Exploring Gender Roles in Ritual: Sacrificer, Sacrificer’s Wife and Priests in Vedic Sacrifices

 

Dipankar Das

Assistant Professor, Department of History, Motilal Nehru College, University of Delhi, New Delhi

 

ABSTRACT:

Historically, organized and institutionalized religions while catering to the spiritual needs of communities have also served as ideological mechanisms to help construct and legitimize inegalitarian social orders in the interests of the dominant classes. Rituals and myths as crucial constituents of an organized religion communicate and reinforce social norms and practices that are considered ‘appropriate’ or ‘desirable’ by the dominant classes. Thus, the rich repertoire of rituals in the Vedic texts constitutes an important area of investigation into the dynamics of social relations in general and gender relations in particular. This essay assesses the relative participatory status and roles of the principal actors in Vedic sacrifices, the sacrificer, his wife and the priests in the śrauta (solemn) rituals as detailed in the principal Later Vedic texts, viz., the Saṃhitās and the Brāhmaṇas. The essay argues that the ritual roles of key participants and their relations with each other within the ritual context were governed by the principle of centrality of the male and marginality of the female to the ritual. Indeed, the ritual process itself was controlled and regulated by the priests and the sacrificer so as to construct and reinforce their superior roles vis-à-vis the wife’s and thereby structure gender relations on hierarchical terms.

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

Gender is an important category of historical analysis of past societies insofar as the ideal and reality of gender roles and relations shape other social relations (kin, caste and class) and vice versa. Historically, organized and institutionalized religious systems while catering to the spiritual needs of communities have also served as ideological mechanisms to help construct/re-construct and legitimize inegalitarian social orders in the interests of the dominant classes. In this respect, rituals as prescribed and patterned religious behavior with the perceived potency to elicit divine favors for their human performers, and myths reflecting relations and roles of deities as divine counterparts to their human devotees —

 

have served to communicate and reinforce social norms and practices that are considered ‘appropriate’ or ‘desirable’ by the dominant classes and ‘emulable’ for society at large. Given this interpenetration of religion and society, rituals and myths as crucial constituents of an organized religion constitute, in a given historical situation, an important area of investigation into the dynamics of social relations in general and gender relations in particular. This is more so in the case of society represented in the Vedas, a vast corpus of religious texts orally composed, preserved and transmitted across generations by families of male poets-cum-priests/ritualists. The analysis of gender relations as reflected in these texts is problematized by an inbuilt male bias in their content and function as the foundation and support for an elaborate ritualistic religion. Hence, understanding gender relations, perforce, involves a greater effort in the retrieval of the roles envisaged for and assumed by women in relation to men, since they, like other subordinate groups of society, are often among the muted and silent voices of history.

 

This essay aims to assess the relative participatory status of the principal actors, the sacrificer (yajamāna), his wife (patnī) and the priests in the śrauta (solemn) rituals as detailed in the principal Later Vedic texts, viz., the Saṃhitās and the Brāhmaṇas. The Saṃhitās contain collections of formulae (mantras), i.e., hymns (sūktas) in verse used in performing ritual acts (karman).¹ Attached to the Saṃhitās are the Brāhmaṇas, prose texts that offer description and interpretation of rituals (including explanation of mantras and their use).² Orally composed and compiled after the earliest Vedic text, the Ṛgveda Saṃhitā, these texts are placed in the time bracket of 1000 and 500 bce. The geographic horizon of these post-Ṛgvedic or later Vedic texts was primarily the Indo-Gangetic divide and the upper Gangetic plains, comprised of a major portion of western Uttar Pradesh, almost the entire Haryana and neighboring parts of Punjab and Rajasthan.³

 

The essay delineates the roles of the sacrifice and his wife in terms of: (a) the space/arena of presence and action demarcated for each on the ritual ground; (b) the ritual roles—active/passive and direct/indirect (mediated)—assigned to each; and (c) the relation of each with the deities invoked. Further, the essay also explores the relative degree of appropriation of their roles by the priests in specific rituals and thereby illumines how priestly mediation effected their ritual inequality. It is important to state at the outset that the ritual roles of each of the key participants and their relations with each other within the ritual context were governed by the principle of centrality of the male and marginality of the female to the ritual. Conversely, the ritual context itself was controlled and regulated by the priests and the sacrificer so as to construct and reinforce their roles vis-à-vis the wife’s and thereby structure gender relations on hierarchical terms. 

 

The prime figure which the entire ritual revolved around was the male sacrificer (yajamāna) who could belong to either of the first three varṇas, viz., brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya or vaiśya, whose common rights to perform rituals is referred to in the texts.⁴ Generally, ‘men of the first three varṇas were regarded as legitimate sacrificers, donors and students of sacred lore’, and stress on their ‘common access to the sacred was probably a means of ensuring allegiance to the varṇa-based order’, though differences among them in terms of their ‘positive but distinct qualities’ that were thought to be bestowed by some rituals was recognized.⁵

 

The sacrificer was the initiator, performer, patron and prime beneficiary of the sacrifice. It has been argued that though he was the setter-in-motion of the sacrifice—in that he arranged for the performance, chose the priests, paid for the ‘gifts’ or priestly wages (dakṣiṇā) and received all the benefit (or malefit) of the ritual—he is misleadingly named ‘sacrificer’, since he did not sacrifice sensu stricto, as most of the action, both physical and verbal, remained the preserve of the priests, at whose prompting he went from place to place on the ritual ground, and occasionally chanted mantras or made an offering. Thus, his participation primarily consisted of ‘being there and, in some rituals, undergoing consecration’.⁶ However, while the heavy priestly mediation in the process is undoubted, the sacrificer’s actions, even if far less numerous than those of the priests, cannot be dismissed as negligible nor his role be considered passive. Indeed, often interspersed with the lengthy details, and exegeses, of the priests’ actions in the Brāhmaṇas are abundant references to the actions of the sacrificer that subtly distinguish what the sacrificer did from what the priests did at various junctures. Further, often, even where actions by the priests are described, the sacrificer’s knowledge of these actions and significance thereof is emphasized. Thus, an oft-used formulaic phrase in the Brāhmaṇas is yaḥ-evam-veda (‘he [the sacrificer] who knows so/thus’), indicating the importance of the sacrificer knowing the outcome of the rite being performed and/or the mantras being chanted by the priests (so that the benefits accrue to him). This also indicates that, considering the oral composition and preservation of the texts, the ritual knowledge therein, would, at least to some extent, have been communicated to the sacrificer by the priests in the course of the ritual itself.

 

The sacrificer was not only identified with the sacrifice⁷ and sacrificial offering,⁸ but was also thought to have a possessive relation to it in so far as he ‘produced’ (√janay),⁹ ‘obtained’(√āp),¹⁰ ‘appropriated’ (√dhā),¹¹ ‘took hold of’ (ā√rabh),¹² ‘collected’ (sam√bhṛ) and ‘restored’ (punaḥ-ā√pyai)¹³ the sacrifice through specific ritual acts. Reciprocally, the sacrifice was considered indispensable to his existence: it was equated with his breath (prāṇa) which would turn away if the fire turned away from him.¹⁴

 

In sacrifices, through priestly mediation, he attained proximity to¹⁵and even established his parity with the gods by ritually emulating their accomplishments,¹⁶ as well as an explicit identity with individual deities like Indra,¹⁷ Viṣṇu,¹⁸ Agni¹⁹ and Prajāpati.²⁰ This ‘divinization’ of the sacrificer was a part of a larger strategy of conceptually demarcating the ritual realm from the non-ritual/human realm by ascribing new divine identities to ritual items and implements, priests and the sacrificer, and by projecting the ritual acts as a reversal of ordinary human acts and an imitation of divine ones. Underlying this strategy was the rationale that sacrifice was originally a divine work and the cause of the gods’ success and hence its efficacy and efficiency required the replication of the divine condition and the abandonment of the human one.²¹

 

Besides being thus ‘divinized’, the sacrificer is also described by such epithets as the ‘lord of the sacrifice’ (yajñapati)²² and the ‘deity of the gārhapatya or the household fire’ (devatyaḥ vai gārhapatyaḥ).²³ These epithets are similar to those of deities like Indra and Agni, who are respectively called the ‘deity of the sacrifice’ (yajñasya devatā)²⁴ and lord of the household (gṛhapati).²⁵  Further, the sacrificer is described as the leader of the humans just as Agni is the leader of the divine hosts.²⁶ Such similarity of descriptions, though not created in the same contexts, was still a means of forging a bond of shared perceptions between the human sacrificer and his divine counterparts, thereby subtly divinizing him. This was also supplemented by a certain element of reciprocity to his relation with the gods.²⁷

 

Such ritual apotheosis is linked to the conceptualization of a variety of roles for the sacrificer cutting across the divine and human realms. One of these roles that implicated him in structuring gender relations on hierarchical terms was his ritual intervention in cosmic and human procreation. This, at one level, is evident in his ritual enactment of cosmogonic events that rested on his implicit analogy with—though not direct invocation of—the creator god Prajāpati. He emulated the creator god Prajāpati’s feat of creating Agni²⁸ on several occasions,²⁹ and, sometimes, other deities, including Agni as well.³⁰ He was also envisaged as having created temporal categories like the year (saṃvatsara) in contexts where his very offerings are identified with year.³¹

 

At another level, he was projected as playing a crucial role in simulating procreation by means of sacrifice. This was more dramatic than his cosmogonic role and often based on his overt association with Prajāpati and more socially significant in terms of defining gender relations. He played an active procreative role in three ways: enacting his own ritual rebirth; ritually acquiring progeny like Prajāpati  and ritually replicating other implicitly procreative acts.

 

The sacrificer used sacrifice as an occasion to enact his own ritual rebirth by simulating his entry into and egress from the embryonic state. In one instance, by touching the two black antelope skins at the place where the white and the black hair joined and calling them the images (pratirūpa) of ṛc and sāman chants, he enters the meters (chandas) and thereby becomes an embryo (garbha) and closes his hands, perhaps imitating a fetal position.³² In another instance, by wearing a girdle of hemp threads under the garment, he becomes an embryo and springs forth from the sacrifice just as Prajāpati did upon his birth in an embryonic form from the sacrifice.³³ Thus, in this case, he implicitly imitates Prajāpati’s ‘embryonization’. In yet another instance, the consecrated (dīkṣita) sacrificer covers or wraps up his head (with the upper garment or turban) to represent an embryo.³⁴ Subsequently, by uncovering the head, he is brought forth or released from the embryonic state wherein he had stayed till the pressing of Soma.³⁵

 

Besides enacting his ritual birth, he was also projected as using ritual means to acquire progeny, as did Prajāpati. For instance, in the agnicayana, by standing towards the north-eastern direction and by taking three strides, he, like Prajāpati, creates offspring.³⁶ In the agniṣṭoma, he offers 11 animal victims and thereby strengthens himself by offspring and cattle,³⁷ as Prajāpati did.³⁸ In the aśvamedha, the royal sacrifcer (rājā) ‘becomes numerous’, i.e., proliferates himself through progeny by offering two cups of Soma in emulation of Prajāpati.³⁹ Besides imitating Prajāpati’s procreative acts, he was regarded as having a more dynamic and reciprocal role in resuscitating the creator god weakened by his creative labours through ritual. This notion of the ritual as a means of regeneration/restoration envisaged a cycle running from the deity to the sacrificer and back.⁴⁰

 

The sacrificer’s generative role, though derived from his association with Prajāpati, extended to other ritual occasions where the latter is not directly invoked. The roles envisaged on such occasions included those of aiding reproduction and providing nourishment apart from acquiring progeny. Thus, in the agnicayana, by making the fire pan representing Agni’s self (ātman) and the ‘all light’ (viśvajyotiṣa) bricks representing offspring, he causes procreation to take place and produces offspring from his own self.⁴¹ In the agniṣṭoma, by making the altar (vedī) broader/wider from behind, he makes the womb at the hind part wider, from where creatures are born,⁴² thereby again facilitating procreation. More implicit is his nurturing role conceived of in terms of maternal-cum-bovine imagery and briefly alluded to in the analogy of his purṇāhuti or full offering to Agni with a mother or cow suckling or offering breast to an infant or a calf.⁴³ This analogy of a ritual act with the maternal role not only projected the former as nourishing as the latter, but also envisaged reciprocity between him and the deity insofar as the sacrificer, while himself desiring for food, acted as the ‘nourisher’ or ‘food provider’. Thus, while his ritual ‘birth’ implicitly amounted to an ‘inversion’ or ‘reversal’ of his biological birth, his ritual roles of procreative significance denied the physicality of the procreative process itself.

 

The ritual process that revolved around the sacrificer was regulated by a class of specialized ritual practitioners or priests. Known by the generic terms vipra⁴⁴ and ṛtvij,⁴⁵ the priests were classified into four major officiants, viz., the hotṛ who recited hymns from the Ṛgveda, the adhvaryu who instructed from the Yajurveda, the  udgātṛ who sang hymns from the Sāmaveda, and the brāhmaṇa who served as a proctor or monitor for the rituals, silently observing and listening for errors that needed expiation (the the brāhmaṇa’s relationship to the Atharvaveda was only nominal, since his training necessarily included coverage of three primary Vedas). Each priest, in turn, was allowed to employ three assistant priests, the total being 16, occasionally 17, if an additional priest was required.⁴⁶

 

