The Rashtrakutas and their Times c21.153

c21.153

The custom of tonsuring widows is not referred to by any Muslim traveller of our period. Alberuni describes in detail the hard lot of the widow but nowhere mentions her tonsure. The Smritis of our period describe in minute details the various rules to regulate the life of the widow, but they nowhere lay down that she was to shave her entire head periodically. Vedavyāsasmṛiti¹²⁰ alone lays down that a widow should part with her hair at the death of her husband, but this is a solitary exception. Epigraphical evidence also shows that tonsure was not in vogue in our period; Pehoa pras'asti of Mahendrapāla, while describing the exploits of a feudatory named Pūrṇarāja, states that he was the cause of the curly hairs of the wives of his enemies becoming straight.(121) Another expression, that is frequently used in our epigraphs to describe heroes, is ‘ripuvilāsinīsīmantoddharaṇa-hetuḥ’ ‘the cause of the cessation of the parting of the hairs of the damsels of the enemies.’ This expression will show that queens, when widowed, used to refrain from decorating their hair; the hair, however, was allowed to grow and was ample in quantity as the expression quoted in the last footnote will show. The tonsure system, we may therefore conclude, was not in vogue in our period. It was, however, well established some time before the 17th century, for Tavernier informs us that Hindu widows of his time used to shave off their hair a few days after the deaths of their husbands.(122)