Component-I (A) – Personal details:

Prof. P. Bhaskar Reddy

Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati.

Dr. Rita Chaudhuri

Dept. of AIHC, University of Calcutta.

Dr. Preeta Bhattacharya

Dept. of AIHC, University of Calcutta.

Dr. Rita Chaudhuri

University of Calcutta.

.
Component-I (B) – Description of module:

Subject Name Indian Culture

Paper Name Social and Cultural History of India (From Earliest

to 1707 A.D.)

Module Name/Title Position of Women in Early India

Module Id IC / SCHI / 28

Pre requisites

Objectives The objective of this module is to trace the

evolution of patriarchy in early India and the roles
played by various categories of women in the
processes of production and reproduction

Keywords BrahmanicalPatriarchy, Mother-Goddess, Ganika,

Tevaratiyar

E-text (Quadrant-I) :

1. Introduction

The process of caste, class and gender stratification, the three elements in the
establishment of the social order in India that shaped the formation of Brahmanical
patriarchy, took a considerable period of time to evolve into its complex structure. Going by
existing archaeological studies, which do not lend themselves easily to questions of
stratification, none of the elements outlined above can be clearly traced in the available
evidence. There are, however, some indications that in prehistoric cultures women’s role in
production and reproduction were regarded as valuable.

2. Hunting-gathering society:

In a recent study of the cave paintings at Bhimbetka (5000 BCE), it has been argued that
women were engaged in gathering fruit and other wild produce, and hunting small game
using basket and small nets. They combined their role as mothers with their activities as
gatherers during this hunting – gathering stage of society.

Evidence from the cave paintings in central India thus suggests that in the hunting –
gathering stage there was no rigid sexual division of labour – men hunting and women
gathering – as has sometimes been postulated. In the Mesolithic period in central India, it is
likely that women participated in the hunt apart from undertaking an all important part in
gathering, which in any case accounted for the major source of food in tropical climates. The
role of women in the economy was thus equal to, if not gather than, that of man. The relative
status of men and women among these tribes can at best be characterized as ‘separate but
equal’.
2.1 Origin of Mother-Goddess Worship

Pregnant women, women in their nurturing role as mothers and women in the act of
childbirth are sometimes depicted in the paintings, and the last has been identified as the
figure of a mother goddess. Similar evidence from other prehistoric cultures in the
Mesopotamian region has been used to suggest the prevalence of a pervasive veneration of
the mother goddess. It has also been argued that the first from of religious expression for
men and women was the psychological bond between mother and child, and the ‘life – giving
mother’ appeared to have power over ‘life and death’ thus men and women, observing this
dramatic and mysterious power of the female, turned to veneration of the mother goddess.

In hunting – gathering society female reproductive power is regarded as valuable because

the very survival of the community is dependent upon it. Prehistoric paintings at Kathotia,
Bhimbetka, and Kharwai treat female sexuality as one aspect of female existence. Thus
women as reproducers are as evident as women’s productive activities in the hunting –
gathering economy. There would be little need in such a society for sexual control of women
by men.

3. Harappan Society:

Evidence from the Harappan civilization has not been analyzed from the gender point of
view but there is some indication of the emergence of social stratification – a class of people
who laboured, and others who wielded power and occupied the citadels – in the structure
that have been excavated. However, the existence of numerous mother – goddess icon and
the bronze statue of a dancing girl could be interpreted as the continued importance of
women’s special relationship with reproduction, and may also be seen as an acceptance of
their sexuality. The evidence is not enough to indicate whether or not the sexuality was
already under some kind of control, by men or by certain categories of women. Lerner’s
stimulating study of the creation of patriarchy suggested that some form of community or
clan control over women and their sexuality was an aspect of social organization in the
archaic state, and this may have existed in the Harappan culture too. The abundance of
mother-goddess figurine also symbolizes gradual ritualization of women’s sexuality and
reproductive powers . In a class-divided society, the woman becomes marginal to the
process of social production.In such societies, the valorization of the mother on the
ideational stratum is often in contrast to a depreciation of her values in real life.

4. Vedic Society:

The Vedic period – spans over a thousand years at least, obviously, the position of women
did not remain same during this period. In the early parts of Rgveda we find women enjoying
a measure of freedom as was to be expected amongst a pastoral nomadic people. Society’s
attitude to the women is betrayed in the various images. Usas, dawn, is a beautiful well –
dressed women, also called a shameless hussy, but the text belongs to the latest period of
Rgvedic composition. One notices that a god’s purity is compared to a mortal woman’s, a
wife’s. The unmarried women could choose her partner. Her functions in the home are
nowhere clearly stated in early literature except that she fetched water and watched over the
fields. A later text Satapatha Brahmana says that the girls carded wool. The Rgveda records
women fighting in the battle field. Thus presuppose some measure of equality enjoyed by
women in early Vedic period.
4.1 Education:

At the time of marriage five things were desirable in the bride; wealth, beauty, learning,
intelligence and good lineage. Yet the girl’s right to education is a disputed matter. In the Rig
Veda we have names of twenty-seven women seers who composed several hymns.

