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History of India 1 HISTORY Subject : History Paper No. : Paper - 1 History of India Unit No. & Title : Unit – 5 Background to the Emergence of Early Historic India Topic No. & Title : Topic - 1 Vedic Period up to c. A.D. 650 Lecture No. & Title : Lecture - 1 Vedic Society (For under graduate student) Script VEDIC SOCIETY This unit makes a survey of the Vedic literature in order to graph the nature of the Vedic society, its practices and institutions. The literature describes a society that evolved through approximately one and a half millennia from 1500 to the 6th century B.C.E. The Rig Veda Samhitā, with its ten History of India 2 mandalas, provides us with the information on the early phase, while the other three Samhitā along with the Brāhmaņas, Āraņyakas and Upaņișads cover the later phase. Literary data indicates that bands of nomadic Vedic people had entered and circulated in the stretch of valleys from the Panjshir to Ghorband Rivers, south of Hindukush, and gradually with time moved across the Sutlej – Ganga Divide to the Upper Ganga valley. Throughout this whole span of time and space society underwent several significant and dynamic changes, which can be gleaned from a minute study of the Vedic corpus. The society was primarily ordered into innumerable tribes mentioned in the texts as jana. The Vedic jana was the most popular socio-political unit, later indicating probably whole tribes settled in a certain area. A number of early tribes are referred in the Rig Veda like the Purus, Anus, Druhyus, Yadus, Tŗtsus, Bharatas, and others. The Pakhtas, Bhalanasas, Alinas and Visanins lived west of the Indus. We also hear of eastern tribes like Ajas, Sirgus and Yaksus. Archaeological data points to a concentration of settlements and cultures, roughly contemporary to the later phase of History of India 3 the Vedic literature, in the lower doabs of the Punjab, Haryana and northern Rajasthan. The Sarasvati described as a mighty river might have been flowing east of Sutlej and met the Indus in the Sind region. It was described as eventually joining the ocean. There are indications of hydraulic changes in this area, which were investigated by geologists, which might have affected the life of both the Late Harappans and the incoming Vedic tribes in the area. This phenomenon would date to the latter half of the 2nd millennium BCE, a date which would not conflict with the generally accepted chronology for much of the Rig Veda. Hydraulic changes in northern Rajasthan may well have subsequently compelled migrations of a scale such as are suggested in the movement of Bharatas and Purus from southern Punjab and northern Rajasthan to Haryana and the upper Doab or the wanderings of the Yadus to Mathura and Saurashtra. Apart from several warring Indo-Aryan tribes, the Vedic texts refer to Dāsas or Dasyus who were the ubiquitous foes of the Indo–Aryan speaking people. The former were probably to be identified with the earlier established History of India 4 indigenous chalcolithic and Late Harappan folk, who defended themselves in fortified places- purah, a word which later referred to a town. These places were surrounded by, palisades or walls. Many Vedic hymns praise the chief god of the Vedic Aryans, Indra, as a destroyer of forts (purandara). The Rig Veda describes them as a-varta, people who do not obey the ordinances of the gods and akratu, those who do not perform sacrifices. The adjective mŗdra-vacha applied to them has been interpreted in different ways,– as referring to their speech being indistinct, unclear, soft, unintelligible, uncouth, hostile, scornful and abusive. The term kșņna-tvach or asikņi-tvach, literally interpreted as “dark skinned”, has been applied to the Dasyus thrice in the Rig Veda. Dāsas have also been referred to as anāsa, interpreted variously as noseless or flat nosed, faceless, in some metaphorical sense and even mouthless, perhaps referring to their incomprehensible speech. There is a solitary reference to the four varņas in the Purușasūkta hymn of the tenth mandala. But there are many more numerous references in the Rig Veda to the History of India 5 jana or tribe, gana or tribal groups in a semi-political organisation, viśah or the clans and grāma or the settlement of the kin groups, would indicate that there was an absence of a rigorous Varņa- divided society during this early period of social formation which was marked by the existence of simpler lineage relations and groups. However, this was not an egalitarian society, as the information in the Rig Veda bore out. The hymns mentioned rich and generous persons, Maghavan, who were sources of wealth and gifts, individuals rich in cattle wealth, gomat and even the burgeoning owners of cultivation fields- kșetrapati. Romila Thapar points out that the Vedic jana (tribe) incorporated a number of viś (clans). Kinship was a deciding factor in socio-political units in early days, kin family being the lowest social unit. The jana therefore comprised of clans of kins. The familial linkages of these social units were denoted by their gotras. Settlements or grāma were populated by, the members of the same large kin tribe. Clan lands were held jointly by, the