Female body: A journey, from being ‘sacred to profane and its revival’

Metamorphosis of Rati1: The changing aspect of female body from sacred to

profane and its revival
Abstract-
Feminine beauty definition under a standard parameter has drastically changed over the time.
The physical appearance of a woman has been over ages been heavily influenced by the social
and cultural ideologies set by the society. The term "perfect body" as ‘trend’ has developed
from an ‘ephemeral idealogy’, which is bound to transform from one generation to the next.
The intent of this paper is to research on the historical and contemporary ideals of the female
body and its evaluation; ‘a strategic comparison on the assessment of perfect body’.
Glancing back into the history, it is worth analyzing that the ‘historical standard’ of
beauty is reflected from the plentitude of sculptures carved on the exterior of the ancient
temples and caves. Every sculpture depicts a female body as a celebrated form drenched in the
concept of “navrasa”, illustrating each of them as a sanguine soul. Likewise, the Devadasis were
one such class of women of the 11th century-14th century, where the beautiful body was
synonymous to the movements and neither the size nor the body gesture tyrannized the shape
and size of the female body.
During the Renaissance period, the feminine body was based on the artworks, paintings,
and sculptures constructed through the eyes of male fantasy. In India, such creations brushed
on the canvas were reflected through the paintings of Raja Ravi Verman, who maneuvered the
concept of beauty largely through the paintings of goddesses. Trans-versing into the Industrial
era ‘the colonial and post-colonial’ times where race, ethnicity and nationality began shaping the
perceptions of beauty as ‘an international body and face’ emerged as a standard of ‘being perfect’.
Another major institute which revolutionized the definition of ‘perfect body’ was the ‘Bollywood’ and
‘Media’, where a virtual word created reality. The 1950s to 80s can be termed as an ‘influential period’
captivating the public through its fashion statement and body size via advertisement. This ‘globalization’
changed the traditional notions of beauty and media paved the path for advertisements, to use images
of skinny female bodies for selling products and attracting the women all over the world, the media
constantly bombarded itself with the images of ‘beautiful women’ and ‘perfect bodies’, linking physical
attractiveness to higher qualities. Retrospectively viewing a fat person as unattractive and undesirable.
By 1990s and 2000s the media was highly influencing the women around the world in negativity
associated ‘selling’ attempt through stereotyped body ideals. Fat-shaming, colourism, light skinned bias,
1
Rati- Goddess of Love, Lust and Pleasure, The Hindu scriptures stress Rati's beauty and sensuality. They depict her
as a maiden who has the power to enchant the god of love. Here the Authors used Rati to signify the term
“Feminine Beauty”
size- zero trends were the harsh realities that influenced the self-esteem of women and conditioned
them to believing in the unrealistic standards of beauty set by society.

In the contemporary world, with the blowout of social media there is a revamp of the female
body standards with positive body image. This a trend on social media speaks of female body
acceptance as with the fact that ‘every body’ is unique and different that cannot be altered or tailored
to fit into the beauty standards that are constantly popping out of TV screens or a magazine covers. But
at the same time, the virtual forum tends to influence the minds of people drowning them into the
phenomena of ‘airbrushing’ and ‘photoshopping’ images to mask their natural look to create an
unrealistic façade ruining their own integrity. Therefore, a dual perspective is seen emerging in the
society where the people are actively reacting to the phenomena of ‘perfect body’ and but again using
these fabricated fads as their masking tool.

An explosion of ‘reactions’ are put forward by the netizens on these issues, but it misses out on
being sensible that questions the ‘perfect body’ definition as a part of ‘revival or diffidence’. Therefore,
this paper intends to research on the background of feminine body that traversed from sacred to
profane and it’s revival, through cultural manipulation that existed and played with the psyche
responding through their external body image.

Author-

Ms. Sonali Gurung

B.Arch. M.Arch

Conservation Architect

Assistant Professor,

GITAM University, Visakhapatnam

Email-I –sonali21gurung@gmail.com

Ph- 8210451491

Co-Author-

Ms. Matisa Majumder

B.A.LL. B, LL.M

Legal Analyst,

ISG, Bangalore

Email-id- matisa.majumder@gmail.com

Ph- 9534174056