The sacrificer was the patron of the priests insofar as the sacrifice was performed by them at his will,⁴⁷ and the gifts (dakṣiṇā) were bestowed by him after its conclusion. However, the relation between the two was more symmetrical and reciprocal than hierarchical. In some instances, the superiority of the sacrificer was stressed through certain ritual privileges,⁴⁸ but in others it was tacitly conceded and denied at the same time.⁴⁹ This suggests an ambivalent priestly attitude towards the sacrificer’s position vis-à-vis them. At the same time, the priest was thought to have the potential to harm the sacrificer by choosing to manipulate ritual acts and thereby commit grave errors. While emphasizing the priest’s supreme command over the ritual process and destructive power over him, this suggests a certain degree of tension between the two. However, the commission of such errors was also occasionally advised against,⁵⁰ and the latent tension, if any, was defused by concord and recognition of common interests in the ritual.⁵¹

 

The priests shared the divine status with the sacrificer in terms of their identity with the deities as a class in general⁵² or a specific category in particular.⁵³ Given their axiomatic role in conducting the sacrifice, they were envisaged as ‘producing’⁵⁴ and ‘strengthening’⁵⁵ the sacrifice. Further, the importance of giving dakṣiṇā to the priests was repeatedly stressed implicitly and explicitly.⁵⁶ In turn, the priests were conceived of as conferring numerous benefits on the sacrificer, such as material⁵⁷ and spiritual gains,⁵⁸ ascent to heaven,⁵⁹ destruction of his enemies,⁶⁰ etc.

 

Given that procreation was an important component of the sacrificer’s spiritual and material well-being, the priests were tacitly instrumental in forging sexual unions (mithunas) between the ‘things’ and ‘beings’ in the ritual, and drawing analogies between ritual acts and procreation/reproduction in order to foster a ritualistic notion of procreation. More explicitly, they themselves were projected as complicit in ritually producing and nourishing progeny, especially for the sacrificer. For instance, by stroking the fire on the āhavanīya representing the heavenly world, the adhvaryu caused the sacrificer to be born in the heavens.⁶¹ By pouring the ghee on the top of the sacrificial post, the adhvaryu caused the heaven and earth to be filled with ghee and thereby endowed it with or bestowed on it strength (ūrja) and sap (rasa), enabling the creatures to subsist.⁶² The pratiprasthātṛ ensured progeny and continuity of reproduction through certain offerings.⁶³ By offering a rice cake to Agni and Viṣṇu in ghee,⁶⁴ uttering the vaṣaṭ call⁶⁵ or reciting certain verses,⁶⁶ the hotṛ endowed the sacrificer with offspring and cattle. Thus, priests and the sacrificer complemented each other in reinforcing the notion of sacrifice as an essentially procreative act.

 

A systematically developed ritualistic notion of procreation, together with the control of the sacrificer and the priests over the ritual process, provided the rationale for the minimization of the wife’s (patnī) ritual roles and manipulation of her sexuality and fertility as a means of procreation. This marks a stark contrast between the ritual roles of the sacrificer and his wife and thus bears significant implications for their social roles. More specifically, the primacy of the sacrificer in the ritual process, particularly the procreative aspect of his role, was clearly counterpoised to the passivity, marginality and instrumentality of his wife who was little more than a locus of fertility in the ritualized procreation. However, while her sexuality and fertility was harnessed for ritual efficacy, it was also contained for its perceived disruptive impact, testifying to her ambivalent ritual treatment.

 

On the ritual ground, the wife’s presence was considered essential, since the sacrificer was technically required to be a householder (gṛhastha), i.e., a married man.⁶⁷ The wife’s importance, as the ritual partner of her husband, to the ritual was explicitly stressed, though it solely stemmed from her reproductivity.⁶⁸ While her exclusion under exceptional conditions (viz., childbirth and menstruation which were perceived as polluting) was permitted, it was considered problematic for ensuring ritual efficacy. This problem was circumvented by complex provisions for her substitution—provisions that differed in cases of menstruation and childbirth.⁶⁹ A greater challenge posed by her supposedly permanent absence in the case of agnihotra is phrased in the catechetical form of questions and answers by a Brāhmaṇa text. The response to the question as to whether or not a man without a wife should offer the agnihotra is in the affirmative,⁷⁰ since  by not offering, he would be anaddhāpuruṣa, not (an-) a ‘true’ (addhā) man or a mock man, i.e., one who offered neither to gods nor to the forefathers (pitṛs) nor to men. Thus, the non-performance of sacrifice would deprive him of ‘true’ or ‘perfect’ birth, the sacrifice being the means of such birth. The response to the second question as to how one whose wife has died or disappeared would offer the agnihotra, is convoluted and evasive.⁷¹ While the necessity of the wife to the rituals is well attested, as also reflected in the problems arising out of her absence or exclusion, whether and to what extent she could perform as an independent actor in śrauta rituals remains difficult to ascertain. There are no references to such women, though there are rare indications of occasional independent ritual roles by women in extreme circumstances—for instance, a widow of an āhitāgni (one has established the three fires for śrauta sacrifice) or the widow of a yajamāna in the event of his death during a sattra.⁷²

 

Despite the wife’s crucial presence being stressed in the texts, her movement on the ritual ground was restricted; her activities, circumscribed; and her role, limited. Nevertheless, there were occasional, but dramatic and extraordinary moments of ritual or symbolic acts of an otherwise silent and immobile wife.⁷³ In the darśapūrṇamāsa sacrifice, the first action that foregrounded her presence was her girding/yoking (patnīsaṃnahana) by the āgnīdhra priest with a cord.⁷⁴ During this act, she was conceptualized as the hindpart (jaghanārdha) of the sacrifice⁷⁵¾an allusion to her generative power. The stated reason for yoking is the need to symbolically conceal her ‘impure’ (amedhya) part below the navel under the girdle and keep the ‘pure part of the body’ (medhya-uttarārdha) open, i.e., unyoked/ungirdled, while she looked at the sacrificial butter (ājya).⁷⁶ This reflects an ambivalent attitude towards her sexuality: while the female presence was perceived as crucial to the success of the ritual, female sexuality being potentially disruptive was sought to be contained. Moreover, the identification of the wife’s yoke (yoktra) with that of a draught animal (yogya)⁷⁷ connotes her ‘domesticability’ or subordination. On the one hand, the act of yoking, according to Stephanie W. Jamison⁷⁸is the symbol of her initiation (vratopanayana) into the sacred rite and hence similar to the brahmacārin’s upanayana and that entailed sexual abstinence, symbolically enforced by the cord representing Varuṇa’s noose (rajju)⁷⁹ as a preventive threat. This act, in a way, established her temporary ritual equality with the sacrificer, giving her the status of an initiate. On the other hand, Frederick M. Smith⁸⁰ views Varuṇa’s noose as a symbol of restriction, loss of responsibility and independence, and limited ritual participation ¾ all of which was mythically justified by the curse inflicted on women for accepting Indra’s blood guilt of brahmanicide (brahmahatyā), i.e, killing of the brāhmaṇa Viśvarūpa. However, Smith’s argument for the punitive function of Varuṇa’s noose in yoking the wife is less than cogent. First, the mythical linkage between Indra’s curse and Varuṇa’s noose is lacking in this particular ritual context. Second, the exclusion of menstruating wife is mandated by brāhmaṇical texts in any case; this obviated any punitive action such as the yoking of the wife. Third, the wife was actually sought to be protected against potential injury from or seizure by Varuṇa, through the acts of girding her over the garment which represented plants and came between her body and the noose⁸¹ and avoiding a knot which signified Varuṇa’s role of punisher or seizer.⁸²