Jana. History of India 6 With the adoption of agriculture and division of labour a class arose that primarily produced food and was associated with manual labour, and another which took over the tasks of protecting the land, cattle and the people and also leading in wars of aggression. This process may have led to a bifurcation in the jana, which may originally have been more egalitarian. By the time the Rig Veda was composed the jana had bifurcated into the viśah and the rājanya, the latter constituting the ruling families. Thapar found the explanation of this bifurcation in the inevitable division of the viśah into senior and junior lineages out of growing changes in economic and leadership structures. Clear indications of the socio-political distinction enjoyed by the chariot-riding warriors who were pre-eminently the guardians and protectors of the agropastoral viśah are there in the Rig Veda. The viśah as the junior lineage provided voluntary donations or bali to the rājanyas. The latter as the senior lineages doubtless kept a larger share of the booty from raids and bali but as long as the wealth came from History of India 7 pastoralism in the main there was a relatively more equitable distribution. This wealth was further redistributed among a limited group through dāna and dakşiņā bestowed by the rājanyas on the brāhmaņas and bards and oblations offered at the yajña rituals. But with time bali was formally extracted on special occasions, marked especially by performances of great public rituals and a further social division arose with the redistribution of wealth to the priests on these and other occasions . The priests gained this position through the exercise of their ritual power in legitimising the authority of the aspiring rājanyas through the performance of rituals. With time the sacrificial rituals drew off a large proportion of surplus wealth and the status of the rājanya gradually rose to eventual association with deities. The rājanyas of the Rig Veda gradually came to be denoted by their potency - kșatra, the term implying sovereign power. The concurrent rise in the authority of the priests in the society was expressed in terms of their supreme claim of association with Brahma or sacerdotal power. The realm of authority and social leadership was thus divided into the two spheres of Brahma and Kșatra. The widening socio–political gap between the Ksatriya and History of India 8 the viśah brought about a certain tension and ultimately took the form of the Kshatriya claiming more rights of appropriation and the viśah being reduced to subordination. It is to be noticed that as long as the settlements were comparatively small, simple lineage authority was sufficient as a mechanism of control. However, with the growth of farming population surplus, there was and a settlements consequent producing growth of greater wealth redistribution and evolution of hierarchy based on control over the surplus. The above changes in the interrelations of the priestly and ruling classes on the one hand and the common producers on the other, were the manifest results of these factors. These led to a complex social situation and the crystallization of the varņa by the beginning of the later Vedic times and the concept and practices of authority in society and polity also began to assume extra-tribal characteristics. A late hymn in the tenth mandala of the Rig Veda contains the first evidence of this new system. It describes the abstract sacrifice of the primal being, the Purușa, and the creation of the universe and of the four Varņas from his History of India 9 body. This hymn reflects the creation of a myth in conceptualisation of a sacerdotal legitimacy for the social hierarchy implied in the Varņa system. The normative importance of the Varna rule for ordering of the society was thus laid down, putting the brāhmaņa at the apex of the social hierarchy: “When gods prepared the sacrifice with Purușa as their offering. Its oil was spring, the holy gift was autumn, and summer was the wood. When they divided Purușa how many portions did they make? What do they call his mouth, his arms? What do they call his thighs and feet? The Brāhmaņa was his mouth, of both arms was the Rājanya made. His thighs became the Vaiśya, from his feet the Sudra was produced.” (RV, X, 90) But the full-fledged caste system assumed greater order and importance only at a much later date. The origin of Varņa discrimination remains in speculation and has been explained by different scholars in different ways. It has been argued that colour or Varņa served as the badge of History of India 10 distinction between the Aryan-speaking people and the indigenous folks, many of whom were subsequently subjugated in wars and raids as is time and again mentioned in the hymns of the Rig Veda. The social status of the victors and the defeated were concurrent with the difference in their skin colours. Thus the notion of Varņa as the great social divider arose as a prominent aspect. Varņa soon assumed new and extended meaning, including divisions in occupation, and since occupations began to become hereditary towards the later part of the early Vedic phase, the idea of ‘caste’ was applied also to the Vedic people themselves in order to classify the strata of priests, warriors, free peasants and the labourer or slave. The absence of a strict social hierarchy and the existence of an element of social mobility are suggested in the third mandala of the Rig Veda (RV3. 44-45). In this hymn, the poet prays to the god Indra: “O, Indra, would you make me the protector of people, or would you make me a king, would you make me a sage who has drunk soma, would you History of India 11 impart to me endless wealth?” A certain amount of fluidity in occupations is also suggested in the Rig Veda as late as in the ninth mandala (RV, 9.112.3), where the poet says “I am a reciter of hymns, my father is a physician and my mother grinds (corn) with stones. We desire to obtain wealth in various actions”. This suggests that a man could aspire to different sorts of vocations and goals in life even towards the end of the early Vedic phase. By the later Vedic times social regulations had assumed greater importance in the life of the people. The life of the individual was conceptualised in four stages. An individual put his childhood behind and became a Brahmachārin on his investiture with the sacred thread. He was ordered to lead the life of celibacy and austerity – Brahmacharya - as a student at the home of his teacher. Having mastered the Vedas, or part of them, the individual returned to his parental home and was married, becoming a householder gŗhastha, assuming the stage of gārhasthya. Well advanced in middle age, his task in family life fulfilled and progenies safely established the individual was to leave his home for the forest. This was the stage known as vānaprastha. In the History of India 12 last stage of life he freed his soul from material things by meditation and penance, left his hermitage and assumed the state of an ascetic – sannyās. The series of the four stages is evidently an idealization reflecting the attempt at social ordering down to the individual level on the part of the dominant social caste, the brāhmaņa. According to the scheme of the four stages life began not with physical birth, but with the second birth, or investiture with the sacred thread. The individual’s existence was hedged around with religious rites even before his birth through the performances of rituals. Nationalist historians of the early 20th century as well as 19th century socio-religious reformers often presented the Vedic age as a golden age for women. They based their argument on the following points: – • The Vedic people worshipped goddesses; • The Rig Veda contains hymns composed by women; • There are references to women sages; • Women participated in rituals along with their husbands; • They took part in chariot races; and History of India 13 • They attended the Sabhā and various social gatherings. Such a presentation of the ‘high’ position of women in Vedic society can be viewed in terms of response to the inherent critique that the liberated western society had made of the repressive social practices they witnessed in the 18th and the early 19th centuries in India. The western educated intellectual middle class was hard-pressed to furnish evidence of a much better social fabric in existence in the past of the country and the examples from the early Vedic society became the means to salvage glory to Indian social heritage! The chief thesis was to show that in ancient times, Indians were better than the Westerners, at least in the way they treated women. This was also used as an argument to improve the prevailing condition of women in Indian society. Male dominance and the subordination of women is a feature of all known historical societies. The issue is one of the degree of dominance and subordination, and the structures in which these were embedded. Compared to later Vedic literature indeed the family books of the Rig History of India 14 Veda Samhitā did reflect a situation in which social status was not as rigidly defined or polarized as it came to be in later times. Thus the rituals described in the Rig Veda indicate post-puberty marriages, and there are references to women choosing their husbands. A woman could remarry if her husband died or disappeared. There are also references to unmarried women, such as the Rig Vedic seer Ghosā. The equation of power and women was spelt out in a very few rare instances, but they are worth mention. Viśpalā (Rig Veda 1.112.10 and 1.116.5) was described as the queen and a warrior who lost a leg in the battlefield. There were references to other women warriors such as Mudgalinī and Vadhrimatī. Women also enjoyed position within the family as is clear from the description of the women’s role in the Vidatha, speaking on behalf of her family, claiming the share of wealth distributed. There was the instance of Apālā in the Rig Veda (8. 80), taking care of her father’s fields. The Rig Veda attached importance to the institution of marriage and had referred to polyandry within the various types of marriages in vogue including monogamy and polygamy. History of India 15 The Rig Veda also considered marriage and consensual union in a much less rigid manner. A seventh mandala hymn (RV, 7.55.5-8) described an instance of elopement, the man praying that his beloved’s entire household – her brothers and other relatives – as well as the dogs, be lulled into a deep sleep, so that the lovers could creep out stealthily. However, on the whole, recent research reveals that the different categories of female roles as revealed in t he Rig Veda do not support a simple thesis of ideal picture so far as the women’s social position was concerned. Recent scholarship has shifted the focus from discussing women in isolation to an analysis of gender relations. Gender refers to the culturally defined roles associated with men and women. Earlier, historians tended to focus on the public, political domain, relegating the family, household, and gender relations to the private, domestic domain. Today, the distinction between the private and political domains is recognized as an artificial one. Ideologies and hierarchies of power and authority exist within the family and household, in the form of norms of History of India 16 appropriate conduct based on gender, age, and kinship relations. Further, there is a close connection between relations within the household, marriage and kinship systems, the control of women’s sexuality and reproduction, class and caste relations, the larger political structures. For these reasons, gender relations form an important part of social history. In the earlier historical writings, a great part of the discussion about women of the Vedic age focused on elite women, ignoring the less privileged members of this sex. Although the Rig Veda mentioned goddesses, none of them were regarded as important as the major gods. Moreover, the social implications of the worship of female deities are complex. While such worship does at least mark the ability of a community to visualize the divine in feminine form, it does not automatically mean that real women enjoyed power or privilege. The proportion of hymns attributed to women in the Rig Veda is miniscule (just 12-15 out of over 1,000), as is the History of India 17 number of women sages and teachers. This suggests that women had limited access to sacred learning. There were no women priests referred in the Rig Veda nor do they appear as givers or receivers of dāna or dakșhiņā. The female child was viewed in many different aspects as kanyā, duhitā, kaninakā, kunyanā, kanyalā, putrikā. The wife was hailed as jāyā, janī, patnī. She was ideally the companion of her husband and performed the dāmpatyakrātuvidyā. While women participated as wives in sacrifices performed on behalf of their husbands, they have not been described performing sacrifices in their own right. The Vedic household was clearly patriarchal and patrilineal, and women enjoyed relatively little control over material resources. Their sexuality and reproductive resources were controlled through the ingraining of norms of what was considered appropriate behaviour. Considering that this was a patriarchal and patrilineal society, it is not surprising that Rig Vedic prayers are for sons, not daughters, and that the absence of sons is deplored. History of India 18 The Rig Veda mentions food habits, clothes, and leisuretime pursuits. There are references to the consumption of milk and milk products, ghŗta (ghee, clarified butter), grains, vegetables, and fruits. Vedic texts refer to meat eating, and to the offering of animals such sheep, goat, and oxen to the gods in sacrifice. The reference to cows as aghnyā (not to be killed) suggests a disapproval of their indiscriminate killing but not a total abstinence from consumption. Barren cows were killed for guests and on ritual occasions. In fact the later Vedic sūtras referred to the practiceoffering guests with beef on select special occasions. The Later Vedic Period The adoption of agriculture created conditions for rapid class division in the later Vedic phase, which is abundantly testified by the later Samhitās and Brāhmanas. Varņa reflected the increasing social differentiation of the times accompanied by different degrees of access to productive resources. In dividing the society into four hereditary strata, it defined social boundaries, roles, status, and ritual History of India 19 purity. Members of the four varņas were supposed to have different innate characteristics, which made them naturally suited to certain occupations and social ranks. The varņa hierarchy remains an important part of the social discourse of the Brahmanical tradition. The body symbolism in the Purușa hymn already mentioned indicates that the four varņa were visualized as interrelated parts of an organic whole. At the same time it clearly indicates a hierarchy of ranks, with the Brāhmaņa at the top and the śūdra at the bottom. The fact that the varņa were described as being created at the same time as the earth, sky, sun, and moon indicates that they were supposed to be considered a part of the natural, eternal, and unchangeable order of the world. Ambiguity about the relative position of the higher varņas is evident in the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana (13, 4, 17), where Indra is associated with the creation of the varņas and the rājanya were placed first, followed by the brāhmana and vaiśya. The Śatapatha Brāhmana (13.8.3.11) also places the ksatriya first in the list. Elsewhere, in the same text History of India 20 (Śatapatha Brāhmana 1.1.4.12), however, the order was as follows: brāhmaņa, vaiśya, rājanya and śudra. However, the order of the four varnas in the Brāhmanical tradition became fixed from the time of the Dharmashastras onwards. The later Vedic literature informs us about the scramble between the brāhmaņa and the kșatriya for attaining the superior position in the society. The conflict between the gods Mitra and Varuņa has been seen as symbolic of a conflict between the two varņas. Mitra represented the principle of Brahma (sacred power) and Varuņa the principle of kșatra (secular power). There are several statements about the relationship between Brahma and kșatra, describing them variously as antagonistic, complementary, or dependent on each other. Upaņișadic philosophy has also been viewed, at least in part, as a reflection of the kșatriya challenge to brāhmaņical supremacy in the field of ultimate knowledge. The spirit of rivalry was softened as the texts stressed on the History of India 21 importance of mutual co-operation between them to ensure their domination over the two lower varņas. It may be noticed that some of the texts emphasize on the importance of the purohita for the king and the close relationship between the rājanya and at least a section of the brāhmna community. The later Vedic ruler was much more powerful than his Rig Vedic counterpart, as he now became the exterminator of the foe (amitranāmhantā) devourer of the folk (viśamattā) and extractor the of bali (balihŗt) from the vaiśya, the wealth producing section of the community. Bali in the Rig Veda stood for voluntary gift by the people to the chieftain. In the later Vedic times, it denoted an obligatory payment. The urge for greater concentration of power in the hands of the ruler is expressed; in the elaborate prescription of the performance of lavish sacrifices by the ruler (Rājasūya, Vājapeya, Aśvamedha, Aindramahābhișeka, etc.). This practice of royal sacrifices led to the manifold increase in the influence and status (at least ritually) of the officiating priests. In fact the later Vedic and the Sutra texts (considered to be the latest stratum of the Vedic literature and assignable to History of India 22 c.500-200 BCE, are steeped in the ritual of sacrifice or yajña which permeated every facet of life of the people irrespective of high or low. The first three varņas were known as dvija, literally ‘twice born’, that is, those entitled to the performance of the upanayana ceremony, which was considered a second birth. They were eligible to perform the agnyādheya or the first installation of the sacred sacrificial fire, which marked the beginning of ritual activities prescribed for the household. On the other differences hand, between the the texts three also emphasized varņas. The the Aitareya Brāhmaņa (8.36.4) states that the Rājasūya sacrifice endowed each of the four varņas with certain qualities – the brāhmana with tejas or lustre, the kşatriya with vīrya or valour, the vaiśya with prajāti or procreative powers, and the śūdra with pratiştha or stability. Later texts such as the Śrautasastras laid down the different details of the performance of sacrifices such as the soma sacrifice and the agnyādheya, depending on the varņa of the sacrificer. In the opinion of Romila Thapar, the History of India 23 implicit attempt here was to define and limit the access of each group to economic resources by the gradually increasing insistence on occupational functions. This was accompanied by, the channelising and redistribution of wealth among the limited castes claiming ownership of clan resources and higher ritual status. But varņa alone could not contain this hierarchical economic structure. That the attempt was not entirely successful is indicated by the economic stratification also taking place within each of these vertical varņa groups. Thus there were impoverished brāhmaņas as there were wealthy śūdras. There were groups in society who were considered even lower than the śudras. Slaves (dāsas and dāsī) were mentioned among gift items in the dāna-stuti. However, on occasion, children born of slave women could aspire to higher status. For instance, in Book 1 of the Rig Veda, there is a reference to Ŗişhi Kākşivān, son of the sage Dīrghatamas by a woman slave of the queen of Anga. Kavaśa Ailușa, author of a Vedic hymn in the tenth mandala, is also described as the son of a woman slave. However these were probably exceptional instances. History of India 24 Although there were no clear indications of the practice of untouchability in later Vedic texts, groups such as the candālas were clearly looked on with contempt by the elites. The Chhāndogya Upaņișad and Taittirīya and Śatapatha Brāhmanas mentioned the candāla in a list of victims to be offered in the presumably symbolic purușamedha (human sacrifice), and described him as dedicated to the deity Vāyu (wind). The dedication to Vāyu has been interpreted as indicating that the candāla lived in the open air or near a cemetery, but this is far from certain. The Chhāndogya Upaņișad (5.10.7) stated that those who performed praiseworthy deeds in this world swiftly acquired rebirth in a good condition – as a brāhmaņa, kșatriya, or vaiśya, while