Ṣoḍaśī-pūjā: Ramakrishna’s Worship of Sarada Devi through a Feminist Lens

Traditional heteronormative gender narratives in the Hindu religion, such as pativratā, do not always provide a clear basis for women’s empowerment within Hindu ritual. The Ṣoḍaśī-pūjā, in which Ramakrishna worshiped his wife Sarada Devi as the living goddess Ṣoḍaśī, provides a clear and subversive template to establish a unique form of feminism rooted in Kālī-bhakti. This paper seeks to develop a novel Hindu feminism called Strī-Śakti-Bhāva according to a four-fold tantric empowerment: (1) strī-śakti, (2) śaktipāta, (3) devībhāva, and (4) śakti-sevā. This study draws upon various English translations of Bengali hagiographies in the Ramakrishna tradition and contemporary research materials from Indian feminist scholars. Since the Ṣoḍaśī-pūjā empowered Sarada Devi to serve as the spiritual mother of the Ramakrishna Order, this paper concludes that Ṣoḍaśī-pūjā certainly provides a mechanism of women’s empowerment that is uniquely situated within the Hindu religion.