What appears to be a more plausible theory is that for the first few decades of Aryan
settlement, women had lost their right of studying the sacred lore, but after the Aryans began
taking non – Aryan wives, society withdrew women’s right to initiation and to study the
sacred texts. As a rule, therefore, the women were deprived from education. But there
certainly were expressions: compassionate fathers taught daughters widowed early in life, or
even maidens until their marriage.

Later, in grammatical texts a rule is laid down for the feminine suffix to signify a women
teacher as distinguished from a teacher’s wife. Thus we are introduced to KasakrtsnaApisala
who was proficient in Mimamsa and grammar. We thus hear that educated women are but
men, although an educated bride was coveted. Slowly but steadily women were relegated to
the domestic chores, confined to the inner apartments.

4.2 Individuality:

We hear that the women’s place was at home. Whatever outdoor life she may have enjoyed
at one time, presumably about a couple of centuries after the Indo- Aryans had settled down
on the Indian soil, she lost that freedom along with most of her rights as an individual. She
had no right to wealth or even on her own body. Since she lost the right of education, her life
was divided into two parts; the early years at her father’s house and after puberty she was
given in marriage and passed the rest of her life at her in laws’ house. A married women was
not supposed to return to stay at her natal house under any circumstances, because it would
give rise to scandal. Marriage was not as obligatory then as it later became. Girls with some
physical blemish required dowry. This signifies that the women were already regarded as a
sort of liability. The real value of women in this phase were as mothers of male children in a
militaristic society.

4.3 Widowhood

Widows probably lived on in the Rgvedic age, sometimes marrying their young brothers-in-
law, as one hymn suggests where the women who at her husband’s death lies by his side
when a man took her by the hand promoting her to enter the land of the living and
reproduce. The background of the text suggests that the practice of self – immolation of the
widow was known, and possibly practised at certain places.

4.4 Polyandry:

Polyandry, too, was not entirely unknown; the Atharvaveda says; ‘when a women who had a
husband before, takes a second husband, she should offer a goat with five rice – offerings.
The text yield alternative meanings of widows remarrying, but in either case whether
polyandry or widow – remarriage, the passage signify rights the women later lost.
4.5 Prostitution:

Prostitution is said to be the world oldest profession and the Vedas know the prostitute under
various names: hasra, agru, rajayitri, apaskadvari etc. Later, the names multiplied and the
rights, obligations and social position became stratified more clearly.

4.6 Polygamy:

An extremely revealing passage says: That is prosperity when a man’s wives are fewer than
his cattle’. One notices that cattle and wives are uttered in the same breath in the sense of
affluence. One man has many wives. Even in the Rgveda we hear of polygamy. The
Maitrayani Samhita mentions the ten wives of Manu; the Taittiriya Samhita narrates how the
Moon, a husband of twenty seven wives was punished because his partiality to Rohini.

5. Early Historical Period

5.1 Sources

In the early historical period we have a wide range of sources which throw light on the
declining position of women in society. Apart from the Buddhist texts which began to take
shape from 3rd century BCE we can extract relevant information on the position of women
from the Arthasastra(3rd century BCE-1st/2nd century CE), the early Dharmasutra
literature(c.3rrd-2nd century BCE), The Smriti text of Manu (c.1st-2nd century CE) and the
Kamasutra (c. 3rd/4th century CE).

5.2 Genaral Picture

A woman as a social inferior is apparent right at the moment of her birth and is sought to be
justified by a piece of pseudo – logic. The rule regarding ‘the mother of girl children only’
being punished severely, brings out only too glaringly the position of girls in society. In
marriage also, she begins her conjugal life as an inferior. We notice that she is required to
submerge her personality entirely in her husband’s. She is treated as an inert mindless
object whose object in life is to please her husband. A woman is protected by her father in
childhood, by her husband in youth and by her sons in old age; she is not entitled to any
freedom. The venerable Yajnavalkya says, ‘when a wife refuse to satisfy her husband’s
sexual desire he should first speak soft words, then try to purchase her with gifts, and if she
still refuses he should thrash her with his hand or with a stick and force her into subjugation.

