Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices)

by Julius Lipner

  While the householder had a particular duty to offer hospitality and to protect vulnerable life, this was not meant to be an indiscriminate obligation. In early times quite elaborate rules were described as to what being a guest meant and how guests from different varṇas were to be treated;and where the protection of vulnerable life was concerned, though abortion in general was roundly condemned, medical texts permitted the practice in the name of dharma to save the life of the mother (see Lipner in Coward, Lipner & Young 1989).

  In the course of time, and as the religion of bhakti or single-minded devotion to God developed, the obligation to perform the mahāyajñas was reinterpreted somewhat. Although in general the universe continued to be seen as multi-layered (the devas being viewed either as expressions of one underlying divine Being or as supra-human agents of this Being), for the bhakta or sectarian theist, the supreme deity was viewed as the source, mainstay and end of all finite reality. This brought a greater coherency to the idea underlying the practice of the mahāyajñas. In later (post-Manu) texts, there was a tendency in theistic circles to regard the performance of the mahāyajñas as in general discharging one's debts to one's ancestors, to the sages who inspired and propagated Vedic religion, to society and to the world, as part of the homage due to the one divine Source of all being.10 This continues to be a popular belief among Hindus and is often repeated in books on Hinduism written by Hindus themselves.

  Vānaprasthya

  If a twice-born male wished, he could go on to become a ‘forest-dweller’ (vanaprastha) and/or ascetic or renouncer (saṃnyāsin). Generally, the stage of forest-dweller (or vaikhānasa as it is sometimes called11) is mentioned as coming before saṃ nyāsa. This distinction is probably the result of a Hindu tendency to view development as a graded process, and to favour groups of four. In any case, the idea is that after discharging his duties, the householder, if he so wishes, detaches himself progressively from the concerns of the world with a view to achieving peace of mind and the appropriate wisdom in this existence and post-mortem fulfilment outside the cycle of life. He begins by putting his household affairs in order; then he departs to a secluded place, usually outside areas of human settlement (hence vana, ‘forest’, prastha, ‘dweller’). He may take his wife or go alone. If he goes alone, he must first provide for his wife and children. According to Manu: ‘Only when a householder sees that he has wrinkles and grey hair and a grandchild (or grandchildren?), may he resort to the forest’ (6.2). It seems that if he goes alone, his wife (or wives) should raise no objection.

  The texts describe an increasingly austere life in this state, merging into the complete mental and physical renunciation that characterizes the final āśrama of saṃnyāsa. Thus the forest-dweller is to remain celibate, sparsely clothed, and should practise austerity, dependence on nature, and begging, viz. for food. He is not to hoard food unduly, and should provide for visitors in his forest retreat so far as he is able. He is to recite the Veda – even if it is only the sacred syllable ‘Om’ – and keep the sacred fire. He may cook his food and, according to early traditions, eat meat that he has not killed himself, e.g. meat received through begging. He is to gradually adopt a more strict way of life, becoming more and more of an ascetic, refraining from all self-indulgence and cooked food, and eating only vegetarian fare. He is on the threshold of the fourth and last stage, that of the renouncer.

  SaṃnyāSa

  In this āśrama – sometimes also called bhaiksya (mendicancy) – the forest-dweller ceases to tend the sacred fire. In fact, by a special rite he incorporates the sacred fire(s) into himself. Henceforth, fuelled by his austerities, he is to be a living fire, his spirit shining through, like a smokeless flame (see the Maitrī Upaniṣad 1.2ff.). Utterly detached from material possessions and from family, he becomes a wanderer and begs for his sustenance. He is to be without guile. One authority says that, rather than making for a homestead where the kitchen smoke is visible, in expectation of freshly prepared food, he is to beg at a dwelling where no kitchen smoke is to be seen. He is to recite the Veda, even if it is only a few sacred words, utterly indifferent to the ‘dvandvas’, i.e. those ‘opposites’ of worldly existence like hot and cold, poverty and wealth, tasty and bland, male and female, beautiful and ugly, affection and hatred, desire and aversion, joy and sorrow, life and death, etc. in which ordinary people live and move and have their being. Thus disciplined, and desiring harm to no being, when he dies he will pass out of the cycle of death into immortality, his accumulated karma consumed by the fire of his austerities. Some passages allow him to bring about his own death by the gradual reduction of food as he makes his final, wandering ‘greatjourney’ (mahā-prasthāna) through life. But it was recognized that the life of the forest-dweller and the renouncer was the way of a few. It was commended without being enforced, and a man could just as well live out his days ‘under the roof of his son(s)’.

