A good old friend brought my attention to a news item about Sejal Amod Ketkar of Thane who had her thread ceremony done. There was a time when this was a favorite research topic of mine.
There is this text, 'SamskAraprakAsa' of VIramitrOdaya that says "purA kalpe narInAm tu maunji-bandhanam ucyate" meaning , in earlier kalpAs, women undergo the maunji bandhanam ritual and this same text proceeds to add a protectionary caveat that they must pursue their studies under the father, uncle or brother and not other males. I had also read that somewhere that when Hanuman went in search of SIta she was doing her Sandhya ritual. The vedic GArgis and references to Brahmavadinis are too cliched to find a mention here. But even in the Ramayana one find Kausalya chanting her mantras and offering oblations when Rama went to take her leave before he left for the forest. And then of course we have references to Tara as 'mantravid' ie knower of the mantras.
However what is hidden under the surface and conveniently ignored by those touting some kind of 'Return to the golden sanatana scheme of things' is this. If you go and talk to one of the traditional Pandits and interpreters of the DharmaShastras, you'd find that these sanctions areas found only in certain smRtis like yama smRti and Harita SmRti and Parasara Smrti. And when it comes to SmRtis the prevailing golden rule of thumb in the realm of praxis (atleast inSouth India the only area I know of) is 'Follow what your ancestors followed'. So a Baudhayana or an Apastamba follower does not immediately follow the Harita smRti or another smRti just because it's convenient or fares well with a contemporary thought. A textual sanction operates in a largely limited operative area. I was also told that according to Manu and other Smrtis the act of tying a darbha grass around the woman's waist during the wedding rituals is the equivalent of her initiation. It is to be noted that there is also a 'gotcha' here. ie Just because they tie a darbha around your waist doesn't mean you can go out there and profess and dazzle in your scholarship. It adds a position of subordination to the pati and gives this allowance that it is initiation only because 'patiseva is the equivalent of a boy serving at the home of the guru. What is even more interesting is that Manu that patriarch of patriarchs and Yagnavalkya(no less than Manu) smRtis the married woman is expected to keep accounts of family income and expenditure. So the path is already cast in stone. And you are given feet to walk only in that path!
However what is hidden under the surface and conveniently ignored by those touting some kind of 'Return to the golden sanatana scheme of things' is this. If you go and talk to one of the traditional Pandits and interpreters of the DharmaShastras, you'd find that these sanctions areas found only in certain smRtis like yama smRti and Harita SmRti and Parasara Smrti. And when it comes to SmRtis the prevailing golden rule of thumb in the realm of praxis (atleast inSouth India the only area I know of) is 'Follow what your ancestors followed'. So a Baudhayana or an Apastamba follower does not immediately follow the Harita smRti or another smRti just because it's convenient or fares well with a contemporary thought. A textual sanction operates in a largely limited operative area. I was also told that according to Manu and other Smrtis the act of tying a darbha grass around the woman's waist during the wedding rituals is the equivalent of her initiation. It is to be noted that there is also a 'gotcha' here. ie Just because they tie a darbha around your waist doesn't mean you can go out there and profess and dazzle in your scholarship. It adds a position of subordination to the pati and gives this allowance that it is initiation only because 'patiseva is the equivalent of a boy serving at the home of the guru. What is even more interesting is that Manu that patriarch of patriarchs and Yagnavalkya(no less than Manu) smRtis the married woman is expected to keep accounts of family income and expenditure. So the path is already cast in stone. And you are given feet to walk only in that path!
While it is very convenient to blame invading cultures and encounters with them as possible reasons for denial of education in Medieval India this does not tell the complete story. The fact remains is that the exceptions were far and few and their existence in texts does not prove or disprove their widespread prevalence in society and even statistically speaking one mythical female philosopher , the wife of Mandana so to speak is way too statistically insignificant to base anything upon. All one can conclude based on these references was that there were some small minute pockets of learning where women in Ancient India could study. The 'svadharma' and 'Follow ancestral code' patriarchical bylaws essentially drove a death knell to even these small pockets.
Now why does this incident matter to me today? From a practical standpoint I can brush it aside as one of those insignificant things that one has to reach with a 'Yeah So what?' and move on. The reason for this post was that this took me back to my highschool days when I had to counter my wonderful grandfather who refused to teach me the Rudram and the Chamakam. I still learnt it of my own accord for whatever it was worth back then and recited before him. Incidentally both my great grandfather and grandfather were Sanskrit scholars who specialized in the area of Dharma Shastras and were much sought after to provide consulting on various technicalities in that field. At that time to my teenage self, this seemed to matter a lot. Today, with an expanded worldview, I feel a sacred thread is as significant or insignificant as you believe it to be. One needs to evolve beyond being one of those non-star bellied sneetches who think they are somehow inferior to a Star-bellied Sneetch and have an overwhelming need for the outer mark of a star or a lack of it. There is more jnana to be gotten out of Dr.Seuss than meets the eye! So today, I am glad that live in a world where I can take up any book I want and am free to read whatever I want - whether it is the tiny nILA sUktam or mImAmsa paribhAsha that a family can go ahead and conduct a ritual because they believe in it. It is this freedom of thought, action and equality that matters and not what one believes or wears around their neck! Yet it bothers me that the Pandits of Thane refused to perform this service. Tells a lot about a society and how religious equality seems a long road ahead.
8 comments:
Loved your last para. I have been coming around to the same point of view in the past few years.
@laksh,
Thanks. Personally I don't believe in ritual but I think you had made this beautiful point on your blog about certain rituals and the sense of peace it gives you. For those that do believe in rituals, I wish people would remove the who should/ who should not in today's day and age and make such rituals globally accessible for all that who wish to adhere to it
Vidya,
I came here from ra's blog. really liked your post, I pretty much do the same as you have mentioned in your last para.
My mom barred from chanting Gayathri mantra and at school we chanted it in the prayer.
Rudram too, my uncle taught my brothers but I was told by mom that it is way too powerful for women(!) and woman can take it.
I like chanting the mantras. For whatever reason,(may be the school), without much of a debate, early on, I rejected the rituals that doesnt suit my current day principles.
Nice post.
Didn't face this but I am glad to have some arguments against comments on my post on Manusmriti.
@Sachita,
Thanks for stopping by. The too 'powerful' was interesting.
@Indian Homemaker,
Nice to see you here. Have lurked on yr blog and need to delurk sometime :)
hi
came here via twitter.
i had this argument with my dad 10 years ago. my brothers were having the sacred thread - i who was more 'learned' than them were not. he laughed it off and said, that the reason women don't have the sacred thread was they have to sit bare chested in front of the priests.
a few years later, not seeing either of my brothers being serious about the sandhya - he taught me the gayatri (formally).
for me the right to wear the sacred thread - is not about the thread, or caste, ... but about being considered an equal. There is no use shoving gargi and maytreiyi down our collective throats - if it can't be followed.
and, there are a whole bunch of other issues linked with that - the right to perform last rites, the right to be the 'head of the family' and so on .
i guess it is a good enough way of exclusion.
"Yet it bothers me that the Pandits of Thane refused to perform this service."
it bothers much me more that brahmin women would boohoohoo over not being able to wear a punal. it reveals something about our cravenness that i all too often forget.
@harini,
Thanks for the interesting perspective. Yes as you righly say, the crux is about not being considered an equal.
@anon,
This post was written as a woman! There are two ways of approaching the issue - one rejecting the notion of threads as a symbol of casteism and another is reclaiming a cultural symbol for its intrinsic values alone and everyone irrespective of caste or gender being part of something and reforming religious structures. Where does cravenness find a place here?
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