5.3 Material Resources:

Our understanding of the gendered nature of rural economic networks is extremely tenuous.
While there are occasional representation of women agricultural labours and women within
rural household, these have not, as yet, been integrated into a larger picture. Textual
traditions, generated more than not by the urban elite, suggest that the women who stayed
at home was an index of male status. At the same time, women who worked outdoors are
mentioned. These would indicate that sexual divisions of labour were by no means constant
or uniform.

Within these constrains, Brahmanical normative texts offer one perspective on the theme. If
we turn to texts such as the Manusmriti, we find that the legitimate means of acquiring
resources open to women were amazingly few: these were effectively confined to gifts made
by kinsmen, and did not include access to resources such as land and cattle, which, apart
from the wealth generated from trade and crafts, would have been extremely valuable.

Yet, this scenario is rendered more complex by at least two other kinds of evidence: one,
that of votive inscriptions, which indicate that at least from the second century BCE, women
were making donations to a variety of religious institutions. These grants were made to
Buddhist, Jain, and, to a lesser extent, Brahmanical institutions. Many of these gifts were
used to finance architectural elements such as pillars and railings used to embellish religious
monuments, while some were used for the construction of caves, stupas, and monasteries.
Others went into the endowment of images.

It is possible to argue that women supportive of ‘heterodox’ traditions were probably in a

position to exercise greater control over resources than those who were located within a
more overtly Brahmanical context. At virtually every site from where votive inscriptions have
been recovered, male donors tend to outnumber women. While most men and women
probably made small donations, the proportion of men who made substantial donation was
perhaps higher than that of women. The text Therigatha presumably composed by the senior
nuns of the Buddhist Samgha also articulates women’s engagements with spiritual questions
and a communicative space , however small , taking shape.

5.4 The Position of the Courtesans

As the above instance pertaining to a specific region indicates, translating access to material
resources into social status was by no means uncomplicated. These complications and
ambivalences are perhaps most clearly articulated in the case of courtesans or sex-workers.
The Arthasastra relates that the household of the Ganika could be regulated by the state,
and could be under close supervision. They would pay taxes to the state which in return
protected them from abusers and swindlers. It is uncertain whether this degree of regulation
was ever achieved in practice. Anyway, most of the women who provided sexual services
were several notches lower on the social scale and could not expect state protection. An
examination of texts relating to the early historic period suggests that the presence of sex-
workers was intrinsic to urban culture. They figure in Sanskrit texts, of which the
Mrcchakatika, a Sanskrit play composed in the early historic period, is perhaps the best
known. Perhaps the most illuminating and discussion on sex work occurs in the Kamasutra.
This indicates that sexual service could be expressed from a range of women. These
included domestic servants and slaves, women engaged in craft production, entertainer,
women who were considered guilty of sexual transgressions, those who had been subjected
to sexual assault, as well as those who explicitly earned a living by their looks and
accomplishment. Most of these women especially the slave girls and Kumbhadasis
mentioned in the Buddhist texts had no control whatsoever over their own bodies and labour.

5.5 Emergence of Temple Women

One of the most significant developments in the beginning of the Early medieval period was
the growth of temples as ritual centers, most notably in the area of present-day Tamil Nadu,
but in other regions as well. The roots of this development may be traced to the early
centuries of the first millennium. A distinct category of women, known as the tevaratiyar or
temple women, emerged during this period.
Women’s claims to status were somewhat circumscribed in comparison to those of man. The
inscriptions of the tevaratiyar, for instance, do not contain the meykkirity (equivalent of the
Sanskrit prasasti), indicating that there were domains of ritual and political power that were
out of bounds for them. Also, women were excluded from prestigious ritual roles, including
that of priest and drummer. Incidentally, dancing was not regarded as a particularly
prestigious performance at this stage.

5.6 Women and Work

Scholars who have sieved through textual traditions such as the Jatakas for north India and
Sangam literature for the southern areas, have documented the presence of women in a
wide range of occupations – as agricultural labourers, pastoralists, and those engaged in a
variety of crafts, including basket-making, weaving, and in some instance, pottery. What is
more remarkable is that when the women donors construct their identity in votive
inscriptions, they rarely mention their occupations.

5.7 Attitudes towards the reproduction and sexuality:

It was at this point in history, that a sharp distinction needed to be made between
motherhood and female sexuality, with the latter being channelized only into legitimate
motherhood within a tightly controlled structure of reproduction that ensured caste purity.
This was the general context in which women’s ‘essential nature’ came to be identified with
their sexuality, although it was not directly or explicitly associated as such. According to one
text, women have been sinful right from the beginning when the creator first made the five
gross elements, the three words, and then gave shape to men and women. Women are the
edge of a razor, poison, snakes and fire, all rolled into one. At the time of creation, the
original Manu allocated to women the habit of living, sitting around, an indiscriminate love of
ornaments, anger, meanness, treachery and bad conduct. As early as the Satapatha
Brahmana, we are told that a women, a shudra, a dog and a crow are the embodiments of
untruth, sin and darkness. The view that women’s innate nature is lascivious and evil was so
pervasive that if features even in Buddhist literature. A Jataka story states that women are a
sex composed of wickedness and guile; womankind holds for falsehood and falsehood for
truth. They are unstable as the sand and as cruel as the snake.