  There are still saṃnyāsins to be seen wandering about India. In the gatherings of special holy days, they come out in their hundreds and thousands, clutching begging-bowls and staffs in their hands, their sometimes ash-smeared bodies displaying one or two items of sparse clothing. Many Hindus regard such saṃnyāsins with suspicion, unsure as to whether they are the genuine article or fakes opportunistically cadging for food as part of a deceiving lifestyle. But there are genuine renouncers in the land. These are not great in number; they tend to live unostentatious lives, and when regarded as genuine, they are shown great reverence as symbols of a truth and reality that reside in this world but are not of it.

  The whole construct described above was called varṇāśrama dharma, and it was the ideal Vedic life style envisaged by the Codifiers for twice-born males. The theology undergirding it could be theistic or monistic, depending on the religious beliefs of the practitioner. How fully it was implemented in Hindu society is impossible to say. It was widely deferred to as a comprehensive ideal till recent times, until, in fact, modern critiques and forms of life, developed in particular under British rule and after independence, modified or re-configured parts of this ideal. No doubt, historically, in so far as it was practised to some extent, it must have been subject to extensive adaptation according as circumstance and temperament varied. The modern forms of this orthodox, Vedic ground-plan will be considered later.

  Women and the ideal of strī-dharma

  Let us now consider the place of women in the traditional Hindu view of life, but with reference to the modern context. The ‘Aryan'woman had some individual standing in early Vedic times. It was intended that she take part in the solemn ritual and presumably share in its immortalizing power.12 The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa clearly implies that a man when performing the sacrifice is incomplete if his wife does not sacrifice with him, and that it is as ‘a whole’ that a husband should strive for the highest sacrificial goal of immortality (5.2.1.10). The Taittirīya Brāhmaṇ declares that without a wife a man is not eligible to sacrifice.13 In Vedic religion, the wife was man's saha-dharmiṇī or ‘partner in dharma’ (an expression used till modern times14), and it was as a unit (dampatī) that husband and wife were supposed to perform the sacrificial ritual. However, it is also clear that if a woman was not quite an adjunct to her husband in the unity of the sacrificial act, she was his junior partner. Rarely, if ever, could she perform the solemn ritual independently of him. Further, it was only as a wife that she was empowered to function as a complement in this context; she could not act as sister, friend, etc. Later works, e.g. the Rāmāyaṇa, indicate that wives could act by themselves in certain domestic rites;however, even here, these actions are supposed to be for the benefit of their husbands. This idea of wives being subordinates of the husband in matters of worship has persisted into contemporary times. I know from personal experience that in Bengal, for instance, even Westernized women who are anti-traditionalist in many respects are reluctant to perform, or will not take part in, say, the ritual worship before the image of the Goddess Durgā during her great autumnal festival, i
f their husbands are barred from this owing to some ritual impediment such as a death in the family.

  To return to ancient times, there was scope for a woman in her own right to be formally initiated into Vedic study and to discourse on Vedic subjects. This could not apply to Śüdra women, of course. But it seems that in early Vedic times women of the three upper varṇas were permitted or expected to undergo some formal brahmacarya discipline, viz. studying the Veda, before marriage. Perhaps this was intended to ratify their upper-caste status and so preserve the integrity of the varṇa system for males. But as study of the Veda grew more specialized, marriage for girls was deferred. And this was not to be encouraged. Young men could wait longer to be wed, but the sooner girls got married off the better! The reason is depressingly familiar; it has its cultural counterparts around the world. There was a growing tendency to regard women as sources of ritual impurity (the discharge of all those bodily fluids through menstruation, childbirth, etc.!) and as naturally weak, not only physically but also morally. To offset these frailties, women had to be protected and controlled – by men. Marriage, male-dominated marriage, was the institution by which this was to be done.

