academy of Religion, Loyola
University of Chicago, and Harvard University, which granted me a position as
research associate and visiting lecturer in the Women’s Studies in Religion Program340 tracy pintchman