I
One might reasonably expect that a text, or indeed a book, on the religious role of women would give considerable space to a discussion of the various aspects of the ascetic or monastic life: what sects were considered acceptable for women; the reason for opting for a life of renunciation; when and how a woman might do this; ceremonies of initiation; the signs and symbols of a woman’s new status; the expectations, duties and privileges that go with it; and so on. This is perhaps the most glaring omission in Tryambaka’s treatise, and therefore also in this book. For Tryambaka does not allow women the option of renunciation at all.
This is not to say that the option did not exist. We have only to look at the epics for frequent references to female ascetics. The work of anthropologists and historians provides ample evidence both of current trends in female asceticism and of their antecedents. Research topics include: women ascetics in traditional and modern Hinduism (Ojha 1981, 1984; King 1984); women saints of history and legend (Alston 1980; Hardy 1980; Abbott 1929; Ramanujan 1979: 129ff., 1982); female ascetics today in Benares (Denton) and Nepal (Caplan 1973); Jaina nuns and laywomen in Rajasthan (Reynell 1985); and a variety of studies on Buddhist laywomen and nuns (Horner 1975; Paul 1979; Flak 1980; Nissan 1984; etc.). Even the Yatidharmaprakāśa, a treatise on renunciation from within the discipline of dharmaśāstra, allows (albeit without enthusiam) that women are entitled to become renouncers (Yatidh. 61.39-41; Mit.on Yājñ.III.58; Olivelle 1977:33–4, 175).
As Olivelle points out, in order to disentangle this complex question of the renunciation of women, it is essential to distinguish between three separate issues: the legitimacy of the practice in terms of dharmasastra; its legality in the eyes of the law; and its historicity (1984:113–15). Obviously, the Strī-dharma-paddhati does not do this. Tryambaka’s concern is solely with the legitimacy of the practice in the eyes of dharma. For both arguments and evidence are drawn from dharmaśāstra rather than from life.
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It is thus not so much his rejection of female renunciation that is of interest to us today as the reasoning behind it.
For any mention-however rare and perfunctory-of women renouncers, or female renunciation in general, is redolent with negative associations, together with the insistence that the good Hindu wife should have nothing to do with them or it. For example, Tryambaka informs us that the orthodox wife should never associate with ‘female renouncers’ (pravrajitā) or ‘female religious mendicants’ (śramana), bracketing them with other ‘bad influences’ such as courtesans, women gamblers, women who meet lovers in secret, intellectual women (haituki), and so on (see section IIC, pp.171-2). In the section on things to be avoided (IV, pp.274-6), renunciation (pravrajyā) is one of the six things that cause women and sūdras to fall into hell. In a quotation from the Mahābhārata, Śāndili stresses that she earned her place in heaven by being a good wife and not by wearing the ochre robes of the renunciate, the bark garments of the hermit, the matted locks of the ascetic, or by shaving her head as some renouncers do (section IV, pp.282-3, note 26). In the story of Astavakra and the old female ascetic to whom the young man is sent for instruction, the emphasis rests not on her asceticism nor on her spiritual achievements, but on the fact that—even in old age, even after years of renunciation—she has not managed to subdue the rampant sexuality of her innate female nature (see section III, pp.268, 271).
The last example provides the clue to Tryambaka’s attitude. First, his references to female renunciation make it clear that he was fully aware of the possibility of women following such a path. Indeed, there were almost certainly more women renouncers in his day than there are today; and no doubt they earned as much genuine respect from the majority of Hindus then as their counterparts do today (cf. Denton: ch.4). For Tryambaka, however, the point is not whether women could become renouncers, but whetheraccording to dharmaśāstra—they should. The answer is clearly that they should not. In part, this is due to the same set of values applied routinely by dharmasastra to men; that is, the conviction that, of all the āśramas open to the male, that of the householder is best (see p.44-5). In part, however, the reasoning is peculiar to the case of women. For it rests heavily on Tryambaka’s understanding of female nature (strīsvabhāva).