  But before this kind of thinking governed social practice, women were allowed to show their prowess in an activity that brought prestige, power and even wealth, viz. Vedic instruction. Most women in general were married off usually in their teens;they were then expected to devote themselves, as the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad says (4.5.1), to the acquiring of domestic expertise (strī-prajña). But some women were permitted, even after marriage, to pursue the prestigious occupation of giving instruction in Vedic lore. The first type of woman was called a sadyovadhu (a ‘bride’, vadhū, married off ‘without delay’, sadyas), the second was known as a brahmavādinī (a ‘discourser on Brahman’).

  The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad gives us a glimpse of what being a ‘discourser on Brahman’ could mean for a woman. It tells of a great sacrifice held under the patronage of Janaka, king of Videha, at which many Brahmins were present (3.1.1ff). Janaka, who presumably prided himself on being a patron of learning, combined the occasion with a contest to discover who was the most learned Brahmin in Vedic lore amongst those present. Holy quizzes of this kind were not uncommon on such occasions; remember, as noted in an earlier chapter, expertise in Vedic lore was often a competitive affair. Janaka offered a fabulous prize to the winner: a thousand cows, with ten gold coins tied to each horn.

  The chief contender was a sage called Yājñavalkya. He had a number of challengers, and he kept silencing them one by one. In due course, Gārgī Vācaknavī threw down the gauntlet. Gārgī was not easily silenced; she seems to have made two attempts, and it is her second attempt we are interested in.

  ‘Now, respected Brahmins’, she said, ‘I shall ask him two questions. If he can answer them, none of you can defeat him in quizzes about Brahman’.

  ‘Ask, Gārgī’, said Yājñavalkya. [What impresses is how she asked.]

  ‘Yājñavalkya’, she said,‘Like a warrior-son of Kāśī or Videha [no doubt with a sidelong glance at Janaka] might stand against you having strung his untaut bow and taken up two arrows deadly to the foe, even so do I confront you with two questions. Give me the answers’.

  We shall not go into what Gārgī asked or the details of what happened (she lost). But she was clearly a woman of spirit, and the nature of Yājñavalkya's answer shows that he respected her for her spirit and learning.15 With the passage of time, as the tendency to denigrate women intensified, the likes of Gārgī became few and far between.

  By the time of Manu, marriage was the only āśramic institution, if one can put it thus, that was open, in practice, to women. Various rites could be performed for them but without being leavened by Vedic utterance (see e.g. Manu 2.66), and in general they were perceived as wells of ritual pollution and as symbols and stimuli par excellence of lust and other vices – for men, of course.

  It is the nature (svabhāva) of women to be the bane (dūṣaṇa) of men here [viz. in this life]; for this reason wise men are never unguarded in the presence of women. In this world women are able to lead not only the foolish but even the learned man astray, making him bounden to lust and anger.

  (Manu2.213–14)

  All women, irrespective of varṇa, were in the texts cast more or less in the same mould, as virtual non-entities both socially and religiously. They were supposed to be granted little or no independence. They were barred from studying and teaching the Vedas, and they were marginalized from the solemn ritual. As time went by, their religion consisted in ‘smārta’ ritual, that is, such practices as worship before images in the home and temple, the observance of vows and fasts (usually on behalf of husbands and children), the attending and participating in rites of passage, the recitation of and listening to sacred texts that were not officially part of the original Vedic canon, and so on. They gained respect specifically as child-bearers, viz. wives, and child-rearers, i.e. mothers. Once again Manu can be quoted to good effect: ‘Day and night women must be kept dependent by their menfolk, and if they become attached to worldly things they must be kept under one's control. Protected in childhood by her father, in youth by her husband, and in old age by her sons, a woman is not fit for independence (svātantryam) (9.2–3; see also 5.147–9).

  Thus, not surprisingly, women's code of dharma was male-oriented. ‘Where women are concerned, the marriage-injunction is reckoned [equivalent to] a Vedic rite, service to the husband [is reckoned equivalent to] residing with the Guru [to study the Veda], and housework [is reckoned equivalent to] tending the sacred fires’ (Manu 2.67). In theory, then, the married life, service of the husband and domestic expertise made up the broad parameters of strī-dharma, woman's dharmic code. Remember that Manu does not stand alone;Manu summed up a longstanding tradition which it then reinforced and helped perpetuate. It was not long before ‘women and Śūdras'became a by-word for a number of social and religious disabilities. By Manu's time, the grandest thing a woman could do was to be chastely married, perhaps as the senior wife (patnī) and to spend the rest of her days bringing up her children and serving her husband.

