Dr. Frederique-Apffel Marglin is a Professor of Anthropology at Smith College, Massachussets and her book Wives of the God King is an important work of careful scholarship and penetrating insight into those shadowy regions of Hinduism that include the Devadasis of the temples of Orissa.
The tradition of the Devadasis has always been looked upon with a large measure of disapproval and in some cases with actual dismay. For a tradition whose ‘Philosophia Perennis’ is among the most profound in the world the acquiescence to the practice of girls being given away to the temples to serve the cause of religion has always mystified the students of the major religions of the world. Dr. Marglin’s book deals specifically with the Devadasi tradition of the temple town of Puri where the great temple to the Lord of the universe, Jagannath, dominates the lives of the millions who live around it.