Even Ramayana associates most women with being essentially weak and sinful. According
to Kaushalya, women do not care for a good family, good deeds or wisdom, and their hearts
are ever inconstant. The sage Agastya states that it has been women’s nature ever since
creation to cling to a man when he prospers and to desert him in difficulty; her fickle nature is
modeled on the flashes of lightning. According to Tryambaka’s version of Manu’s
Stripumdharma, women are innately promiscuous, fickle-minded, lacking in life and unfaithful
to their husbands even when they closely guarded. Menstruation, according to myth, is
associated with women’s participation in brahmana murder. It is a mark of a women’s
impurity and, at the same time of her sexuality. The congenital fickleness of women’s nature
is especially pertinent to the problem of dealing with the innately overflowing and
uncontrollable sexuality of women. The Mahabharata states that they are difficult to control:
the cunning tricks of demon are known to be unique to women.
6. Close Links between Patriarchy and the Class-Structure

This projection of the fear of women’s uncontrolled sexuality was the backdrop to the
obsession with creating an effective system of control and the need to guard them
constantly; when the controls are relaxed, or cannot be effectively mounted, women’s
inordinate sexual appetite will lead them to adulterous liaisons. A striking aspect of the
obsessive need for control over women in the narrative literature of the Buddhists is that it
has a close link with women of the upper strata, particularly with the wives of kings and
brahmanas and occasionally of gahapatis, who were among the dominant sections of
society and closely associated with land.

7. State and Patriarchy

The patriarchal state of early india viewed adultery as one of the major ‘crimes’ in society. In
the Buddhist literature, only two functions are associated with kingship in early India:
punishing those who commit crimes against the family, that is adulterers, and those who
commit crimes against property, that is robbers. Even before the state emerged, we have
evidence of the notion that control over women’s sexuality is the concern of the community
of men that constitutes the clan in whom political authority is vested. An ancient records in
the VinayaPitaka describes how a woman who had committed adultery flees from her
husband who has been authorized by the clan to kill her, and seeks shelter in the Buddhist
sangha to escape this punishment.

After the emergence of the state, the Brahmanical normative literature and the semi-secular
Arthasastra laid down punishments for violation of the sexual code, which the king was
expected to enforce. These texts reflect the more general anxiety about the husband’s need
for progeny to complete the religious requirements of men and the need to ensure
‘legitimate’ succession to pass on property, but there is also a deep concern about the
maintenance of the hierarchical social order based on caste which must be reproduced
without diluting the purity principle. Manu states this explicitly while discussing adultery.
According to him, ‘By adultery is caused the mixture of castes among men; hence follows
sin, which cuts up even the roots and causes the destruction of everything.

8. Conclusion

It was the recognition that men were dependent upon women to perpetuate the social and
moral order of their making that led them to confront the problem of women’s sexuality.
Reproductive power was the one power that women still held in the new structure of
relations in which they were subordinated, and one way of dealing with it was to
simultaneously exaggerate and treat women’s ‘innate’ natureas terribly dangerous. Their
uncontrolled sexuality was perceived as posing a threat, and the narrative and normative
literature of ancient India is full of reference to the wickedness of women and their
‘insatiable’ lust.

9. Summary

In Early India the Brahmanical Patriarchy developed in collusion with other hegemonic
institutions like the state, class structure, caste system and organized religion. The scanty
evidences from the prehistoric period allow us to assume a period of recognition of women’s
worth in the society both in terms of production and reproduction. Men and women were
separate but more or less equal. With the coming of the advanced class society of Harappan
urbanism we see that the sexuality of women became ritualized and the cult of the mother-
goddess proliferated. During the early Vedic period women apparently enjoyed a measure of
freedom in the domains of learning and rituals but the real value of women lay in their
reproductive capacities , as mothers of male children. With the coming of the nascent state
and private property the position of women deteriorated and they were gradually being
confined within the domestic sphere. From the early Historical period a range of prescriptive
texts appeared and sought to control women’s sexuality as well as their access to resources.
The literary texts of the early Historic and Early Medieval period are also replete with
references to the innate nature of women – their greed and insatiable sexual lust and the
need to subjugate women under the yoke of the king, the Brahmana and the patriarchal
family. However, we have alternative narrative especially from creative literature and
Buddhist texts which uphold to a certain extent the agency of women within various contexts.