This Wednesday, Emilia Bachrach, associate professor of Religion and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, kicked off Women’s History Month with the talk, “The Many Lives of India’s Women Poet-Saints.”

To many, poet-saints may not be a familiar term. In fact, the word “saints” might be misleading because it is so heavily associated with Christianity. Unfortunately, English lacks a more fitting word to describe these historical figures. Although Bachrach and other scholars use the term “poet-saints,” they have no relation to Catholicism and instead inhabit a different narrative of devotion.

“Poet-saint is a term that has become popularized in South Asia[n] studies scholarship,” Bachrach said. [“It refers] to a whole wide range of figures who have expressed their devotion to God from different religious traditions through lyrical poetry and who, because of their exemplary devotion as depicted in poems, are understood to be exemplars of devotion.”

Bachrach delved into the poetry of several medieval women poet-saints. She described how their work has been performed and their stories told and retold in the form of hagiographies. These poet-saints share several similar narrative threads. They often have miraculous or more-than-human experiences, and their stories tend to include rejections, marriage, or gendered social expectations. 

The poet-saints also often unabashedly described their bodies in order to express their devotion. College third-year Miriam Barnhill-Wright was impressed by their candour. 

“I learned that nipples are super important in Hindu theology,” she said. “I want to hear more. It definitely took me aback, but it was really cool. I’m used to professors or classes where those things are shied away from.”

Although these poet-saints shared candid ideas about marriage and bodies, their hagiographies often overlook their radical lyricism. Bachrach opened her talk with the figure Kothai, also known as Andal, a progressive poet-saint whose narrative has often been ignored.

“Women poet-saints that come after her refer … to other poets who they’re inspired by in their poetry, but they don’t refer to her because she’s too radical,” Bachrach said.

Feminist scholars like Bachrach have been revisiting the works of these poet-saints and reexamining the narratives constructed about them. College fourth-year Reyah Doshi, who has had cultural experience with poet-saints, was interested to encounter Bachrach’s new analyses. 

“My non-academic contact with some of these things … [often comes] from a perspective of tradition, so there’s not as much opportunity to interrogate gender and all these things that we’re always talking about at Oberlin and in western academia,” Doshi said. “It was really cool the way that she presented the intersection of these things that are traditional but was able to also interrogate and pull apart that tradition.”

The work of these poet-saints is not obsolete. Their poetry is still sung in numerous places across the world, including Ohio, and is used to advance social justice movements. 

Bachrach shared the story of a group of women travelling from Gujarat to Mumbai in the 1980s for a birth celebration of one of the most important anti-caste thinkers in India, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. An elite caste of businessmen verbally harassed these women for traveling with their own food because they could not afford to buy meals. Instead of engaging in conversation with these men, one of the women stood up and started singing a song attributed to the poet-saint Mirabai. The song addresses the absurdity of caste.

“The confrontation between an oppressed caste woman and a privileged caste man is a   reminder of how the poetry and life stories of poets are enshrined in text, but they’re also part of oral tradition,” Bachrach said. “A group of women, off the cuff, can pull out of their repertoire of oral poems a poem to make a social point.”

This scenario brings to mind the idea of co-authorship, a topic that feminist scholars often address. 

“It’s hard to know historically who we can attribute these poems to,” Bachrach said. “That’s interesting, but it’s also not that important, feminist scholars say, because there are many Miras. It’s about co-authoring in a particular poetic voice a set of positions about the social world, and about how devotional practice — in this case, a relationship with particular types of deities — becomes an avenue through which to make social commentary.”

Co-authorship is an essential element of social justice movements. In fact, Bachrach’s talk was inspired by her forthcoming co-authored sourcebook, Women in Hindu Traditions, by Bachrach, Sohini S. Pillai, and Jennifer D. Ortegren. Bachrach was initially hesitant to write this book. Yet when she was presented with the opportunity to co-write it, she found it a beautiful opportunity for collaboration.

Women poet-saints are a remarkable facet of Indian history, yet also a core part of our present. They manifest themselves in multiple religions and countries. Their words live on in different feminist voices and movements, a reminder that women are bridged together by the voices of the present and past.