In Indian society, the role models of the women can vary greatly today as in the past. To investigate diverse aspects of the roles of women in religion, the course will be organized around three main themes. In the lay life, we will examine the various images of virtue, practices of observance and acts of patronage; in the ascetic life, we will look at the role of saints and nuns and the debates about their access to salvation, which vary from tradition to tradition and from period to period; and in the divine world, we will study the positions of the goddesses and their specific functions.