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Nine Lives(28)

By:William Dalrymple


You are handsome, aren’t you,

Adivaraha,

And quite skilled at it, too.


Stop these foolish games.

You think there are no other men in these parts?

Asking for me on credit,

Adivaraha?

I told you even then

I won’t stand for your lies.


Handsome, aren’t you?


Prince of playboys, you may be,

But is it fair

To ask me to forget the money?

I earned it, after all,

By spending time with you.

Stop this trickery at once.

Put up the gold you owe me

And then you can talk,

Adivaraha.


Handsome, aren’t you?


Young man:

Why are you trying to talk big,

As if you were Muvva Gopala [Krishna]?

You can make love like no one else,

But just don’t make promises

You can’t keep.

Pay up,

It’s wrong to break your word.


Handsome, aren’t you?



In other, later poems, however, it is sometimes the devadasi who has the upper hand:

I am not like the others.

You may enter my house,

but only if you have the money.

If you don’t have as much as I ask,

A little less would do.

But I will not accept very little,

Lord Konkanesvara.

To step across the threshold

Of my main door,

It’ll cost you a hundred in gold.


For two hundred you can see my bedroom,

My bed of silk,

And climb into it.


Only if you have the money.


To sit by my side

And to put your hand

Boldly into my sari:

That will cost ten thousand.


And seventy thousand

Will get you a touch

Of my full round breasts.


Only if you have the money.


Three crores to bring

Your mouth close to mine,

Touch my lips and kiss.

To hug me tight,

To touch my place of love,

And get to total union  ,


Listen well,

You must bathe me

In a shower of gold.


But only if you have the money.



These poems of union   and separation have sometimes been read as metaphors for the longing of the soul for the divine, and of the devotee for god. Yet they are also clearly an expression of unembarrassed joy at sexuality, part of a complex cultural tradition in pre-colonial India where the devotional, metaphysical and the sexual are not regarded as being in any way opposed; on the contrary, they were seen to be closely linked. Because of their fertility, the temple girls were auspicious.

The devadasis still retain this auspiciousness in Karnataka today, and for exactly the same reason: they are seen as symbols of fertility. There is, however, an almost unimaginable gulf separating the devadasis of ancient poems and inscriptions and the lives lived by women like Rani Bai today. In the Middle Ages, the devadasis were drawn from the grandest families in the realm, among them princesses of the Chola royal family—as well as from slaves captured in war. Many were literate and some were highly accomplished poets; indeed at the time they seem to have been almost the only literate women in the region. Their confidence and self-possession is evident in much of the poetry, while their wealth is displayed in the inscriptions recording their generous gifts to their temples.

Today, however, the devadasis are drawn exclusively from the lowest castes—usually from the Dalit Madar caste—and are almost entirely illiterate. Around a quarter come from families where there are already devadasis among their immediate relations, and in some of these families there is a tradition that one girl in every generation should be dedicated to the goddess.

While many medieval temple women had honoured positions within the temple hierarchy, the overwhelming majority of modern devadasis are straightforward sex workers; the devadasis I talked to estimated that only about one out of twenty of those dedicated as children manage to escape into other careers, not least because almost all of them begin work soon after puberty, and so leave school long before they can get the qualifications that might open up other opportunities. They usually work from home rather than brothels or on the streets, and tend to start younger, and to take more clients, than commercial sex workers. Maybe partly because of this larger number, the infection rate of devadasis is also slightly higher than that of other sex workers.

The main outlines of the working lives of the daughters of Yellamma are in reality little different from those of other workers in the sex trade. This does not, however, stop the devadasis from drawing elaborate distinctions between their sacred vocation and the work of their commercial sisters, which they take great pleasure in looking down upon.

Ironically, it was partly well-meaning social reform which contributed to this marked drop in status. In the nineteenth century, Hindu reformers, reacting to the taunts of Victorian missionaries, began to attack the institution of temple dancers and sacred prostitution. Successive waves of colonial and post-colonial legislation slowly broke the ancient links that existed between the devadasis and the temples, driving them out of the temple precincts and eroding their social, economic and spiritual position. Most recently, the 1982 Karnataka Devadasi (Prohibition of Dedication) Act drove the practice completely underground, outlawing the dedication of young girls and threatening any priest who assisted in such ceremonies with years of harsh imprisonment. All around the lake, and on the road up to the temple, the government has now put up huge warning signs: