Ungendered atma, masculine virility and feminine compassion: Ambiguities in renunciant discourses on gender

Sannyasa generally represents itself and is represented by scholars as either ungendered or unambiguously masculine. Indeed, advaitic philosophy expects renouncers to transcend the body and ignore all social distinctions, while Brahmanic orthodoxy reveals its misogynous tendencies by restricting renunciation to elite men. What both perspectives share is an assumption that women must give up their femininity in order to renounce. I argue that the female renouncers I interviewed in Haridwar neither presented themselves as men nor as transcendent, ungendered beings. Rather, they likened themselves to female householders, both in the everyday problems they face in their interactions with men and in the 'motherly' qualities that make renunciation easier for women. Furthermore, hagiographic evidence seems to suggest that male renouncers may also become mothers. Thus, in spite of advaitic and Brahmanic statements to the contrary, sannyasa is not only highly gendered, but is sometimes gendered feminine.