Education in Ancient India c11.s1.3

c11.s1.3

Women eligible for Vedic Sacrifices : There is ample and convincing evidence to show that women were regarded as perfectly eligible for the privilege of studying the Vedic literature and performing the sacrifices enjoined in it down to about 200 B. C. This need not surprise us, for some of the hymns of the *Rigveda* are the compositions of poetesses. Even the orthodox tradition admits that the Rigvedic collection contains hymns composed by twenty different poetesses. Viśvavārā, Sikatā Nivāvarī, Ghoshā, Romaśā, Lopāmudrā, Apālā and Urvaśī are the names of some of them. Man could perform the Vedic sacrifices only if he had his wife by his side;¹ both had to undergo a special initiation² on the occasion and take equally active part in its procedure.³ Down to the end of the Mauryan period, the housewife was expected to offer oblations in the household (*grihya*) fire unaided by the husband, normally in the evening and sometimes in the morning also.⁴ In the *srastarārohaṇa* ritual of the Agrahāyaṇa ceremony, the wife used to recite a number of Vedic hymns⁵ and the harvest sacrifices could be performed by women alone, ‘because such was the long standing custom’.⁶ From the *Rāmāyaṇa* we learn that Kauśalyā was by herself alone performing a sacrifice on the morning of her son’s proposed installation as an heir-apparent;⁷ the same was the case with Tārā when her husband Vāli was about to leave the palace to meet Sugrīva in the fateful encounter.¹ It is interesting to note that both these ladies are expressly described by the epic as *mantravid*, i. e. well grounded in the Vedic literature. We need not then wonder if we find Sītā also offering her Vedic prayer during the days of her captivity in Laṅkā.² Kuntī, the mother of Pāṇḍavas, was well-versed in the Mantras of the Atharvaveda (*Mbh.*, III. 305. 20).