Gendered Structural Roles in Indian Epics

Abstract

The Mahabharata and the Ramayana constitute the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. Previous network analysis revealed substantial structural similarities between their character networks, alongside differences consistent with their contrasting forms of narrative organisation. Building upon these findings, we investigate the representation and structural positions of male and female characters within the two texts. In particular, we examine whether the genders differ systematically in their connectivity, prominence, community participation, and contribution to network cohesion, while accounting for the considerable imbalance between the numbers of male and female characters. We employ methods designed to identify characters who connect otherwise distinct regions of the networks and to assess the structural consequences of character removal. Through these analyses, we ask whether gendered patterns are consistent across the two epics or instead reflect the different narrative structures previously identified. In so doing, we find that male characters are considerably more prevalent among highly central and structurally consequential nodes in both epics, and targeted removal of central male characters produces substantially greater network disruption. However, once baseline structural position is taken into account, we find little residual difference in deletion effects between male and female characters. Furthermore, under selected Girvan-Newman partitions, we find that female characters in the Mahabharata exhibit greater cross-community participation than female characters in the Ramayana.