Displacing the domestic: The elsewhere of transcendence

In this chapter, Baindur explores three interconnected themes: the ideas of women’s place in the home, the ‘elsewhere’ they travel to, and the understanding of transcendence or self-discovery in these journeys to elsewhere. One of the ways through which women sought to transcend the limiting experience of a domestic life in Eastern culture was through seeking transcendence and spiritual experience. The nuns of Buddhist faith, the theri -s, or the devotee saints like Mira Bai, reject the life of women as providers and nurturers. They take recourse to wandering or travelling as a way to discover some kind of transcendent experience. I posit that displacing oneself from familiar place-scapes (by travel) and then working on a re-engagement of the body and its environs such as clothes and movement becomes a way for women to rediscover their uninhibited self.