The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c12.40

c12.40

As amateurish Vedic studies could not, be encouraged, and as women had now to take a purely formal part in sacrifices, the *upanayana* of girls began to become a mere formality in course of time. At *c.* 500 B. C., as we learn from Hārīta, only a few Brahmavādinīs used to devote themselves seriously to Vedic studies after their *upanayana*; in the case of the vast majority of girls the formality of the sacrament was somehow gone through just before their marriage². A few centuries rolled on in this way and then writers like Manu began to advocate that girls’ *upanayana* may be performed, but no Vedic Mantras should be recited on the occasion³. This development may be placed at about the beginning of the Christian era. *Upanayana* without Vedic Mantras being recited in and taught after the ritual was a contradiction in terms, and so later writers like Yājñavalkya began to advocate the more honest and straightforward course of prohibiting the ceremony altogether in the case of girls (I, 13). A theory was started that the marriage ritual in the case of girls really served the entire purpose of *upanayana*; service of the husband corresponded to the service of the preceptor, and household duties were a nice substitute for the service of the sacrificial fire¹. *Upanayana* therefore was unnecessary for girls. It may have been prescribed for them in a former age, but that rule was a dead letter in the present one. It is interesting to see how later writers like Medhātithi proceed to explain away clear passages in earlier texts permitting women's *upanayana* (On *Manu*, V, 155). Eventually medieval digest writers like Mitramiśra made wonderful discoveries of stray passages from lost Purāṇas, which boldly declared that women have the same status as that of the Śūdras and are therefore altogether ineligible for *upanayana*².