 

Even where tying a knot by the  āgnīdhra is prescribed,⁸³ it was meant to secure blessings for her and effect a copulation—with the knot as male and the wife as female forming a productive pair (mithuna) for the sacrificer in the sacrifice for the sake of procreation. In fact, it has even been suggested that the binding of yoktra corresponded to the probable position of a fetus in the womb.⁸⁴ Further, the act of girding was accompanied by her identification with Aditi⁸⁵—who, in turn, was equated with earth⁸⁶—and the identification of her garments with plants or vegetation.⁸⁷ The identification of the wife with Aditi is significant, since Aditi, which, in the primitive sense of the name, denotes unbinding or freedom from bonds,⁸⁸ was constantly invoked to release from sin, and in this respect stood in the closest connection with Varuṇa who fettered or bound the sinners.⁸⁹ Thus, the wife’s identification with Aditi subtly served to neutralize the restrictive and punitive nature of the bond. Further, this series of equivalences—between the wife and Aditi, Aditi and earth, and the wife’s garments and plants—was meant to endow the wife as the ‘earth-incarnate’ with generative powers. Elsewhere,⁹⁰ she was made to pray to Agni—an act that was thought to cause the sacrifice to copulate with her. This further reinforces the procreative purpose of the rite. Nevertheless, the act, while initiating her into the ritual for the purpose of ensuring progeny, was fraught with ambiguities—foregrounding her productive fertility while containing her sexual ‘impurity’ and subjecting her to the potential threat of Varuṇa’s punitive action while averting it through protective measures. This suggests the priestly ambivalence towards the inclusion of the female in the all-male ritual arena in general and her procreative potential in particular.

 

This ambivalence recurs in her other ritual roles charged with sexual symbolism. Such acts generally assume the form of symbolic sexual unions—dṛṣṭi mithuna (eye coitus) and sparśa mithuna (touch coitus)—of the terrestrial female (represented by the wife) and her divine male partners (represented by ritual objects). The wife of the sacrificer became the general ‘wife’ (i.e., female partner) on the ritual plane, standing for all the females to be fructified through her.⁹¹ At another level, such acts were conscious attempts to project her instrumentality in procreation by manipulating her in gestures to mime heterosexual acts in the course of ritual.⁹² For instance, in the darśapūrṇamāsa, her first major act, viz., looking at the melted butter, which was equated with semen, was supposed to bring about a productive sexual union.⁹³ However, the female sexuality, though ritually harnessed to ensure procreation through ritual means, was again perceived as contaminating. Hence, the butter, after being looked at by the wife, was rendered sacrificially pure (medhya) by purifying it with strainers (pavitra)⁹⁴ and ‘partially reversing the potentially virulent sexual strain’.⁹⁵ At the same time, this act was accompanied with the recitation of verses to Agni by her—a sacral act seldom permitted to the wife⁹⁶—pointing to the unusual synchrony of her ‘proper’ ritual role and her ‘extra-ritual’ (i.e., sexual) role and the underlying priestly, or rather male, ambivalence towards female sexuality. Another implicitly productive act of wife in the same ritual was her untying of the veda bunch (equated with vṛṣan or male), conceived of as a productive union (mithuna) of the two.⁹⁷

 

A comparable rite that foregrounds this ambivalence towards the wife’s or the female sexuality is that of cleaning the animal victim in the agniṣṭoma. At the behest of the adhvaryu, she cleans the mouth, nostrils, ears, navel, sexual organ, hindpart and legs of the victim (paśu) with water. In so doing, she puts the vital airs (prāṇān dadhāti), i.e., water into the dead victim, revives it and thereby makes the victim, the offering/food of the gods, living and immortal.⁹⁸ Also by having her cleanse it, the adhvaryu is said to have caused it to be born from her, since the wife is a woman from whom progeny is born on the earth.⁹⁹ But thereafter, the adhvaryu and the sacrificer sprinkle it with the half or whole of the remaining water, and thereby put those vital airs into it, revive it,¹⁰⁰ sooth and heal it and render it sacrificially pure (medhya).¹⁰¹ The wife’s act of cleansing the victim, though of procreative significance, was perceived as contaminating, and the impurity was sought by removed by ritual purification.

 

A major rite involving the wife in the darśapūrṇamāsa sacrifice, viz., patnīsaṃyājus ( joint offerings [to Agni, etc., with] wives [of gods]), re-established, upon the return of the priests (āgnīdhra, adhvaryu and hotṛ) and the sacrificer (to the gārhapatya  from the āhavanīya),¹⁰² the ritual partnership of the latter with his wife and the link between the domestic/human and sacral/divine realms.¹⁰³ The rite’s procreative nature is reflected in: (a) the stated assurance about the birth offspring as a consequence of the sacrifice;¹⁰⁴ and (b) the procreative roles of the four deities, who were paired or coupled to enact a productive union¹⁰⁵ and to whom principal offerings are made with butter which represented semen.¹⁰⁶ These deities are Soma, who was equated with semen (retas) and offering to whom was analogous to ‘scattering or sprinkling (√sic) of semen’;¹⁰⁷ Tvaṣṭṛ who transformed/shaped the seed;¹⁰⁸ the divine wives (devānām-patnīḥ)¹⁰⁹ who constituted the womb (yoni) or receptacle of the seed,¹¹⁰ and Agni gṛhapati (householder) who represented this world for which he produced offspring.¹¹¹ Soma as seed and Tvaṣṭṛ as the power of physical transformation induced procreation in both celestial and terrestrial wives¹¹² and Agni gṛhapati put the fertile pairing in the appropriate domestic setting for the benefit of the sacrificer who was also a gṛhapati ¹¹³ and thus acted as a keeper of the hearth which assumed both generative heat and warmth of household stability.¹¹⁴ The offerings were made jointly by the husband and wife.

 

Though not engaged in any symbolic union, the wife was included in the rite performed in the gārhapatya, her assigned realm, in order for her to implicitly join her divine counterparts in their collective impregnation by the male deities. Bringing together the divine and human wives was meant to heighten the generative power of the ritual. In fact, the wife’s presence was explicitly considered significant. This is reflected in the injunction to the adhvaryu against passing between the wife¹¹⁵ and the gārhapatya fire, which, by implication, would exclude her from the sacrifice. At the same time, the injunction to him against walking behind the wife was to avoid the reversal of gender roles, as the adhvaryu was the forepart (pūrvārdha), and the wife, the hindpart (jaghanārdha) of the sacrifice.¹¹⁶ The latter’s association with the hind part signified her reproductive role, which would be undermined by her displacement from the assigned place. These injunctions mirror the aforementioned dilemma reflected in the male concern for using her presence to infuse procreative sexuality in the ritual and for avoiding its concomitant ‘risk’ (i.e. the ‘risk’ of imbalance of gender-roles).

