Meet the priestesses of Shubhamastu breaking stereotypes, redefining Indian marriages

Priyanka Chatterjee hails from a humble middle-class Brahmin Bengali household and has seen her father conduct various religious rituals himself throughout her childhood.

Chatterjee, a Sanskrit literature student from Sanskrit College, Kolkata, was intrigued by the idea of conducting ritualistic ceremonies, and it piqued her interest in becoming a priestess.

In March 2022, she came across a post on Shubhamastu’s official Facebook page, which was looking to expand its team, and Chatterjee promptly submitted her application. Soon, she started working as a priestess, besides her government job in the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education.

So far, Chatterjee has conducted over 70 ceremonies, including Kali puja, Lakshmi puja, Saraswati puja, Grihapravesh, marriage ceremony, etc. 

“Due to gender bias, priestesses are not gladly accepted in our society. Shubhamastu is an exception in that area. Additionally, learning under professor Nandini Bhowmik is a great fortune for me,” she tells HerStory.

Chatterjee is among the 18 priestesses part of the Kolkata-based charitable trust, which conducts Hindu ceremonies of weddings, memorial services, and housewarming rituals, among others.

Since its inception a decade ago, Shubhamastu has conducted innumerable ceremonies. The collective is led by priestesses Nandini Bhowmik, Ruma Roy, Semanti Banerjee, and Paulomi Chakraborty.

“We indulge in the priesthood to educate the newer generations about the Vedic hymns in the context of the present time while advocating for gender equality among priests and people partaking in the ceremonies,” Bhowmik shares, adding that the collective opposes all forms of gender or caste discrimination. 

Beginning of a change

As a child, Bhowmik was fascinated by the Vedic language of Sanskrit and wanted to pursue it in her higher education. However, she faced opposition from her family, as the subject offered limited or no job opportunities.

Nonetheless, she completed her BA, MA, and PhD in the subject and started working as a professor. At present, Bhowmik is an Indologist, academician, and theatre artist; she believes that being a performer has helped her in her journey in Shubhamastu.

The collective’s inception can be traced back to Bhowmik’s daughter’s wedding in 2009. “I have been an academician, and this has been my area of study, so I wanted to do it,” she says, adding that she never thought of doing it professionally.

However, the idea stayed in her mind after her daughter’s marriage. Soon, along with her college batchmate Roy, a Sanskrit professor and singer, she started Shubhamastu in 2014. Two years later, Banerjee, a musician and performer, and Chakraborty, a school teacher, singer, and theatre actor, joined the duo.

While Bhowmik and Roy take care of the research, translations, and script writing, Banerjee and Chakraborty weave the hymns with beautiful songs. 

Shubhamastu’s principle lies in the fact that anyone with “profound knowledge, purity of soul, and the capability to educate the masses” can venture into the priesthood. It does not believe one must belong to a specific caste to be a priest.

However, being priestesses in a male-dominated field has not been an easy journey for the collective. Bhowmik vividly remembers when she and Roy finished a ceremony, only to see a male priest sitting in their spot ready to redo the ritual as they were about to leave.

“We cannot convince everyone. We are breaking stereotypes and, we will be trolled, so we try not to pay any attention to such things,” she adds. 

While they encountered numerous such challenges in the past, the situation has changed over time as the collective started garnering popularity.

At present, Shubhamastu gets calls from other states and Indians living abroad, showing it has managed to create a space for itself in society. Bhowmik adds that they were invited to Dubai for a wedding ceremony.

“This is also because people are becoming more conscious and less discriminatory," she adds.

Most loved story

---

This startup is using AI to help women in their journey to motherhood

Breaking stereotypes

Bhowmik explains most rituals are performed in the usual Vedic manner, but they try to shorten the time. Shubhamastu conducts weddings in multiple languages, including Sanskrit, Bengali, and English, for everyone to understand. It performs Vedic hymns, accompanied by songs from various poets like Kazi Nazrul Islam, Atul Prasad Sen, and Rabindranath Tagore.

Music is an integral part of Shubhamastu's process and coincides with the hymns during the ceremony. She says, “Music creates a serene atmosphere and makes magic happen,” adding that the hymns are explained so a layman can also understand them. 

Bhowmik says her experience as a professor, interacting with the younger generation, has helped her understand their likes and dislikes. Keeping that in mind, she prepares her scripts and changes them every two to three years.

Priestesses from Shubhamastu ask the groom and bride to walk side by side in all the rituals instead of following each other. Also, the sindoor ceremony is not one-sided—while the groom puts sindoor on the bride, the bride puts a tilak on the groom’s forehead.

It also abstains from performing the Kanyadan ceremony, as it strongly believes the bride should not be objectified as an element to be donated. Every year, it conducts about 150 weddings throughout India. 

Starting from four, Shubhamastu now has 18 priestesses. They are trained in Sanskrit chanting for about six to seven months after they join to understand the meanings, pronunciations, and other intricacies of Vedic chants.

Nibedita Mitra, a professor of Indian Classical Music and a member of the collective, first learned about Shubhamastu while arranging her daughter’s wedding, which was also organised by the collective.

Impressed by their work, she decided to join it in 2022 and has since conducted over 80 ceremonies.

“Women can manage everything—taking care of the household, raising children, [etc.]— so why can’t priesthood?" she says, adding, "Someone had to challenge this stereotype, and Shubhmastu is doing just that.”