  These are the qualities of the senior wife, drawn from the Strīdharma-paddhati, a manual of injunctions about the behaviour of a good Hindu wife composed in the eighteenth century. The summary is given by Julia Leslie:

  Married with full ceremony, she is entitled to participate both in the kindling of the sacred fires and in her husband's religious obligations. But class (varṇa) is more important than timing. If a man has a wife of the same class as himself, then he should not ask any other wife not of the same class to assist him in his religious duties. The [senior wife] patni is thus the first wife of the same class as her husband.

  The image of the senior wife provided by Sanskrit religious law is largely positive. She is her husband's religious partner [saha-dharmiṇīī], assisting him in the important daily rituals. She is entitled to attend to his personal needs, his bathing and dressing, the preparation of his food. Ideally, she is the mother of his sons. She is in charge of kitchen and household, supervises household chores, delegates to junior wives and servants, and is responsible for the well-being of all within the home. These are the positive, powerful qualities stressed by Sanskrit religious law. In this context, both her religious status in the household and the authority that goes with it are secure.

  (Leslie1991:123)

  Though Manu declares that the husband should act as if marriages are made in heaven, and that mutual fidelity should sum up the married life (‘The husband obtains his wife as a gift of God/the gods (devadattāṃpatir bhāryāṃvindate, 9.95) ... Let there be lifelong fidelity (avyabhicāra ... āmaraṇāntika) between them’, 9.101), the balance of the relationship is made clear. The husband is the wife's lord and master, more or less literally her ‘god’ (‘Though devoid of virtue, debauched or completely lacking in good qualities, the husband must always be revered by a good wife (striyā sādhvyā) as a g
od (devavat)’, 5.154).

  The ‘good wife’ (sādhvī strī or satī): to what extent might she go to prove how ‘good’ or virtuous she was? To the extent even of cremating herself on her husband's funeral pyre, if she wished. This is what a ‘good wife, a satī, could do (the English word ‘suttee’ comes from this term). It is important to note that down the ages there was no unanimity among Hindu Dharma Codes and commentators on dharma about the righteousness of this practice. Manu does not prescribe suttee; some authorities permit or recommend it, others roundly condemn it, describing it as reprehensible, as adharma, because it is really a form of suicide which does not help the husband or the one who performs the act in any way. The view of the seventh-century C.E. savant Bāṇa is quoted as follows:

  The custom is a foolish mistake of stupendous magnitude, committed under the reckless impulse of despair and infatuation. It does not help the dead for he goes to heaven or hell according to his deserts. It does not ensure reunion since the wife who has uselessly sacrificed her life goes to the hell reserved for suicides. By living she can still do much good both to herself by pious works and to the departed by offering oblations for his happiness in the other world. By dying she only adds to her misery.

  (quoted in A. Sharma 1988:15)

  This view seems somewhat simplistic (for reasons we shall consider) and perhaps not entirely consistent (for the wife may have believed, in accordance with a view endorsed by some authorities, that the suttee-wife went to heaven or obtained heaven with her husband;again, if the husband went to hell according to his deserts, how could his living wife increase his happiness, by oblations or otherwise, in the other world?). The point is, however, that the act of suttee was the subject of dharmic dispute, and we have said enough about dharma to indicate that this should not be surprising. Further, suttee was forbidden by dharma-authorities in certain circumstances. Thus the Mitākṣara, mentioned in Chapter 5, commenting on Yājñavalkya Smṛti 1.86, recommends suttee as righteous practice for all wives, even for the Caṇḍāla (a despised mixed caste), except for those who were pregnant or who had young children (note that even Caṇḍālas were within the scope of dharma). This comment on the text draws our attention to an important point by implication: that the debate about suttee turned really on what was expected of younger wives when their husbands died;the concern was not really about matronly widows who had more or less lived full lives according to the expectations of their times.