eans a woman who performed the service for some deity in a temple. They were unmarried temple servants who had been dedicated to temple deities as young girls through rites resembling Hindu marriage ceremonies. Devadasi (Skt. devadasi, Ta. tevataci, lit. ‘slave of god), the term is to be a sanskritized form of the Tamil term tevaratiyal which means a woman who enslaved for the service of some specific deity or sacred object. The word is the feminine form of deva- dasa, a man who is enslaved for the service of a deity but is not much in use in the common parlance. Devadasis were a common feature in almost all the major Brahmanical temples. The devadasi or the temple women was one, who was a dancer and one who is associated with temple, either by having some kind of regular service function in a temple or because her primary social identity is defined with reference to a temple. Many times, these girls also provided sexual services to their clients