The recognition of opposing and co-existing tensions within human emotional experience, and a theoretical base for reconciling apparently opposite impulses, is a fundamental part of the Hindu outlook. In this paper it is proposed that, particularly because of the flexibility of realities it affords, a re-examination of the feminine in Hindu thought can reveal possible directions for contemporary feminism. In asserting this, there is a danger of being seen to proffer undue subservience to tradition, and becoming associated with culture in its revivalist or fundamentalist forms. Yet in evading engagement with ancient ideas, lies the danger of missing a unique opportunity to empower women’s lives today with concepts whose resonance with current realities belie their chronological data. Among such concepts is that of sringara rasa, one of eight essential emotional essences discussed in the ancient Indian aesthetic theory of the navarasas.