India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s4.1

c8.s4.1

Pāṇini refers to Woman in all the aspects of her life, as a girl, a maiden, a wife, a mother, a friend and a teacher. We obtain glimpses of her life inside the household as its virtual mistress in her capacity of *patnī*, and in the larger public sphere of education (*charaṇas*) and citizenship (*janapadas*, IV. 1.175). As examples may be cited (1) *Kaṭhī*, a female member of the Vedic Kaṭha *śākhā*, and (2) *Yaudheyī*, a female citizen of the Yaudheya republic (*saṅgha*). The woman also figures as an ascetic as indicated in the title *kumāra-śramaṇā* (II.1.70), *i.e.* an unmarried female mendicant, showing that women were also eligible for the ascetic order. It may be assumed that such women ascetics moved about freely in public as homeless wanderers (*prabrajitā*, *Gaṇa-pāṭha* II.1.70). A veil of privacy was, however, thrown on the ladies of the royal household who were described as *asūryaṁ-paśyā* (III.2.36), 'screened from the sun's gaze' and kept in their harems (*cf.* *Kāśikā*, *rāja-dārāḥ*).