Sashimani Devi, the last ritual dancer at the Jagannath Temple in eastern India, expired in Puri, bringing an end to a centuries-old tradition that was condemned as exploitative by social reformers, Victorian missionaries and the leaders of independent India. She was 92. Her death was confirmed by Devadutta Samantasinghar, a retired official in the department of culture for the state of Odisha. She was the last to perform a dance that had been practiced in the temple for 5,000 years, Samantasinghar said. "The tradition is over, she was the last to dance," he said. "There was a time, an era, which is gone - over - with her."

Like most devadasis, or "maharis," as the dancers in Odisha are known, Sashimani came from a poor family and was initiated into the service of the temple, when she was a small girl, at age of 7 or 8, she said. After she reached puberty, she was considered a "living wife" of Lord Jagannath, the god whose timber image is worshipped at the temple, and was not expected to marry. At that time, according to state records, she was one of about 25 women assigned to take care of Jagannath and other images of deities in the temple, conducting ritual baths, rubbing the statues with lotion and performing private songs and dances at bedtime, standing at the threshold of the inner sanctum where the deities were installed. Public opinion had turned against the practice, which in many cases exposed young women from lower-caste families to sexual exploitation.

Sashimani, however, remained proud of her status till the end of her life; though she complained that temple authorities had reduced her role in temple rituals and paid her a miserly pension. She told about the god Jagannath, "He is my husband and I am his wife, there is no dispute about it."

The status of India's temple dancers was at its height between the 13th and 15th centuries, during a period when kings depended heavily on the worship of local deities in their temples, said Lucinda E. Ramberg, an assistant professor of anthropology at Cornell University.

Ileana Citaristi, an Italian-born scholar of traditional dance in Odisha,brought Sashimani with her to the conference, where she performed for the first time in 30 years, and, the scholar wrote later, "We could have a glimpse of how the dance must have been when it was meant to be for Jagannath and not for the public."

By Premji