As I explained in section III, Tryambaka assumes the orthodox
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view of svadharma: good conduct produces auspicious births, evil conduct inferior births; and good conduct is defined as that appropriate to one’s birth and station in this life. Birth as a woman is itself a mark of bad conduct in a previous life; the assiduous performance of the conduct appropriate to women (stridharma) the only way to erase it. Since women are denied access to Vedic education, they cannot purify themselves with mantras or offer sacrifice in their own right (see sections I, pp.34-9, and IIB, pp.107–15). According to the rigid orthodoxy professed by such as Tryambaka, they cannot perform any religious act independently of their husbands; they cannot even worship any god other than their husbands. Their only hope for salvation, and thus their only worthwhile goal, is the pursuit of stridharma. The two poles of a woman’s existence are thus represented by two radically opposed concepts: the essentially wicked nature of women as evidenced by their female birth (strīsvabhāva); and the role model of the virtuous and selfeffacing wife as the only sure path to salvation (strīdharma).
This radical distinction between ‘(essential) woman’ and ‘(ideal) wife’ is reflected in the traditional twofold classification of female deities: the ’terrifying’ or ‘fierce’ (ugrā) goddesses such as Durgā, Kāli or Camunda; and the ‘gentle’ or ‘pleasing’ (sāntā, saumyā) ones such as Pārvatī, Satī, Lakṣmī or Rādhā. It is no surprise that the former group are usually depicted as wild, destructive females associated with rampant appetite and sexuality, and the blood of battlefield, sacrifice and menstruation (cf. Kinsley 1982:146 ff.; Bennett 1983:262-72; Carstairs 1973:158-9). In contrast, the latter group consists of ideal goddess-wives whose powers of chastity, fertility and prosperity-derived from their husbands and thus subordinate to them-are in turn the fundamental source or sakti of their husbands’ powers within the scheme of dharma (cf. Dimmitt 1982:210-23; Bennett 1983:272ff.). As one would expect, Parvati whom Tryambaka invokes at the beginning and end of this treatise-is one of these.
In the human realm as in the divine, the untamed female nature— with all the negative associations of female sexuality—is antisocial, elemental and dangerous. For Tryambaka, as for dharmaśāstra in general, that necessary ’taming’ can only be achieved in the controlled state of marriage. As the story of Aṣṭāvakra demonstrates, the alternative path of ascetic renunciation can never fully subdue the essential sexuality of women. For in the imagination of the
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orthodox male, ‘renunciation’ means primarily the renunciation of sexual pleasures and family life, both of which are symbolised by women. Thus while male renouncers may successfully renounce women, female renouncers can never fully renounce themselves. In the inevitable conflict between the sexuality inherent in their nature and the demands of the ascetic life, women renouncers remain essentially ‘female’, and therefore ‘untamed’. The conclusion is obvious: only the pursuit of strīdharma can keep this dangerous female nature under control and thus bring the individual to a better birth—perhaps even as a twice-born man (though crossing gender is hard; see section III, pp.246-7)—and, ultimately, to salvation.
II
What then are the main points of this single religious path considered by Tryambaka to be safe for women to pursue?
First, women are forbidden to perform all manner of religious rituals and observances. Thus the six things that cause women to fall into hell include the recitation of sacred texts (japa), the performance of austerities (tapas), going on pilgrimages, renunciation, the chanting of mantras, and the worship of deities (including temple worship, another striking omission in Tryambaka’s treatise). Other rulings add to this list: offerings into the fire (homa), religious donations (dāna), and any religious ‘vow’ (vrata) or ritual (makha; section IV, pp.274-6, notes 7, 8).
Such rulings derive partly from the exclusion of women from Vedic education and the right to independent ritual in general (see sections I, pp.34–9, and IIB, pp.107–8); and partly from the conviction that the most important duty of the orthodox wife is to assist her husband in his religious obligations rather than to pursue any religious commitment of her own (see pp.50, 108-15). Hence the repeated descriptions of the good wife as ‘one who shares in her husband’s religious duties’ (sahadharmacārī, dharmacāriṇī, dharmabhāginī, pativratā, pativratabhāginī, and so on; e.g. section IV, pp.281-2). Thus she should meditate with her husband on his chosen deity (see section IIA, pp.52-4). She should assist her husband at the fire ritual (see section IIB, pp.107-15, 129–41), at the worship of their household images (see section IIC, pp.178– 80), and at the vaiśvadeva ritual (see section IIC, pp.180-3). She should prepare the food and serve the guest on her husband’s behalf
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in the important ceremonies of hospitality (see section IIC, pp.198205); and so on. Such a view of the religious role of the orthodox wife replaces all independent actions with a variety of obligations arising from her position as ritual assistant to her husband.