those who performed low actions acquired birth in a correspondingly low condition – as a dog, boar or a candāla. Later Vedic texts reflected the interaction, conflict, and assimilation. processes of social History of India 25 According to the Aitareya Brāhmana (33.6), the royal sage Viśvāmitra had cursed his 50 sons to become the Āndhras, Pundras, Śabaras, Pulindas, and Mutibas, when they refused to accept Śunahaśepa (Devarata) as his son and their legitimate brother. This story reflected the attempt of the Brahmanical tradition to extend some amount of recognition to ‘outsiders’. Some non-Indo-Aryan groups were assimilated into the varna hierarchy usually at the lower rungs. In fact, the śūdras may have originally been some non-Vedic tribes living in the northwest, who later lent their name to the fourth varna. However, not all tribal groups were assimilated. Some were simply acknowledged. Later Vedic texts mention forest people such as the Kirātas and Nișādas. They also show the emergence of the concept of mleccha, a category that included various tribal groups and foreign people considered to be ‘outsiders’ by the Brāhmanical tradition. The household constituted an important institution in the society. The ideal grha was headed by the gŗhapati whose control over the productive and reproductive resources of the household was legitimised by a series of household History of India 26 rituals. Only a married man, accompanied by his legitimate wife, could become the yajamāna in a sacrifice. Marriage (vivāha) was important for the continuation of the patrilineage. Relations between husband and wife (pati and patni) and father and son were hierarchically organized. Women came to be increasingly identified in terms of their relations with men. Words such as strī, yośā, and jāyā were closely associated with wifehood and motherhood, actual or potential. The control of the gŗhapati was maintained by a domestic ideology that clearly laid down the structures of dominance and subordination within the patriarchal family. The productive resources of the household were transferred from father to son, and rituals such as the agnyādheya emphasized the importance of ties with the patrilineal ancestors (pitŗs). The Yajurvedic rites, which engulfed the lives of individuals since being born reflect the growing control exercised by the brāhmana priests on the society in general. There was a conventional list of forty samskāras which punctuated the stages of an individual’s life. It was initiated with the Garbhādhāna ceremony to cause conception, History of India 27 followed by Pumsavana, – securing the birth of a male child; Sīmantonnayana, – the ceremony for protection of the pregnant mother-to-be; Jātakarman followed next for welcoming the new born; Nāmakaraņa followed on which occasion the child was bestowed with a name; Annaprāśana was the ceremony for feeding the child with solid food at six months; followed by Cūdākarman, Upanayana, Samāvartana, Sahadharmacāriņi-samyoga and so on. A major foundation on which the society operated was the institution of marriage. The ideal was marriage within the varna (savarna) and outside the gotra (gotrantara) endowing traditional marriage in India with the features of both endogamy and exogamy. The later Vedic texts refer to eight different types of marriages: Prājāpatya, Ārșa, Daiva were the general types accepted in the society. Gāndharva was the marriage union where a man and a woman chose their respective partners. The rest were also accepted as in vogue but not really approved. Āsura, the type described where the family of the bride was propitiated into agreement by payment of money or gifts and Paiśāca where History of India 28 the bride was taken by force were the last forms recognized as prevalent. Polygamy was more prevalent than polyandry. The Aitareya Brāhmana (3.5.3.47) stated that even though a man may have several wives, one husband is enough for one woman. The Maitrāyanī Samhitā referred to the ten wives of Manu. A woman was married not only to a man but into a family and apparently the bride was regarded with caution. The later Vedic ideas and ceremonies of marriage are reflected in a complex hymn in the tenth mandala, often referred to as the Surya-sukta (Rig Veda 10.85). This hymn indicated that the bride was simultaneously considered a precious asset for the groom’s family, and, at the same time, a stranger with destructive potential. In the marriage hymn in the Atharva Veda (14.1-2), the priest was assigned a prominent role as it was thought that through his ministrations the dangerous potential of the bride could be neutralized and her incorporation into the new home ensured. History of India 29 The marriage ceremonies seem to have been largely confined to the bride, groom, and their immediate families. Women were praised and exalted in some instances in the later Vedic texts. For example, the Śatapatha Brāhmana (5.2.1.10) stated that the wife constituted a half of the identity of her husband and completed his existence. The Bŗhadāraņyaka Upaņișad (6.4.17) mentioned a ritual for obtaining a learned daughter. However, women were generally excluded from the study of the Vedas. Although their presence sacrifices, as they independently