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Gender, Religion and Local History: The Early Deccan straddles two areas of research, namely the study of women in a socio-religious context and images of the feminine that emerged as objects of worship. Based on a study of inscriptions, sculptural representations and archaeological and literary sources, the research in this volume is located in different local contexts that focus on gender and ideology in order to discern the dynamics of social change. The seven chapters of the volume address diverse religious spaces-from the folk of the Lajjā Gaurīs to the temple-based Hinduism of the nityasumaṅgali and Chenchu Lakṣmī, from the evolution of orthodox Jaina attitudes to women's access to sallekhanā and to the expanding Buddhist religious milieu in the midst of vibrant mithuna couples. This work demonstrates that ideology in local contexts was always open to adjustments and negotiation, while concomitantly being linked to pan-Indian conceptual foundations.

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Aloka Parasher-Sen is Professor Emerita in the Department of Sanskrit Studies, University of Hyderabad, where she previously taught history for more than four decades. Her special focus on the historical milieu and archaeology of the Deccan, alongside her main area of interest in the social history of early India, namely early Indian attitudes towards foreigners, tribes and excluded castes, is reflected in her publications, notably Mlecchas in Early India (1991); Social and Economic History of Early Deccan: Some Interpretations (1993; repr. 2019); Subordinate and Marginal Groups in Early India up to 1500 ad (2004; 2nd edn. 2007); Religion and Modernity in India (2016, with Sekhar Bandhyopadhyay); Settlement and Local Histories of the Early Deccan (2021); and Seeking History through Her Source, South of the Vindhyas (2022).

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