History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c81.354

v6.c81.354

I have not generally tried to speculate about the remote origins, if any, of even the most important vratas But some scholars endowed with a lively imagination and imbued with the theories underlying Frazer's 'Golden Bough' have tried their hands at the origins of some vratas The late Mr B A Gupte endeavoured to explain 'the symbolism of the Sāvitrīvrata' in I A vol 35 (for 1906) pp 116–119 He bases his article on the forty figures that his wife drew with sandalwood paste in celebrating the Sāvitrī-vrata He holds that the story of Sāvitrī is based on a Nature Myth and that the first impression produced on him by the pictures drawn by his wife is that it is a marriage scene What mainly vitiates all his imaginative explanations is that the Sāvitrī-vrata is not mentioned anywhere in any work that can be said to be even two thousand years old and that he thinks his wife's figures or pictures represent the general way of celebrating that vrata in the whole of India throughout the centuries The Sāvitrīvrata is observed throughout India, but I have not been able to find that women all over India depict the scene as was done by Mr Gupte's wife (who probably was a well-educated lady and had an artistic training in some big city and turned her skill to lend charm and picturesqueness to that vrata, by adding her own artistic ideas to those of millions of uneducated simple women in small towns and villages)