in wives was required could not perform their own right. in the such Later śrauta sacrifices texts even introduced the practice of using the symbolic effigy of gold or grass in place of the wife. Most of the samskāras (expect, of course, marriage) did not apply to them. In such crucial respects, the position of a woman, – no matter what her varņa – was indeed similar to that of a śūdra. In fact, the later Dharmaśāstra equation between women and śūdras drew its roots from the Vedic texts. The texts also mentioned the periodical taboos relating to the menstrual cycle to be imposed on women regarding their participation History of India 30 in sacrifices and even cooking of food, communicating with or sitting near the members of the family and community. Women were clearly expected to conform to a docile role. Śatapatha Brāhmana (10.5.2.9) stated: ‘A good woman is one who pleases her husband, delivers male children, and never talks back to her husband’. According to the same text (4.4.2.3), women owned neither themselves nor an inheritance. The Atharva Veda (1.14.3) described a life of spinsterhood as the greatest curse for women, and deplored the birth of daughters (6.11.3). Although both the Atharva and the Rig Veda Samhitā referred to the practice of widow remarriage but the male in question was preferably the late husband’s younger brother. While this refutes the existence of the practice of sati in Vedic society, the instances also signified the fact that the woman was considered as bound to the marital family even after her husband’s death. The Aitareya Brāhmaņa (7.15) describes a daughter as a source of misery, and states that only a son can be the saviour of the family. The desire for sons is borne out in many hymns. The very concept of the pumsavana rite History of India 31 brings out the harsh reality of this attitude and the Atharva Veda even contained charms for changing a female foetus into a male one. The Maitrāyanī Samhitā (4.7.4) in fact laid down the position of the woman in clear perspective: ’Men go to the assembly, not women’. Women appeared to be treated as chattels to be presented as gifts and commodities of exchange, for instance in the references to the kings handing over their daughters to win over the sages. The only form of ritual gift giving or exchange that women could participate in was the upanayana, where she enjoyed the right of giving the first alms to the brahmachārī, who was supposed to begin his stint by begging from his mother or his teacher’s wife. The process of crystallization of the family unit and family’s wealth in land etc., the increasing social differentiation the emergence of a state, – all these factors were accompanied by an increasing subordination of women. A few women sages like Gārgī and Maitreyī who were described in the Upaņishads participating in philosophical debates with the learned and esteemed sage Yajñavalkya were very rare exceptions and do not qualify as History of India 32 representing the general picture of women’s condition. Here too, in the case of the position of authority among the sages, male domination emerged in a rather blunt and artless manner. Thus in the course of the famous Gārgī-Yajñavalkya debate it is seen that as the former’s questions became more subtle and pointed, Yajñavalkya apprehending defeat, arbitrarily threatened her with dire consequences if she persisted in questioning him and so eliminated her from the contest. So far as historiography is concerned however, these issues had been blown under the carpet till recently. Nationalist rendering of the event reflected in Shakuntala Rao Shastri’s work, Women in the Vedic Age, interpreted the tone of the argument in a golden light, maintaining that “…. The motive of Gārgī’s enquiry was not to test Yajñavalkya but to learn from him about the nature of Brahman”. History of India 33 Thus the harsh tone of Yajñavalkya, who failed to answer Gārgī’s query, was reduced to the moment of blissful supplication of a woman thinker to the mastery of a mighty male sage. This, along with similar other “sanitized interpretation of events” have prompted scholars to suggest by scholars like Uma Chakravarti and Kumkum Roy that it is time to look beyond the “Altekarian paradigm”. Thus the Vedic society, as gleaned from the text appears to have progressed from simple lineage based fabric to complexities. As composed primarily by the brāhmaņical male society of the priestly class, there appears to have been a gradual process of social designing into a ritual hierarchical fabric where caste and gender differentiation created inequality of a kind that to some extent matched the economic functions of the classes and gender. However, there were areas where the patterns did not match. The clashes of interest between rising classes of kshatriyas, vaiśyas on the one hand, and the brāhmaņa- dictated social system, on the other, did emerge. The questioning of the superiority of priestly rituals vis–à–vis meditation and History of India 34 pursuit of knowledge in the Upaņishads direct us to this tendency that was growing inside the Vedic society and would flare up in the post Vedic times. The potentials for these later developments were rooted in the Later Vedic society.