Author: Kanchan Apte
Publication: India Today
Date: May 1, 2000
Manjusha Mungi has a
busy week ahead. She has to attend two weddings, three pujas and a shraddh,
none of which would be complete without her. That's because she is the
priest who would perform the religious rites on these occasions.
This 52 -year-old schoolteacher
from Pune is just one of the several women in the city who have boldly
gone where once only men did. Though Hindu scriptures do not prevent women
from performing religious rites, priesthood has always been dominated by
men. However, breaking free from the shackles of tradition, these women
have managed to shatter the glass panel. Full-fledged pujaris, these women
are invited to perform rites at religious ceremonies and marriages. Even
at cremations, they are no longer considered an oddity.
Priesthood begins at
the Dyanaprabhodhini Centre in Pune where women are trained to conduct
pujas and other religion s ceremonies. Set up in the early 199Os, the centre
has trained close to 200 women in Hindu rites and rituals till now. Not
all of them are practising priests, though, preferring to confine their
invocations to the four walls of their houses. But those who ventured out
have not only managed to find acceptability but also win widespread acclaim.
Many people prefer to
invite women priests for religious ceremonies because they feel that they
are more sincere than their male counterparts. What really endears women
purohits to these people is that they are less businesslike-they do not
take up too many assignments and don't seek shortcuts. "If the people are
happy, we are at peace. We do not seek monetary gains, " asserts Pramila
Pathak, 67, a pujari.
It is precisely this
attitude that makes Pune housewife Sushma Thakar, 45, a devoted fan of
these women. The Thakars don't have a gender bias but they got sold on
the idea of a woman priest after a particularly interesting discourse that
was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. After that a woman presides over all
the religious rites in the Thakar household. "Seeing the sincerity and
involvement of the priest, we decided to invite only women priests for
functions in our house," says Thakar.
Sundry households are
not the only ones seeking women priests. Many temple authorities are now
seeking women pujaris because it is felt that women make better priests.
Most of the women take
the effort of explaining the shlokas and answering queries, which makes
the discourse interactive-and meaningful.
If women are taking to
priesthood in large numbers, it is because men are increasingly moving
away from the saffron-robe profession to more lucrative white- and blue-collar
careers. Jayavantrao Lele, 75, who heads the Dyanaprabodhini Centre, says,
"With the children of the priests venturing into more 'modern' fields,
it's up to the women to preserve our culture."
Importantly, priesthood
did not come to these women as an inheritance. They took it up because
they were genuinely interested in it. Take the case of Pathak. After she
retired from her nursing job in 1987, she took up priesthood in all earnest.
Today she is practising it with a missionary zeal.
Mungi, like many others,
is an accidental priest. She was performing a mass thread ceremony at her
school when some curious onlookers invited her to perform a puja at their
house. "That was the beginning of many more assignments," she says. However,
Mungi soon realised that invoking the gods was simpler than battling human
attitudes. Many people obviously uncomfortable with the idea of a woman
performing puja, still preferred a priest with an XY chromosome when it
came to more serious matters like marriages and death anniversaries. "For
the first 10 years, I was invited only for thread ceremonies," she says.
But Mungi was determined
to show her mettle. Balancing her teaching job and the odd thread-ceremony
assignment that came her way, she started studying religious scriptures.
The decade of unsparing rigour has paid off. Today, she is a much sought-after
priest. Look at her diary of assignments for next week and you would know.