 

While the patnīsaṃyājus rite was designed to satisfy the divine wives by bringing them into the creative matrix, shared by the male deities,¹¹⁷ it was also calculated to ‘confine’ them in two ways: (a) oblation to wives were neatly hemmed in by those to the male gods; and (b) offerings into the gārhapatya fire were concealed from the āhavanīya, i.e., eastern end of the sacrificial ground.¹¹⁸ Thus, as in the case of the human wife in the earlier instances, the divine female contribution was also conceived of as both crucial to the success of the ritual and dangerous to it and hence was required to be kept under strict control.

 

The wife was more directly involved in a series of similar ritually enacted symbolic sexual unions in the pātnīvatagraha rite of the Soma sacrifice. The pātnīvata, i.e., Agni Patnīvat was prayed to bring about a productive union of the wives (divine and human) with the āgnīdhra and Agni, and Tvaṣṭṛ was invoked to ‘transform’ the cast seed. The offerings were made on the north/left side of the fire thereby effecting a proper union between the gods and the wives, since a woman lay to the north of a man.¹¹⁹ The āgnīdhra, who was identified with Agni and hence conceived of as male, sat on the lap of the neṣṭṛ, who was conceived of as female, holding the vessel (from which the pātnīvata libation was made), both thus bringing about a productive union. Finally, the rite culminated in the wife being led by the neṣṭṛ and made to exchange looks with the udgātṛ, and pray to him as Prajāpati, the bestower of seed (retodhā), to lay semen in her, thereby bringing about a productive union.¹²⁰ Thus, the rite starting with intent (expressed through prayer) for a union, its preliminaries (offerings inducing the sexual union), progressing through the intermediate unions between the male priests (involving a reversal of gender-identities), climaxed in the crucial eye-coitus (dṛṣṭi mithuna) between the human wife and the male creator god.

 

The implicit procreative purpose of the use of her fertility in the ritually simulated unions was occasionally communicated through prayers for progeny by her, bringing together her ‘sacral’ and usual sexually charged symbolic acts. In the Soma sacrifice, she was caused to be looked at the Soma cow by the neṣṭṛ to effect a productive union between them, the Soma cow being Soma and thus male, and the wife, a female. Simultaneously, mantras¹²¹ praying for a ‘hero’ (vīra), i.e., a son (putra), were recited by her, thereby reinforcing the procreative intent of the union.¹²² The instance of gender reversal implicit in the cow being equated with a male deity, and sexually paired with the wife is striking, considering the earlier instance of the Veda bunch being identified with vṛṣan, a term denoting both bull and man, and its untying by the wife being considered a sexual union. But, this and the aforediscussed instances of the inversion of gender identity of the male priests suggest that while the idea of procreative heterosexual union and the associated symbolism remained crucial to the ritual process and exegeses, the gender-binaries, whether biological, grammatical or semantic, of those that were sexually paired in such simulated unions were not strictly maintained. Considering that one of the key goals of the sacrificial ritual was the attainment of progeny through such symbolic unions, as long as heterosexuality remained the dominant sexual norm by virtue of its essentially procreative nature, gender-inversions did not pose a problem to the ritual practitioners. 

This rite of the wife’s gazing at the Soma cow was preceded by one of her receiving the dust of the Soma cow’s footprint from the adhvaryu and the sacrificer. The adhvaryu gives the dust of the Soma cow’s footprint to the sacrificer, saying, ‘In you are the riches’. The sacrificer received it, saying, ‘With me are the riches’. In both mantras, wealth is specified as cattle.¹²³ The adhvaryu then touches himself (near the heart), saying, 'May we not be deprived of prosperity!', thereby not excluding himself from (the possession of) cattle.¹²⁴ Then, the adhvaryu and the sacrificer hands over the (dust of the) footprint to the wife, since houses (gṛhāḥ) are a safe resting place/support/foundation (pratiṣṭhā) for a wife and in doing so, he ‘establishes’ her in the gṛhas, i.e., the pratiṣṭhās.¹²⁵ Then, the neṣṭṛ makes her say, ‘Yours, yours are the riches’.¹²⁶ While the adhvaryu’s act of giving the dust to the sacrificer is meant to endow him with, rather validate his possession of, wealth in the form of cattle, as implied in the accompanying mantra, the same act replicated by the sacrificer reinforces the wife’s confinement to the domestic space. Also, the act of passing/transferring the dust from the adhvaryu to the sacrificer and finally to his wife, implies that the ultimate responsibility for managing the domestic space is entrusted to women by men. The use of plural forms of gṛha and pratiṣṭhā perhaps serves to convey this position of wife as the desired general social norm. At the same time, the mantra chanted by her at the behest of the neṣṭṛ implies her acknowledgement of the sacrificer’s rights over domestic wealth or resources. This and the succeeding rite of gazing at the Soma cow, taken together, foreground both domesticity and sexuality as dominant markers of the wife’s socio-ritual position.

 

Though not an equal of the sacrificer in terms of control over the household resources, the wife was still recognized as having some say in the distribution of household items on ritual occasions. For instance, in the ātithya (guest-offering to Soma) rite of the agniṣṭoma, the wife holds on to the Soma cart because she is the mistress of the household objects, the sacrificer offers what is approved by her, her share in the sacrifice makes a pair¹²⁷ and her touching of the sacrifice from behind ensures its non-interruption.¹²⁸ However, it is not clear whether the wife could dispose of her property without her husband’s permission.¹²⁹

 

The ritual manipulation of the wife’s sexuality reached its climax in the symbolic copulation of the mahiṣī (the queen consort) with the sacrificial horse in the royal ritual of the aśvamedha (horse sacrifice). The mahiṣī was envisaged as seeking to initiate the union and gain progeny and cattle.¹³⁰ She was made to lie down near the horse by the other royal wives and female attendants, and both the mahiṣī and the horse were covered with an upper cloth.¹³¹ The ensuing simulated union was purported to endow the rājā with tejas (luster), indriya (energy) and paśu (cattle).¹³² The conspicuous event raised the subtly enacted symbolic unions involving the wife to near realistic levels and sharply foregrounded the royal wife as the central, visible and active symbol of fertility as opposed to the rājā who was portrayed as rather passive and yet controlling the instruments of procreation, somewhat like Prajāpati.¹³³ Perhaps, the flagrantly sexual nature of the act was related to the public nature of the ritual, wherein such a ‘spectacle’ served to communicate the idea of female fertility being ritually harnessed through the sacrifice and channellized into ensuring the prosperity of the realm (rājya).

