Women in Hinduism
Arts: dance, drama, music

Hindu religious art encompasses performance arts as well as visual art, and women have been expressed in Hindu arts as prominently as men. Sanskrit literature has contributed to religious and spiritual expression of women, by its reverence for goddesses. The deity for arts, music, poetry, speech, culture, and learning is goddess Saraswati in the Hindu tradition. Baumer states that the resulting Sanskrit Theater has its origins in the Vedas, stemming from three principles: “The cosmic man (purusha), the self (atman), and the universal being (brahman)". Some of the earliest references to women being active in dance, music and artistic performance in Hindu texts is found in 1st millennium BCE Taittiriya Samhita chapter 6.1 and 8th-century BCE Shatapatha Brahmana chapter 3.2.4. In religious ceremonies, such as the ancient Shrauta and Grihya sutras rituals, texts by Panini, Patanjali, Gobhila and others state that women sang hymns or uttered mantras along with men during the yajnas.
combination:two_responses, change_case:capital_word_frequency[4]