History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c24.s1.387.3

v2.c24.s1.387.3

19-20 prescribes that when the bride pushes forward with her foot a mat the bridegroom should make her repeat the mantra 'may the way which my husband goes by be also assigned to me' and that if she does not repeat this mantra (through bashfulness &c.) he should repeat it substituting the words 'to her' for 'to me'. In the Kāṭhaka⁸⁹⁴ gṛ. 25. 23 it is said that the Anuvāka beginning with 'sarasvati predam-ava' (of 21 verses) was to be recited both by the bride and the bridegroom according to some teachers. All this shows that women could recite Vedic mantras in the sūtra period. The Kāmasūtra of Vātsyāyana,⁸⁹⁵ a remarkable though in some places a filthy work, prescribes that women should study the Kāmasūtra and its subsidiary aṅgas (viz. the 64 kalās such as singing, dancing, painting &c.) before they attain youth (i. e. in their father's house) and after marriage with the husband's consent. In the 64 kalās enumerated in that work (I. 3. 16) are included prahelikās (riddles of words), pustakavācana (chanting from books), kāvyasamasyā-pūraṇa (composing a suitable portion of a verse to fit in with a portion given), knowledge of lexicons and metres &c. We read in the epics and the dramas like the Śākuntala of women writing messages to their lovers. In the Mālatīmādhava Bhavabhūti tells his readers that the fathers of the hero and the heroine studied in their youth together with Kāmandakī at the feet of the same master.