History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c24.s1.85
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c24.s1.85
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v2.c24.s1.85.1
An interesting question is whether women ever had upanayana performed or whether they had to wear the yajñopavīta. Several smṛtis contain instructive dicta on this point.⁶⁹² The Hāritadharmasūtra as quoted in the Sm. C. and other digests says 'there are two sorts of women, those that are brahmavādinīs (i. e. students of sacred lore) and those that are sadyovadhūs (i. e. who straightway marry). Out of these brahmavādinīs have to go through upanayana, keeping fire, vedic study and begging in one's house (i. e. under the parental roof); but in the case of sadyovadhūs when their marriage is drawing near, the mere ceremony of upanayana should somehow be performed and then their marriage should be celebrated.' In the Gobhila gṛ.⁶⁹³ II. 1. 19 it is said "leading forward towards the sacred fire (from the house) the bride who is wrapped in a robe and wears the sacred thread (slung from her left shoulder, in the yajñopavīta mode) he (the husband) should murmur the verse 'Soma gave her to Gandharva' (Ṛg. X. 85. 41)". It is clear that the girl, according to Gobhila, wore the yajñopavīta as a symbol of the rite of upanayana. The commentator to whom this procedure naturally seemed strange explains 'yajñopavītinīm' as meaning 'whose upper garment is worn in the fashion of the sacred thread'. In the Saṃskāratattva of Raghunandana it is stated that Hariśarmā held that according to Gobhila the bride was to wear a yajñopavīta, though Raghunandana himself does not approve of this explanation.
v2.c24.s1.85.2
In the ceremony of Samāvartana, Āśv. gṛ. III. 8,⁶⁹⁴ on the subject of applying ointment says 'after having smeared the two hands with ointment a brāhmaṇa should salve his face first, a kṣatriya his two arms, a vaiśya his belly, a woman her private parts and persons who gain their livelihood by running, their thighs'. It is improper to say, as some do, that as to women this is a general rule interpolated in the treatment of samāvartana and has nothing to do with the latter. We should rather hold that Āśv. knew of women undertaking Vedic study and so prescribed what they should do in their samāvartana. In the Mahābhārata (Vanaparva 305. 20)⁶⁹⁵ a brāhmaṇa is said to have taught to the mother of the Pāṇḍava heroes a number of mantras from the Atharvaśiras. Hārīta⁶⁹⁶ prescribes that in the case of women samāvartana took place before the appearance of menses. Therefore brahmavādinī women had upanayana performed in the 8th year from conception, then they studied Vedic lore and finished student-hood at the age of puberty. Yama⁶⁹⁷ says 'in former ages, tying of the girdle of muñja (i. e. upanayana) was desired in the case of maidens, they were taught the vedas and made to recite the Sāvitrī (the sacred Gāyatrī verse); either their father, uncle or brother taught them and not a stranger and begging was prescribed for a maiden in the house itself and she was not to wear deer-skin or bark garment and was not to have matted hair'.
v2.c24.s1.85.3
Manu seems to have been aware of this usage as prevalent in ancient times, if not his own. Having spoken of the saṁskāras from jātakarma to upanayana, Manu winds up (II. 66) 'these ceremonies were to be performed in their entirety for women also, but without mantras' and adds (II. 67) 'the ceremony of marriage is the only saṁskāra performed with Vedic mantras in the case of women; (in their case) attendance on the husband amounts to serving a guru (which a student had to do) and performance of domestic duties to worship of fire' (which the student had to perform by offering a fuel-stick in the evening every day). This shows that in the day of the Manusmṛti, upanayana for women had gone out of practice, though there were faint glimmerings of its performance for women in former days. Relying on the words 'in former ages' occurring in the verses of Yama quoted above medieval digests like the Sm. C., the Nirṇayasindhu and others say that this practice belonged to another yuga. In Bāṇabhaṭṭa's Kādambarī,⁶⁹⁸ Mahāśvetā (who was practising *tapas*) is described as 'one whose body was rendered pure by (wearing) a brahmasūtra (i. e. yajñopavīta)'. The yajñopavīta came to have superhuman virtues attributed to it and so probably even women who were practising austerities wore it. The Saṁ. Pr.