This article seeks to understand one of the critical aspects of female biology, menstruation and the representation of menstruating women in the early descriptive textual traditions, particularly in the Puranic literature. It mainly focuses on how society gendered purity and pollution and how the two-way process of devaluation of caste and gender intersected. Caste and gender have been the much-contested areas of the study. Most Puranic accounts try to associate menstruating women, the rajasvalas, with the candalas or the so-called “untouchables. It will also look at specific ideas and practices related to menstruation as reflected in the Puranic texts, such as menstrual taboos, the prescribed purification methods, and menstruation as a marker of chastity. It is worth mentioning how menstruation is related to adultery. In another aspect, menstruation has been viewed as an indicator of the Kali age. There are some exceptional cases where the physical condition of menstruation worked as empowering and protecting menstruating women from some evils and dangers. Furthermore, this paper will discuss the irony of a patriarchal society which discriminates against atreyi or fertile women, who are ready to get pregnant, against rajasvala, the menstruating women who are infertile in their season. However, this research paper will bring light to the deliberate attempts made by the patriarchal, misogynistic society to suppress and devalue the vital role of women in the reproductive process by placing their reproductive biology as polluting and dangerous.