 

Not only the ‘positive’ sexuality of the wife was used in the ritual for procreation, but also an uncommon construct of ‘negative’ sexuality, built on her presumed promiscuity, was deployed in the ritual for expiatory purposes. This is reflected in the varuṇapraghāsa sacrifice in her humiliating interrogation by the pratiprasthātṛ about her lovers¹³⁴ with the threat of injury to her relations (jñāti) from her untruthful confession. Heesterman¹³⁵ locates the roots of this interrogation and confession in the conflict between foraging parties over barley crop in the lean season ¾ a conflict that was sought to be resolved at the close of the season, through a sacrifice in which, given the connubial alliance between them, the sacrificer’s wife was assigned the central role of implicating his rival/her paramour and thereby sparing both parties from Varuṇa’s punitive fetters. This sacrifice with its dramatic moment of interrogation thus served two objectives: (a) re-affirmation of communitarian cohesion (impaired by seasonal material conflicts), and (b) restoration of marital fidelity of the woman (through confession of her guilt), and amity and peace between connubially related families’ peace (impaired by her supposed adultery). Thus, having been led up and made to confess, she and the sacrificer together made the offering of karambhapātras (meal dishes of raw ground barley) in the southern fire (dakṣināgni) as an expiation of sin/s committed by both.¹³⁶ Thus, not only the wife had been in the wrong, for both the sacrificer and his wife being conjugal pairs must atone together, but it was only through her cooperation that the conflict could be resolved and harmony restored. Heesterman’s insightful analysis thus combines both the gender and economic dimensions of this rite. Jamison,¹³⁷ on the other hand, interprets this interrogation as a means of infusing a bigger jolt of sexual energy than the proper marital sexual conduct in the ritual arena, by creating the fiction of lover/s for the wife. Since the wife was the locus of active sexuality, symbol of ‘impure’ behavior and representative of transgression of all ritual participants, especially her husband, her confession allowed her husband to expiate his own misdeeds without implicating himself (for he was not similarly interrogated). Thus, she operated as a sort of ‘ritual internal scapegoat’. In both analyses, the wife’s perceived negative sexuality (manifest in her real/fictive adultery) was harnessed for ritual purposes and, at the same time, tempered with reaffirmation of marital fidelity (which was supposed to channelize it to productive/procreative purpose).

 

Elsewhere,¹³⁸ the wife’s potential for committing adultery and begetting progeny from it is clearly recognized as a grave threat to the ‘purity’ of patriliny. It is stated that the human womb (manuṣyayoni), which is generative organ to a woman and from which the progeny is born, is the human world (manuṣyaloka). Hence, one should desire a ‘good’ wife (kalyāṇīm-jāyām), thinking: ‘May my self (ātman) be born in something good’; and should guard his wife, thinking: ‘Lest in my womb, my world, somebody else come into existence’. It is stated further that one is born with those very characteristics which he (the father) possesses, since there is no differentiation in the seed itself. Here, while ‘goodness’, or rather sexual chastity, is recommended as a desirable attribute so that it serves to make her as a ‘proper’ vehicle for ‘legitimate’ procreation, i.e., the re-production of a man’s self in his son (the use of the phrase ‘my womb’ stresses the man’s right to his wife’s reproductivity), she is also envisaged as capable of disrupting the male line of descent by her ‘transgressive’ sexuality. Further, recognizing procreation as a means of self-reproduction and, by implication, emphasizing the father-son bond virtually reduced woman to being an adjunct to the procreation process.

 

The conversion of the wife into an instrument of procreation within a ritual context was synchronous with the implicit elevation of the sacrificer to the status of Prajāpati and a passive male who controlled the instruments of procreation, viz., the wife and ritual objects, but distanced himself from the physicality of the process. Thus, the unequal relation between the yajamāna and patnī was paralleled by that between the creator Prajāpati and the procreative feminine principle on the cosmic plane. This is best exemplified by the analogy of relations between the sacrificer and his wife with that between the eater/enjoyer (attṛ) and eaten/edible (ādya).¹³⁹

 

The ritual inequality—premised, as it is, on an andro-centric notion of procreation (which rationalised hierarchical gender relations) and manifest in the minimization of the wife’s roles (which emphasized her passive instrumentality in procreation)—was effected through a subtle process of appropriation and substitution. This can be inferred from an incidental reference to the neat undisputed substitution of the wife with the āgnidhra in performing the role of the haviṣkṛt (preparer of sacrificial food) that she used to perform in former times.¹⁴⁰ A contrast to this is the implicit contention over the right to perform a ritual act (i.e., look down at the melted butter) between the sacrificer and adhvaryu.¹⁴¹ While Yājñavalkya urged that sacrificers themselves act as adhvaryus and recite prayers for far higher blessings, the fact that the officiating priests invoke blessings for the benefit of the sacrificer alone obviated any assertion of independence by the sacrificer and permitted the adhvaryu to look down at the butter. Thus, while the wife being marginal to the ritual process could be abruptly and unaccountably dispensed with by substitution, the sacrificer being the initiator of the sacrifice and patron of the priests had to be accorded importance in the order of affairs, even when priestly mediation was argued for.

 

To conclude, the sacrificial ritual conducted by the male priests in the interests of the male sacrificer marginalized the wife’s position by emphasizing on the potency of ritual acts and mantras to cause procreation and devaluing the natural or biological role of women in the process. At the same it sought to put the wife’s fertility at the service of the sacrificer’s aim to obtain offspring through ritual. However, the male attitude towards female sexuality and fertility remained ambivalent: her sexuality was a source of anxiety for the preservation of patriliny and a cause of ‘impurity’ for the human procreation, but at the same time it was considered a necessary aid to the ritual with which to bring about procreation.

 

 

REFERENCES: 

1.         J. C. Heesterman. Vedism and Brahmanism. In Encyclopaedia of Religion, edited by Lindsay Jones. Thomson Gale. 2005[1987]; 2nd ed.; vol. 14: p. 9553.

2.         Rajesh Kochhar. The Vedic People: Their History and Geography. Orient Longman, New Delhi. 2000: p. 15; Heesterman, Vedism and Brahmanism, p. 9553.

3.         R. S. Sharma. Material Culture and Social Formations in Ancient India. Macmillan India Ltd., New Delhi. 1983: p. 55.

4.         For example, Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (hereafter ŚB) 2.1.3.5-8, 3.1.1.9.

5.         Kumkum Roy. The Emergence of Monarchy in North India Eighth–Fourth Centuries B.C. as Reflected in the Brahmanical Tradition. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. 1994: pp. 236-37.

6.         Stephanie W. Jamison. Roles for Women in Vedic Śrauta Ritual. In Goddesses and Women in the Indic Religious Tradition, Edited by A. Sharma. E. J. Brill, Leiden and Boston. 2005: pp. 1-2.

7.         ŚB 3.2.2.12, 13.2.11.2, 13.2.2.1; Aitareya Brāhmaṇa (hereafter AB) 1.28.

