ABSTRACT
The Strı-dharmapaddhati was written between 1720 and 1750 by Tryambakayajvan, an orthodox pandit and minister at the Haratha court of Thanjavur in southern India. It was written in Sanskrit, arising from and intended for an elite. It thus encapsulates for its place and time the opinions of an influential group. In more general terms, it teaches us something of the fascinating, if often obscure, reasoning of dharmas´a-stra relating to women, reasoning that still shapes ideas about gender in India today. For Tryambaka’s aim was to summarize the views of Sanskrit religious law relating to women, including the rulings relating to widowhood and sahagamana. Tryambaka is a traditionalist, seeking to reinforce the ideals of Hindu dharma (and Hindu womanhood) at a time of political insecurity, since he was writing in a world dominated by Muslims who did not encourage sahagamana. From 1691, the Maratha Rajas of Thanjavur owed allegiance to the Mughal Empire centred in Delhi. They were cut off from their Maratha origins and from the hallowed region of Sanskrit culture in the north.6 To a man like Tryambaka, Hindu dharma must have seemed at risk. The Strı-dharmapaddhati addresses this challenge. Thus Tryambaka portrays
women not as individuals but as parts that fit into and strengthen the whole (that is, dharma). For the assumption of dharmas´a-stra is that every individual must perform his or her allotted role (allotted, that is, by the precepts of svadharma and strı-dharma) in order that universal harmony may result. By
reinforcing the proper role of women, therefore, Tryambaka is both recreating Hindu dharma and, by extension, establishing the perfect world. For him, as for so many previous exponents of dharmas´a-stra, the proper role of women embraces both sahagamana and widowhood. Tryambaka’s views on these two interrelated topics are to be found among the nine ‘duties common to all women’. The arguments relating to dying with one’s husband are discussed first, the lifestyle of the widow-ascetic second. For when a man dies, his wife is faced with a choice: not simply life or death as some might see it, but a choice between two religious paths. This is how Tryambaka describes it. His argument is geared to deciding which of these two religious paths she should take. As we shall see, either path may be recommended on positive grounds. For both demonstrate the essential power of the good woman for the salvation of husband and family. My concern here is to draw a parallel between the male ascetic’s choice
between ritual suicide and a life of renunciation, and the startlingly similar choice facing the woman whose husband has died. This parallel is implicit in Tryambaka’s work. My intention is to demonstrate that, at least in the ideal terms of dharmas´a-stra, widowhood may be deemed as positive a path for women as the life of the renouncer is for men. Tryambaka gives us our first clue to this interpretation in his response to the traditional objection that sahagamana is a form of suicide, and therefore prohibited. Two quotations support the objection; both from the sacred source of revealed truth (s´ruti) and both therefore authoritative. The S´atapatha-bra-hman. a (X.2.6.7) insists that one should live out one’s allotted span of life. The I
- s´opanis.ad proclaims that ‘those
who kill themselves’ will go to hell (3.3).7 Tryambaka’s response is that this prohibition on suicide does not constitute an absolute ruling. It is a general rule (sa-ma-nyavacana) open to modification by supplementary rules that specify exceptions. He argues by analogy with other general rules: the prohibition on killing living beings, for example, is modified by supplementary rules relating to specific animal sacrifices. In the same way, the prohibition on suicide allows for exceptions. Tryambaka names three such exceptions: the ritual suicide of the ascetic in a sacred place; the warrior’s deliberate courting of death in battle; and the self-sacrifice of the satı-. This link between the ascetic, the warrior and the satı-in the heroism of their
chosen death is instructive. For the religious heroism they share becomes differentiated at the level of class (or varn. a) and gender: one expression for the male brahmin, another for the male ks.atriya, a third for women. The question of whether the heroism of women should be further differentiated by varn. a is raised later. Tryambaka concludes that it should be: the brahmin woman (ideally, the chief wife, the patnı-) should have the honour of dying on her husband’s pyre, alongside his corpse (hence the term sahagamana); wives of lower varn. a should burn on separate pyres (hence the term anugamana). Equally instructive is the unspoken link between warrior, ascetic and widow
when they survive. The religious path they share now is one of spiritual purpose, dedication and self-denial. The warrior will risk his life repeatedly, ready each time to lose all for the sake of others. The ascetic or renouncer consciously abandons all and steps forward into death, turning back only at the brink. The wife whose husband has died faces death beside him; only when she turns back from the place of the satı-may she be called a widow. These three paths suggest a prior custom common to them all: that of renouncing the world when at the point of death, which in time became renunciation as an alternative to death. Another clue to this interpretation is provided by Tryambaka’s response to
the objection that sahagamana is prohibited to brahmin women. Before arguing against the objection, he produces several quotations in support of it. For example:
Each of these quotations culminates in the assertion that a brahmin woman who insists on joining her husband in death must be deemed guilty of the crime of suicide. As I have indicated, Tryambaka disagrees. My concern here, however, is to draw attention to several subsidiary but important points: first, that the woman whose husband has died is faced with a choice between two paths, suicide (whether as ritual or crime) and survival; second, that the heroic path, ritual suicide, is generally considered more appropriate to the warrior class; third, that survival, seen as the ascetic path, is thought by some to be appropriate for brahmins; and fourth, that the debate concerning which path is more effective in religious terms is a lively one. The link between the male renouncer and the widow, implicit in
Tryambaka’s views, is at its clearest here. For the path of the widow is explicitly described as the path of ‘renunciation’ (pravrajya-). Tryambaka glosses pravrajya-as brahmacaryam (the life of the celibate ascetic), a term
which in the context of strı-dharma is synonymous with vidhava-dharma (the duties or lifestyle of the widow).
