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Abstract

This chapter provides a historical perspective on women’s traditional roles in Hindu society (including Tamil variations) and the influence of goddess traditions in South Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil societies. This chapter introduces the cultural foundations both broad and specific, in which the Adhiparasakthi tradition is situated, and accounts for notions of the goddess Sakthi Devı̄ as a paradigm of sovereignty within the Tamil ethos respectively.

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Spina, N.R. (2017). Women and the Goddess. In: Women’s Authority and Leadership in a Hindu Goddess Tradition. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58909-5_8

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