Secondly, it is repeatedly stressed that the duties of the wifewhether those of every day (sections IIA-IID) or those occasioned by specific moments in her life (section IV, pp.283-304) are in fact the signs of her religious path, that of devotion to her husband. This devotion is described in two ways: serving and obeying one’s husband as one’s guru; and worshipping him as one’s only god. No other description could carry a greater weight of religious commitment and spiritual authority in the Hindu context than these.
The parallel between the orthodox Hindu wife’s ministrations to her husband and the Vedic student’s attentions to his guru is not stressed by Tryambaka. But it emerges piecemeal from his treatise. In section I, for example, Tryambaka explains that the rulings he is about to expound apply only to married women because, for women, ‘marriage has taken the place of initiation’ (section I, p.35, note 15). He then quotes Manu’s famous saying that the marriage ceremony is the female equivalent of initiation, serving one’s husband in the home equal to living with and serving one’s guru, and household duties equivalent to worshipping the sacred fire (section 1, p.35 note 16; cf. pp. 50,102, etc.). It is not surprising, therefore, that many of the rulings regarding the wife’s services towards her husband (such as attending to his morning toilet, rubbing his body with oil, helping him with his bath, and so on) are strongly reminiscent of the required behaviour of the student towards his teacher (see section IIC, pp.163-8). Touching the husband’s feet before a meal (see section IIC, pp.221–2), and before going to bed (see section IID, p.237) recall the respectful salutations the student should offer his guru (see section IIC, pp.157-60). Similarly, Tryambaka’s insistence that the orthodox wife should eat the remains of her husband’s meal evokes another marked parallel with the reverence shown by the student to his teacher (see section IIC, pp.221-7). Finally, in Tryambaka’s own conclusion to the treatise, he discusses the full meaning and significance of the term ‘service’ (suśrūṣā) by analogy with the ‘service’ owed by the student to his teacher: that is, it includes both obeying his commands and administering to his physical
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needs, thereby comprising ’every action that gives pleasure, to one’s husband-guru (see above, p.312).
In practice, of course, the orthodox wife does not behave like the Vedic student unless her husband is away. For example, the student should not enjoy the pleasures of cleaning his teeth either during his studentship or afterwards whenever he is in the presence of his teacher (see section IIA, pp.80-1). In the case of the wife, however, the prohibition on teeth-cleaning applies only when her husbandguru is absent (see section IV, p.291). Similarly, the rules on dress for the married woman bear no comparison with those applicable to Vedic studentship (see section IIA, pp.88-96). In fact, in discussions relating to āśrama, women are classed with Vedic students simply because studentship is the least advanced of the four stages of the samuccaya system (see section IIA, pp.82-3). Nonetheless, the uplifting analogy, complete with its associations of religious commitment, remains.
The requirement that the orthodox wife should treat her husband as her only god receives somewhat greater stress. For example, the invocation to Parvati in the opening verses carries with it the powerful image of the wife whose husband really is a god, and whose selfeffacing devotions bring her the ultimate reward of becoming half of him (see section I, introductory verse 1). Within the treatise itself, numerous quotations either liken the husband to a god or describe him directly as the wife’s only or highest god. Thus, whether he is good or bad, he is the good wife’s ‘supreme deity’ (section IV, p.274, note 2). ‘There is no deity like him… through his grace all desires are fulfilled’ (section IV, p.281, note 21). “The good woman always regards her husband as a god’ (section IV, p.282, note 24). Throughout her married life, her entire appearance, from the tilaka on her forehead to the rings on her toes, signal to the world that her husband is her god and that he is alive (see section IIA, p.96–101). When she eats the remains of the meal she has served him, she should receive it reverently as the sanctified mahāprasāda of her god (see section IIC, p.221-7). Instead of seeking the blessings of other gods by making pilgrimages or worshipping in temples, she should drink the ‘foot water’ of her own husband (see section IIB, p.132-41). After his death, she may worship Visnu but only if she keeps the image of her husband in her mind, worshipping him in the guise of the god, bringing him to mind by means of a portrait or a clay model
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(see section IV, p.300, notes 67, 68). For the husband is the ‘supreme god among all gods’, whose law she must fulfil without question (see section V, p.308, note 4).
