Female Ascetics in Hinduism

Provides both a first-hand look at and an insightful analysis of a little-known world—that of female ascetics in India. Female Ascetics in Hinduism provides a vivid account of the lives of women renouncers-women who renounce the world to live ascetic spiritual lives-in India. The author approaches the study of female asceticism by focusing on features of two dharmas, two religiously defined ways of life: that of woman-as-householder and that of the ascetic, who, for various reasons, falls outsid