Colorado College

Tracy Coleman specializes in Hinduism and Asian Religions, and in Women and Gender In Religion. Her current research is Spiritual Freedom in Social Bondage:   Gender, Desire and Dharma in Hindu Bhakti (manuscript in progress). An innovative study of Hindu bhakti (devotion) in relation to the established social order, this book questions previous scholarly claims that bhakti empowers women in social and religious life.   Through a close study of bhakti's origins in classical and early medieval Sanskrit texts, the book demonstrates that despite the democratic potential of various devotional movements in which women are sometimes glorified, bhakti often functions as a conservative historical process upholding the traditional patriarchal order.   By situating the development of bhakti within a larger cultural discourse on dharma (truth, duty, proper behavior) -- a discourse in which both Hindus and Buddhists actively engaged -- the book explores Krishna's celebrated relationships with women in contrast to the Buddha's ascetic renunciation of familial attachments and thus shows how competing conceptions of dharma were linked to heroic male figures as embodiments of truth and authority in socio-religious life.   The book thereby provides a brief comparative history of gender and salvation in South Asian religions and thus offers a new interpretation of bhakti that holds relevance for the study of religion and social change in other cultures.