Thirdly, this replacement of all independent religious activity on the part of the wife with devoted service to her husband-guru-god has an important, and perhaps unexpected, consequence. The ideal wife should obey her husband’s command even if what he asks her to do is normally considered unlawful (see section V, pp.309-12). For strīdharma supersedes even right and wrong.
Tryambaka’s examples in fact reveal a conflict within the notion of strīdharma itself. Having devoted his entire treatise to explaining in detail precisely how the orthodox wife should behave according to the contemporary understanding of dharmasastra rulings, Tryambaka proceeds to undermine his own creation. All these rulings apply if, and only if, they accord with the individual husband’s wishes.
Thus Tryambaka argues against the practice of niyoga in section IV (pp.300-2), yet insists that Kunti should accede to her husband’s request that she perform this act simply because he makes it (see section V, pp.309-10). Similarly, the ideal wife should have no contact with men other than her own husband (see section IIC, pp.170-6), let alone make love to them; yet Oghavatī is praised for making love to a brahmin guest when her husband commands her to do so. Indeed, the god Dharma himself declares Oghavati’s chastity restored and her reputation intact due to the power of ‘a woman who has truly taken the vow of her husband’ (see section V, pp. 310-12).
But this is not as incongruous as it seems. For the classic answer when someone is asked why he is doing something apparently unorthodox is always: ‘My god or my guru told me to.’ Thus Mīrābāi flouts the conventions of an orthodox family, caste and society on the grounds of devotion to her lord Krsna (cf. Alston 1980). Mahādevi breaks every rule of strīdharma, including the prohibition on nakedness, in her single-minded search for her god (Ramanujan 1979:129). Similarly today, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, frequently reproached by orthodox Hindus for teaching the Vedas to nonHindus abroad, explains that his guru instructed him to do so. The story of Uttanka (alluded to by Tryambaka in section IIC, pp. 210-14), provides an epic example. The conflict of duties described is resolved by Uttanka’s decision that his teacher’s orders did not
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include ‘wrong-doing’. The implication is clear: if they had, it would have been right to obey. Through the power of guruvacana, the unorthodox becomes orthodox. Since the ideal Hindu wife is required to treat her husband as both guru and god, it is hardly surprising that she too may invoke guruvacana, or the wishes of her ‘god’, to justify breaking or bending the traditional rules of stridharma. For her too, the apparently unorthodox, even forbidden, action becomes both orthodox and right.
III
One last important question needs to be tackled. What bearing does this rather bizarre treatise have on the lives and experiences of actual women in India, whether in the ancient past, the eighteenth century, or today? The question becomes more manageable if we break it down into a number of sub-questions and -answers.
First, what is the relationship between text and social reality in more general terms; that is, between the doctrinal (what they say) and the historical (what was actually the case)? The transmission of religious knowledge in India is essentially an oral tradition. What has been recorded whether basic text, commentary or digest-is thus already the result of highly selective and to some extent arbitrary process. Yet these recordings are the very texts on which we base our discussions of Indian religion and culture, and the place of women within them. The task is clearly fraught with danger.
In more specific terms, how authoritative or representative are the different kinds of texts on which Tryambaka has drawn? How, for example, do we judge the historicity of the past conjured up by the Vedic hymns? I have attempted to face this question in my commentary whenever Tryambaka has cited Vedic material; for example, when he alludes to the famous Vedic marriage hymn as evidence for the innate purity of women (section III, pp.252-4).
