The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c12.47

c12.47

This new theory was opposed by the orthodox tradition, as it was all along accustomed to see sacrifices being jointly performed by the husband and the wife. The wife’s participation had no doubt become a formal one, but society was not prepared to stop it altogether. Jaimini was the spokesman of the orthodox school, and he has explained very clearly how the references to the sacrificers in the dual number can denote only the husband and the wife. While doing so, however, he emphatically declares that a woman alone is quite ineligible to perform any sacrifice. ‘The woman can stand no comparison with man. The sacrificer is learned, his wife is ignorant’¹. The new theory took some time to popularise. In Jaimini’s own time queen Nayanikā of the Deccan performed a number of Vedic sacrifices during her widowhood, and there was no dearth of learned Brahmanas to accept her handsome gifts on the occasion¹. The practice of women performing sacrifices by themselves, however, died down by the beginning of the Christian era. As pointed out already, Manu is seen condemning it sternly in his code². The Smṛiti school on the whole was inclined to curtail the earlier religious rights and privileges of women, mainly because *upanayana* was no longer performed in their case. Those, who had not undergone this Vedic Saṁskāra were naturally held to be incompetent to offer Vedic sacrifices.