This book is an exploration of the historical sources across India's composite culture that have shaped the female self. Beginning with the Upanishads, it works with several foundational texts such as the epics and their retellings, Manusmriti, Natya Sastra and the literature of the Bhakti Movement in order to trace the histories of feminist questionings.

The constant interweaving of literary and social texts and the tracing of both continuities and disruptions across time and space enables a perception of the way in which individual struggles have merged with collective resistance and allowed a questioning of relationships, institutional frameworks, and traditional role models.