Unpacking the Manasamangal: A Study of Goddess Manasa Through the Prism of Bodily Purity and Social Location

Abstract

The corpus of vernacular Bengali literature opens floodgates to explore plebeian beliefs, culture and social mores of the time. The mangalkavya, a distinct genre stands out in the corpus owing to the centrality it bestows on not-so-known gods/goddesses familiar to the region. This paper is a humble attempt to articulate the nexus of the female body, snake worship and fertility practices in early modern Bengal through a reading of the two available versions of the Manasamangal . The first section gives an overview of the Mangalkavya literature in general and locates the specificity and specialty of the Manasamangal in particular by offering an analysis of the intimate relations  between the (female) body of the goddess, her social locus and the perception of the ‘fringe’ deity by the higher social classes, here, the mercantile class. The final section of the paper explores the concept of fertility cults in folk practices and locates Goddess Manasa in a multitude of those that survive till date in Bengal and it’s adjoining areas. The focus of my reading has been to untangle, simplify and expatiate the threads of continuity in both the versions and therefore discrepancies occurring as a result of being produced in variable settings of space and time like semantics, etc. have been ignored since the  bottom line of the narrative is the same all along. In short, a comparison between the versions,  authorial intentionality, etc have not been death with, here.