The texts of dharmasastra, on the other hand, are overtly prescriptive, their pronouncements couched in the characteristic optative mood. From them we learn the duties of men and women according to the orthodox understanding of transcendental law, as represented by that particular compiler or commentator. But how do texts like these relate to social fact?
The work of modern anthropologists is particularly enlightening
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in this respect. A.S. Jameson, for example, in her study of the pilgrimage priests (pāndā, gangāguru) of Hardwar, refers repeatedly to the gap between what her subjects claim they do (i.e. in accorddance with orthodox ideals and precepts) and how they in fact behave. Thus they claim to serve only the twice-born; but many in fact have sudra, tribal or even untouchable jajmāns. They claim not to recite Vedic mantras for sūdras (as Manu specifically prohibits them from doing); yet they are recorded as doing so. They claim not to take donations for ashes; but, as Jameson points out, they could not survive economically if they did not (1976:59,328-52). This gap between textual theory and actual practice is frequently highlighted by anthropological research (e.g. Gombrich 1971). It seems probable that, in both ancient India and eighteenth-century Thanjavur, the strict outlines prescribed by religious ideals were similarly blurred in and by real life.
The relationship between epic literature and social reality is perhaps even more difficult to ascertain. The great Indian epics provide Tryambaka with a profusion of didactic material interlaced with myth and imagination. Are we justified in trying to disentangle sociological evidence from it as well?
Postel-Coster discusses the similar principle of using novels as anthropological material, taking the Indonesian case as her example. She sees the modern novel as a continuation of the myth in traditional societies, but admits that neither novel nor myth draws a picture of social reality in a documentary sense. Literary truth is of a different order: reflections of general ideologies, of the value systems of a particular social class (Postel-Coster 1977:135–50). We should therefore not allow the juxtaposition of mutually exclusive points of view to confuse us unduly. What we have is not so much a conflict of values (although in one sense, of course, we have that too) as a series of different levels of perception: at one end of the scale, statements of the ideal; at the other, all the nuances, variations and shortcomings created when the ideal is carried into daily life. On top of all this, we find the ambivalence inherent in ideals, the positive switching suddenly into its opposite, like a coin flipping over to show the other side.
It is perhaps also worth pointing out that, in India, myth is not so far removed from reality as some outsiders might think. For Indians live their myths. Festivals, ceremonies and dramas are taken straight out of the epics and purānas and replayed year by year
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in villages all over India. In every household, mothers and grandmothers tell and retell these stories to their children until they are embedded in their subconscious minds, emerging to shape their responses to the crises of everyday. Thus when the writer to Manushi exclaims that ‘we must refuse to be Sitas’ (Kishwar and Vanita 1984: 299; see my introduction, p.2), she and those for whom she speaks are resisting not only aspects of Indian culture but, in a very real sense, parts of themselves.
The second sub-question is a more specific restatement of the first. What is the relationship between prescriptive literature written or compiled by a brahmin male élite and the actual experience of women?
Even today, there are orthodox brahmin specialists who-convinced of the rightness of tradition-converse in Sanskrit, pore over the old texts, and take only negative account of other castes and traditions. This distinction between the classical recorded tradition and the largely unrecorded oral traditions is important. An exclusive concern with the former does not rule out the possibility of alternative frameworks for those other segments of society (local gods, tree worship, shamanistic practices, and so on); it merely ignores the problem.
But this religious élite responsible for the texts at our disposal was defined not only by caste and tradition, but also to a very large extent by gender.
In the field of social anthropology, Edwin Ardener’s theory of ‘muted groups’ is now well known (1975; the theory is perhaps best set out in Shirley Ardener’s introduction, 1975:vii—xxii). To summarize it briefly, the dominant modes of expression in any society have been generated by the dominant structure. Only the dominant mode is ‘heard’. Any subdominant group either learns to express its views in terms of the dominant mode or remains inarticulate, ‘muted’. When the polarity is that of gender, the female group is usually the muted one. But, until very recently, most anthropological investigation failed to take this crucial dichotomy into account. At the level of observation in fieldwork (e.g. in terms of marriages, economic activities, rites and so on), the behaviour of women has been exhaustively plotted. But at the second level of the discussion of observed behaviour, there is a real imbalance. Statements about both men and women are made exclusively by men.
