The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c12.33

c12.33

We have seen already (*ante*, pp. 12-14) how after their *upanayana* women used to specialise in Vedic theology and philosophy. Nay, some of them figure among the authors of Vedic hymns, the very reading of which was going to be prohibited to their sex by a later age. Women held that they were inherently entitled to study the Vedas ; we find a sweetheart flatly declining to marry her lover, when she suspected that he was disinclined to reveal to her some of his Vedic dogmas and theories (*T. Br.*, II, 3, 10). When *upanayana* of girls was common, it is needless to add that women used to offer morning and evening prayers as regularly as men ; the Rāmāyaṇa twice discloses Sītā discharging this religious duty¹.