{"id":12618,"date":"2013-02-12T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-12T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2013\/02\/12\/sadhvis-rise-among-male-dominated-ranks\/"},"modified":"2013-02-12T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T12:00:00","slug":"sadhvis-rise-among-male-dominated-ranks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2013\/02\/12\/sadhvis-rise-among-male-dominated-ranks\/","title":{"rendered":"Sadhvis Rise Among Male-Dominated Ranks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.expressindia.com\/latest-news\/sadhvis-rise-among-maledominated-ranks\/1071787\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n<p>ALLAHABAD, INDIA, February 9, 2013 (Express India): Allahabad Sadhvis at Kumbh 2013 are gradually and surely going up the hierarchy in a predominantly male-dominated system.<\/p>\n<p>Sai Maa Laxmi Devi, who was born in Mauritius and is a French citizen, was the first woman from outside India to be given the title &#8220;Jagat Guru&#8221; of the Vaishnavite Nirmohi akhara in the 2007 Ardh-Kumbh. A disciple of Sathya Sai Baba, who got her deeksha in the Sri Satua Baba lineage of Varanasi, Sai Maa says, &#8220;In 2007, we just had a small space in far-off Arail. This time, we have been allotted a bigger space and have better infrastructure to serve the people.&#8221; One of her devotees said that while last time she would visit the camps of many sadhus to take their blessings, now it was almost the reverse.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, the number of female mahamandaleshwars (scholarly sadhvis, who are consulted on various spiritual issues among akharas) has also increased this time, estimated to be over 30. &#8220;In Juna akhara, there are around 15 female mahamandaleshwars. The sadhvis have been traditionally less in numbers. But in terms of proportion, the number of female mahamandaleshwars is going up fast,&#8221; says Shri Mahant Vidyanand Saraswati, secretary of Juna akhara, the biggest of the 13 akharas.<\/p>\n<p>The Juna akhara has also, for the first time in Kumbh, accorded a separate enclosure for sadhvis and allowed them to use the name Sanyasini Akhara. Earlier, these enclosures, often without adequate facilities, were referred to as Mai Bara (enclosures for mothers). &#8220;But bara is generally used to describe a place where the occupants live in herds, like animals. It had a connotation of disrespect. They protested and now have got rid of that name,&#8221; says Vidyanand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source ALLAHABAD, INDIA, February 9, 2013 (Express India): Allahabad Sadhvis at Kumbh 2013 are gradually and surely going up the,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12618\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}