108 SOCIAL SCIENTIST If done with rectitude Devoid of all falsehood Is this not verily the truth Nastinatha? (1996:6) The free-flowing style that characterises this translation is present throughout her work. This makes the book appealing not only to interested scholars, but makes it accessible even to general readers, a feat not many authors can achieve. Walking Naked, which was published a year later (1997) is the product of about a decade of involvement with devotional literature. Ramaswamy's primary enterprise - 'to write the history of women in relation to spirituality and spiritual movements' - takes its full form in this very readable book, written with a sensitivity and sense of purpose which only a sincere attachment to and involvement with one's subject can bring. In this book, the author takes us on a long, richly textured and remarkably detailed journey of women bhakta saints in peninsular India from the Sangam age up to the arrival of the Dutch, Portuguese and English traders on the Corornandel/ Malabar coasts in the 15th - 16th centuries. In its totality, the book 'cuts across time and space to look at the issue of gender inequalities in south Indian societies...' (1997:ix). Once again, her style of rendition exemplifies her confident hold over the historical processes at work, and she goes on to locate the women saints in their contemporary milieux. Thematic treatment of various issues (see her introduction of 30-odd pages entitled 'Gendered Spirituality: A South Indian Perspective'), as well as her chronologically-tuned chapterisation (chapters 2,3, and perhaps even chapter 4) help the reader to not only understand the author's own chain of thoughts - namely, the relationship between 'gendered' spirituality and the contemporary social structure, the empowering potential of spirituality of women, the questions of protest, deviance and defiance that these women (ostensibly, I feel) symbolise, the ability (and availability) of a 'sacred space' otherwise denied to women in orthodox religions, and finally, the question of women's spirituality as a powerful form of self-expression - but also helps the reader to create a context (in his/her own mind) against and in which this book is set. Cumulatively, the book is a wonderfully written commentary on south Indian social history of the past millennium-and-a-half. As with Divinity and Deviance, it is not just the critical content but the style of Ramaswamy's writing (where she imbibes thought with