8.         ŚB 3.3.4.21.

9.         ŚB 1.9.1.2, 3.2.1.30, 3.2.2.12, 3.4.1.19, 4.4.4.6.

10.       ŚB 3.1.4.21.

11.       ŚB 3.1.3.27.

12.       ŚB 3.1.3.25-26, 3.2.1.37, 38.

13.       ŚB 3.1.4.3-4, 3.2.2.2-3, 3.2.2.28-29, 3.2.2.12, 3.9.2.1-2.

14.       ŚB 2.1.4.20, 22.

15.       ŚB 2.1.4.7, 1.9.1.3, 3.1.1.8, 3.2.2.10, 3.2.2.19, 3.2.2.22, 6.6.1.12.

16.       ŚB 2.1.2.17, 2.1.4.7, 2.1.4.9, 2.2.2.14, 2.2.3.1, 2.4.3.11-12, 3.2.2.10, 4.5.4.2-6.

17.       ŚB 2.1.2.11, 3.3.3.10, 3.4.2.15, 4.5.4.8. He is also called the representative of Indra (indrabhājana, ŚB 3.4.2.15).

18.       ŚB 3.2.1.17, 6.7.2.10.

19.       ŚB 6.3.3.21, 6.4.1.3, 6.4.4.18, 6.5.1.8, 6.6.2.7, 6.7.1.24, 6.7.3.12, 7.4.1.21.

20.       ŚB 1.6.1.20; AB 3.13.

21.       Brian K. Smith. Ritual Perfection and Ritual Sabotage in the Veda. History of Religions. 1996, 35(4): 289-91.

22.       ŚB 1.1.2.12, 1.2.2.8, 1.7.1.11, 4.2.2.10, 3.6.3.15, 3.6.4.3, 4.5.1.16.

23.       ŚB 2.3.2.6.

24.       ŚB 1.4.1.32, 1.4.5.4, 2.1.2.11, 2.3.1.37-38, 2.3.4.38, 3.2.4.20, 3.3.4.18, 3.4.3.18, 3.5.4.8, 3.7.1.17, 3.9.4.5, 3.9.4.9, 4.2.3.10, 4.2.5.17, 4.6.3.2.

25.       ŚB 1.9.2.13.

26.       ŚB 3.7.4.10.

27.       In one instance, the gods desire to obtain the offering of Soma cup and grant him his desired boon (vara) in order that he offers it (ŚB 4.1.1.21). In another instance, he gratifies the gods by offering the graha and the latter being gratified convey him to the heavenly world (ŚB 4.1.1.25).

28.       ŚB 2.2.4.1.

29.       ŚB 2.2.2.15, 2.2.3.14, 2.2.3.26.

30.       ŚB 2.2.4.10. 

31.       ŚB 3.4.4.11-15, 3.4.4.17-20.

32.       ŚB 3.2.1.5-7.

33.       ŚB 3.2.1.11-12.

34.       ŚB 3.2.1.16.

35.       ŚB 3.3.3.12.

36.       ŚB 6.7.2.12.

37.       ŚB 3.9.1.5.

38.       ŚB 3.9.1.1-4.

39.       ŚB13.2.11.1.

40.       Kumkum Roy. Vedic Cosmogonies: Conceiving/Controlling Creation. In Tradition, Dissent and Ideology: Essays in the Honour of Romila Thapar, Edited by R. Chamapakalakshmi and S. Gopal.  Oxford University Press, New Delhi. 1996: p. 16.

41.       ŚB 6.5.3.5.

42.       ŚB 3.5.1.11.

43.       ŚB 2.2.1.1.

44.       ŚB 3.5.3.12, 4.3.4.4, 6.3.1.16.

45.       ŚB 2.2.2.7; AB 2.32.

46.       David M. Knipe. Priesthood: Hindu Priesthood. In Encyclopaedia of Religion, Edited by Lindsay Jones. Thomson Gale. 2005[1987]; 2nd edn, vol. 11: p. 7405. The hotṛ was assisted by maitrāvāruṇa, acchāvāka and grāvastut; the udgātṛ by prastotr,̣ pratihartṛ and subrāhmaṇyā; and the adhvaryu by pratiprasthātṛ, neṣṭṛ and unnetṛ (Michael Willis. The Archaeology of the Hindu Rituals: Temples and the Establishment of the Gods. Cambridge University Press, New York. 2009: p. 182).

47.       ŚB 1.9.1.2.

48.       ŚB 3.4.2.15, 4.2.4.20.

49.       ŚB 3.9.1.11-12.

50.       AB 1.21, 2.32, 3.3, 3.7, 3.11.

51.       ŚB 3.1.3.24, 3.4.3.19, 3.4.2.14, 3.4.2.15, 3.5.4.16, 4.3.1.9.

52.       The priests (vipras) were equated with Prajāpati and the devas, and were described as ‘great inspirer of devotion’ (ŚB 6.3.1.16).

53.       The brāhmaṇas were considered human gods (manuṣya devāḥ), the dakṣiṇā given to them being considered a form of sacrifice akin to the oblations to the gods (ŚB 2.2.2.6, 2.4.3.14, 4.3.4.4). Being seated in the sacrificial tent (sadas), where all gods sat, they were implicitly likened to gods (ŚB 3.6.1.1). The hotṛ was equated with Agni (ŚB 6.4.2.6, 6.4.2.7) and related to him (āgneya, ŚB 13.2.6.9). 

54.       ŚB 1.9.1.2.

55.       ŚB 3.4.3.11.

56.       ŚB 2.2.2.1, 2, 4.3.4.1-2, 6.6.4.7, ŚB 4.3.4.20.

57.       For instance, wealth (rai, ŚB 3.7.1.21), growth of wealth (rāyaspoṣa, ŚB 4.2.1.16), food and ability to eat (anna, annādya, AB 2.4), cattle (paśu, AB 2.4, 2.30), rain (vṛṣṭi, AB 2.4), etc.

58.       For instance, fiery spirit (tejas, ŚB 13.2.6.9,12), holy lustre (brahmavarcas, ŚB 13.2.6.9), rebirth (punarāyus, ŚB 13.2.6.11), breaths (prāṇa, apāṇa, vyāna, AB 2.4, 2.29), speech (vāc, AB 2.4), support (pratiṣṭhā, AB 2.4), etc.

59.       ŚB 4.3.4.4.

60.       ŚB 4.3.2.6.

61.       ŚB 7.3.1.12.

62.       ŚB 3.6.1.21.

63.       ŚB 3.8.4.10, 3.8.4.18.

64.       AB 1.1.

65.       AB 3.7.

66.       AB 2.4.

67.       Stephanie W. Jamison. Sacrificed Wife, Sacrificer’s Wife: Women, Ritual, and Hospitality in Ancient India. Oxford University Press, New York. 1996: p. 30; Jamison, Roles for Women, p. 2.

