History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c31.28
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c31.28
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Certain verses of the Ṛgveda and the Atharvaveda have given rise to various explanations and opinion is divided as to whether they refer to niyoga, to the remarriage of widows or to the practice of the immolation of widows. First the two verses Ṛg. X. 18. 7–8 ¹⁴⁵⁰ which are part of a funeral hymn will be set out : 'Let these women, who are not widows and who have good husbands, sit down with clarified butter used as collyrium; may the wives who are tearless, free from disease and wearing fine jewels (or clothes) occupy the seat in front (first). O woman! raise yourself towards the world of the living; you lie down near this departed (husband); come, this your wifehood of the husband who (formerly) held your hand and who loved you has (now) been fulfilled'. It is somewhat strange that Sāyaṇa understands the latter half as an invitation by the husband's brother to the wife of the departed to remarry him. But that meaning is far-fetched and does not bring out the proper force of 'hastagrābhasya', 'patyuḥ' and 'babhūtha'. The Āśv. gṛ.¹⁴⁵¹ (IV. 6. 11–12) prescribes that (in the expiatory rite performed on the death of an elder) the young women relatives should salve their eyes with butter with their thumb and fourth finger and with tender darbha blades and then throw the blades away, when the performer of the rite should look at them while they are salving their eyes with the verse 'imā nārīr &c.'. The same sūtra (IV. 2.
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16–18) says that "(when a dead body is to be cremated ) they should place the wife to the north of the body and a bow for a kṣatriya ( if he be the dead person ) and then her brother-in-law or some one else who can be the representative of her husband or a pupil or an old servant should make her rise up with the mantra 'udīrṣva'". The Śāṅ. Śr. S. IV. 16. 16 also directs that the verse Ṛg. X. 18. 7 is repeated when the eyes of women are touched with blades of kuśa grass and XVI 13. 13 says that Ṛg. X. 18. 8 and Ṛg. X. 85. 21-22 are called 'utthāpinyaḥ' (verses addressed for making one rise). There is another mantra in the Atharvaveda (18. 3. 1 ) and Tai. Ār. VI. 1¹⁴⁵² 'Oh ( dead ) man! this woman choosing the world of the husband lies down by thee, the deceased, observing the old universal custom ; bestow on her in this world offspring and wealth '. The first verse ( i. e. Ṛg. X. 18. 7 ) contains nothing about niyoga or remarriage. It has been made use of for giving Vedic authority to the practice of *satī* ( which will be dealt with later on ). That verse refers to the practice that young women of the household of the departed used to go to the cemetery and applied clarified butter to their eyes ( by way of purification and *śānti* ); this practice continued to the days of the Āśv. gṛ , the Bṛhad-devatā ( VII. 12 ) and the Baud. pitṛmedhasūtra ( I.21.11). The two verses ' iyam nārī ' and Ṛg. X. 18.
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8 are employed by the Baudhāyana-Pitṛmedhasūtra¹⁴⁵³ in the funeral rites, the first to be repeated when the wife is made to sit near the corpse and the next for making her rise. It is to be noted that Baud. directs that the corpse is placed on the funeral pile after the wife is made to rise from the vicinity of the corpse; while the Bṛhad-devatā appears to suggest that the wife ascends the funeral pile after the corpse is placed thereon and then the younger brother forbids her with the verse 'udīrṣva &c.'. But the Bṛhad-devatā¹⁴⁵⁴ does not mean that the wife burns herself on the funeral pyre and the brother-in-law contents himself with only repeating a verse to dissuade her. The Ṛgvidhāna¹⁴⁵⁵ (III. 8. 4) says that the brother-in-law should call back the wife of his sonless brother when she is about to ascend the funeral pyre for procreating a son on her with Ṛg. X. 18. 8. It appears that the verse Ṛg X. 18. 8 symbolically describes what even in the days of the Ṛgveda was probably only a tradition viz. that in hoary antiquity a wife burnt herself with her husband. In the times of the Ṛgveda this practice had altogether ceased, but a symbolical imitation of it had come into vogue, viz. that the wife lay near the corpse in the cemetery and then she was asked to get up and was told that by following her husband to the very doors of death she had fulfilled all that was expected of her and that she should return.
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The same idea is referred to by the verse 'iyam nārī', but the latter half appears to refer to the practice of niyoga when it calls upon the departed to bestow on the wife offspring and wealth. It is possible to argue that Ṛg. X. 18. 8 also impliedly has niyoga in view. But both these verses do not expressly refer to the parctice of *satī* at all. They at the most might lead to the inference that the woman had either to marry the deceased husband's brother or go in for niyoga because the husband died sonless. The latter appears to me to be the more probable of the two hypotheses, if those are the only explanations. The symbolic use made in the gṛhyasūtras and in the Bṛhad-devatā of Ṛg. X. 18. 8 shows that they practically are against the burning of widows. It is probable that these authors knew of the custom of niyoga, that it was not then much approved of and so they are silent about it, while the Ṛgvidhāna which appears to be comparatively a late work takes the verse 'udīrṣva' as referring to niyoga (which is most probably referred to in Ṛg. X. 40. 2 ko vām śayutrā vidhaveva devaram). The consideration of the practice of widow burning naturally arises here from the above discussion and will be dealt with in a separate chapter.