History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c24.s1.85.3

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.