68.       For instance, it is stated in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa (hereafter TB) 3.3.3.1: ‘The sacrifice without the presence of the wife (apatnīkaḥ) is not real sacrifice (ayajñaḥ) and if the wife were to be absent, no children would be born; the wife attends to the sacrifice, since the sacrificer has undertaken the sacrifice for the procreation of children’.

69.       Jamison, Sacrificed Wife, pp. 32-36.

70.       AB 7.10.

71.       AB 7.10. The response avoids the issue of the absent wife and rather stresses on the significance of the ritual: by offering the agnihotra, the sacrificer without a wife obtains sons, grandsons and great grandsons in ‘this’ or terrestrial world and ‘that’ or heavenly world and thereby maintains the continuity (of his lineage) in that world. Just how progeny was to be acquired by the sacrificer to secure his after-life remains obscure. On the problem of the absent wife, Frederick M. Smith (Indra’s Curse, Varuṇa’s Noose, and the Suppression of Women in the Śrauta Ritual. In Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women, Edited by Julia Leslie. Motilal Banarsidass, New Delhi. 1992: pp. 42-43) mentions contradictory recommendations in later ritual texts for the use of inanimate substitutes (e.g., gold or kuśa grass modeled into the shape of wife), and for the omission of rites involving the wife. However, in general, later legal literature allowed a widower to remarry and continue his ritual life (Jamison, Sacrificed Wife, p. 35).

72.       Jamison, Sacrificed Wife, pp. 36-38. Moreover, such injunctions in the later legal and ritual texts as against a young maiden acting as priest in the agnihotra or a brāhmaṇa eating at a sacrifice offered by a woman raise the possibility of more ritual responsibilities undertaken by women (Jamison, Sacrificed Wife, p. 37). In contrast, however, several Gṛhyasūtras permit the wife to make the daily offering in the domestic fire (Jamison, Sacrificed Wife, p. 36).

73.       Jamison, Sacrificed Wife, p. 38.

74.       ŚB 1.3.1.12.

75.       ŚB 1.3.1.12, 1.9.2.3. 

76.       ŚB 1.3.1.13.

77.       ŚB 1.3.1.13.

78.       Jamison, Sacrificed Wife, pp. 42-48; Jamison, The Position of Women, pp. 4-5.

79.       ŚB 1.3.1.14.

80.       Smith, Indra’s Curse, pp. 24-27.

81.       ŚB 1.3.1.14.

82.       ŚB 1.3.1.16.

83.       TB 3.3.3.4. Here, the cord is not identified as Varuṇa’s noose.

84.       S. A. Dange. Sexual Symbolism from the Vedic Ritual. Ajanta Publications, New Delhi. 1979: p. 77.

85.       ŚB 1.3.1.15.

86.       ŚB 1.1.4.5, 1.3.3.4, 1.2.1.14.

87.       ŚB 1.3.1.14.

88.       Aditi is derived from root dā (to bind) prefixed with a in the negative or privative sense.

89.       A. B.  Keith. Religion and Philosophy of the Vedas and Upaniṣads, 2 vols. Motilal Banarsidass, New Delhi. 1989[1925]: pp. 215-16.

90.       TB 3.3.3.5.

91.       Keith, Religion and Philosophy, pp. 71-72.

92.       Roy, Changing Kinship Relations, p. 13.

93.       ŚB 1.3.1.18.

94.       ŚB 1.3.1.22.

95.       Jamison, Sacrificer’s Wife, pp. 56-57.

96.       In fact, her ritual roles, akin to domestic chores, were largely an extension of her domesticity as opposed to the essentially sacred activities of the sacrificer, viz., making offerings, chanting mantras, etc. (Kumkum Roy. The Emergence of Monarchy in North India Eighth–Fourth Centuries B.C. as Reflected in the Brahmanical Tradition. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. 1994: p. 274).

97.       ŚB 1.9.2.22.

98.       ŚB 3.8.2.4,6.

99.       ŚB 3.8.2.5.

100.    ŚB 3.8.2.8.

101.    ŚB 3.8.2.9-10.

102.    ŚB 1.9.2.1.

103.    Jamison, Sacrificer’s Wife, pp. 50-51.

104.    ‘Offspring is produced by means of a productive union after the completion of the sacrifice. This is why they now perform the patnīsaṃyājus’(ŚB 1.9.2.5).

105.    ŚB 1.9.2.6.

106.    ŚB 1.9.2.27.

107.    ŚB 1.9.2.9.

108.    siktam-retaḥ-vikaroti (ŚB 1.9.2.10).

109.    Their names are never given: they are simply a collective, and apparent metaphor the feminine energy and reproductive capacity (Smith, Indra’s Curse, p. 29).

110.    ŚB 1.9.2.11.

111.    ŚB 1.9.2.13.

112.    Smith, Indra’s Curse, p. 30.

113.    Jamison, Sacrificer’s Wife, p. 50.

114.    Smith, Indra’s Curse, p. 29.

115.    ŚB 1.9.2.4.

116.    ŚB 1.9.2.3.

117.    Smith, Indra’s Curse, p. 27.

118.    ŚB 1.9.2.12.

119.    ŚB 4.4.2.15.

120.    ŚB 4.4.2.17-18.

121.    Vājasaneyī Saṃhitā (hereafter VS) 4.23, in ŚB 3.3.1.12.

122.    ŚB 3.3.1.11-12.

123.    VS 4.22, in ŚB 3.3.1.8.

124.    VS 4.22, in ŚB 3.3.1.9.

125.    ŚB 3.3.1.10.

126.    Taittirīya Saṃhitā (hereafter TS) 6.1.8.5; ŚB 3.3.1.11.

127.    That is, wife and the yajña are a pair (mithuna), according to the 14^th-century commentator on the text, Sāyaṇa.

128.    TS 6.2.1.

129.    A. S. Altekar. The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation. Motilal Banarsidass, New Delhi. 1987[1938]: p. 223.

130.    She chants the verses: ‘I will urge the seed layer’; and ‘May the vigorous male, the layer of seed, lay seed’ (ŚB 13.2.8.5, 13.5.2.2).  

131.    ŚB 13.5.2.2.

132.    ŚB 13.2.6.7.

133.    Roy, The Emergence of Monarchy, pp. 120-21.

134.    ‘With whom do you have intercourse?’ (ŚB 2.5.2.20).

135.    J. C. Heesterman. Kauṭilya and the Ancient Indian State. In J. C. Heesterman, The Inner Conflict of Indian Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship and Society. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 1985: pp. 134-37.

136.    ŚB 2.5.2.25.

137.    Jamison, Sacrificer’s Wife, pp. 88-95.

138.    Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa (JB) 1.17.

139.    ŚB 1.8.3.5, 6.

140.    ŚB 1.1.4.13.

141.    ŚB 1.3.1.26.

 

Received on 01.06.2017       Modified on 07.06.2017

Accepted on 19.06.2017      © A&V Publication all right reserved