Author: Anisha Saxena, History Department, Cortland University - Academia.edu, Google Scholar

Abstracts:
- »Chapter 14 presents the ‘unsavory heritage’ of sexual violence in premodern South Asian literature. Anisha Saxena challenges perceptions of celebrated foregone civilizations, upheld for their enlightened knowledge and instruction. She brings attention to the acts of rape presented within early Buddhist, Brahmanical, and Jaina texts from South Asia, and how celebrated cultural works risk perpetuating a narrative of blaming and shaming victims and women.« (Source: Ashton, Jenna C. »Introduction.« The Routledge Handbook of Heritage and Gender. Edited by Jenna C. Ashton. London 2025:6)

- »Early Buddhist, Brahmanical, and Jaina texts from South Asia are assumed to represent an unblemished foregone civilisation. They are celebrated for their enlightened knowledge and instruction. By examining and discussing accounts of rape from these texts, the chapter highlights a distinctive aspect of these celebrated texts. The chapter discusses the complexities these narratives and the various texts represent and their relationship to one another, which is especially highlighted by the several versions of the same story that appear in different texts and which demonstrate how authors of these texts struggled while setting, navigating, and justifying narratives of rape. The chapter will also illustrate how the reoccurring themes in the narratives of rape are blaming and shaming of the victims, and how women were denied any personal agency.« (Source: Taylor & Francis Online)

Contents:

	Introduction (p. 201)
	Obedient Daughters and Virtuous Wives: Women in the South Asian Textual Heritage (p. 202)
	The Unsavory Textual Heritage (p. 206)
	Ergo: Heritage and Gender Contemporary South Asia (p. 209)
	References (p. 209)

Reviews: -

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of India | Literature: Indian literature | Myth: Hindu mythology / | Sex and the law: Rape / Rape in India