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This is precisely the position we find in the study of Indian religious texts. Almost the entire religious and ideological edifice constructed in the Sanskrit texts of Hindu orthodoxy has been written or recorded by men. The religious arena is dominated by men; the rules of religious language itself encoded and expounded by them. The religious role allotted to women is defined in terms of their relationship not to God but to men. For women are given what it is considered fitting for them to do; and, as Hirschon points out, there is a close correlation between what it is thought fitting for someone to do and what he or she is considered capable of doing (1978:73). This is not to assume that women would necessarily have described or prescribed a radically different world view. Indeed, it is highly likely, then as now, that the dominant view was partly or fully internalized by the majority of women. Moreover, we should not be disappointed if this proves to be the case for, as Shirley Ardener points out, it is the small deviations from the norm which may be crucial (1975:xix; cf. Hiebert 1985:98). The traditional male perception of a woman’s role must therefore be seen in relation both to what is found in real life and to what can be gathered from listening to women’s views. Thus the Wisers describe how the women often laugh ‘behind their scarves’ at the air of authority assumed by a man; yet ‘outwardly they approve, and demand submission from his wife’ (1971:79-81). In the Manipur valley, women make ‘a formal expression of deference to male authority’; yet ‘female defiance of male dominance is a profound feature of their culture’ (Chaki-Sirkar 1984: 222). Similarly, Bhuribai claims to be inferior to her husband, on a par with the shoes on his feet; yet she also sees herself as the model of feminine virtue in her own village, virtue incarnate, supporting not only her own husband, family and caste, but the whole of creation as well (Jacobson 1978:134-5).
The chief criterion of a world view, religious or otherwise, is that it is a self-defining system. In a society defined by men, therefore, some features of the corresponding muted group (i.e. women) will not fit that definition. The difference (if any) might lie not in the description but in the evaluation, pointing to positive functions in what the dominant structure sees as negative or inferior. For, on psychological grounds alone, it is hardly likely that half the population of India actually regarded (or regard) themselves in the negative terms outlined by the other half. It is far more probable that they either resisted altogether the interpretations foisted on them (like some of
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the contributors of Manushi; cf. Kishwar and Vanita 1984); or created their own positive construct (like Bhuribai; cf. Jacobson 1978). For Indian women rarely want to be men; nor, as a general rule, do they seek the ‘freedoms’ of Western women.
For a coherent understanding of the religious role of Indian women, therefore, we need several approaches at once. First and foremost, the religious texts relating to women must be closely analysed to reveal the implicit structures and unarticulated tensions. It is hoped that this presentation of Tryambakayajvan’s Strī-dharma-paddhati is a useful contribution to this category of research. Secondly, historical and anthropological studies must provide the missing dimension of experiential reality to our growing knowledge of the texts. It is to the latter that we must look for the elusive ‘woman’s voice’ describing and evaluating her own experience. We do not find it in a text such as this.
What we do find is the viewpoint of an eighteenth-century pandit trained in the study of Sanskrit texts, and steeped in both orthodox tradition and the customs and conventions of his own social group. It is clear that his is in some sense a reactionary voice for it calls on his intended audience of high-caste women at the Maratha court of Thanjavur to resist all the changes implied by a Tamil environment, Muslim overlords, and the encroachment of European influence (see my introduction, pp.3-4). It is equally clear that, while he is evidently familiar with the rulings of dharmasastra and the traditional tales of the epics and purāṇas, he is no real mīmāmsaka, no true philosopher. Rather, he is a pillar of the orthodox establishment, sure of his own mind and the rightness of tradition. Commissioned to compile for the high-caste women of his day all the rulings relating to their religious path as orthodox wives, he has produced this bizarre but intriguing document. His views on women, elaborated at great length and in absorbing detail, are fascinating both in themselves and in their relevance to India today. They deserve to form part of the emerging picture of the religious role of Indian women.