[Advaita-l] yagnOpaveeta & women

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Dear friends,
 
Upanayanam or no upanayanam the girl has to be given in marriage by the father. If the father fails to find a suitable bridegroom for her even after three years of her attaining puberty then the girl is at liberty to choose her groom. However the father may also arrange a swayamvara at any time before that for the girl to choose her own bridegroom. Even if upanayanam is done and the Vedas are taught one cannot say that the father's responsibilty is not there for her marriage. Father has to find a bridegroom for the Veda-educated daughter also and solemnise her  marriage even if it becomes necessary to sell his property.
 
Regards,
 
Sunil K. Bhattacharjya

--- On Sat, 9/19/09, Anbu sivam2 <anbesivam2 at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Anbu sivam2 <anbesivam2 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] yagnOpaveeta & women
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Saturday, September 19, 2009, 1:05 AM


The Manusmriti says, "streenAm upanayana-sthAnE vivAham manurabraveet".  In
the case of women marriage is performed in place of upanayanam.  Upanayanam
earns a man a Guru while vivaaham earns a girl her Guru (her husband).

When we have doubts we approach our AachaaryaaL for clarification.  Kanchi
AachaaryaaL had clearly said that women should not chant Gayathri Manthra.

What is yagnopaveetham without Gayathri manthra?

Gayathri itself is femine and is considered the mother of the Veda.  When a
boy is initiated during the yagnopaveetham the mother is present and hears
the Gayathri upadesam given to her son and she receives the first
'abhivaadhaye' from him.  No upanayanam is possible without the mother being
present.

It is pertinent to quote the advise of Kanchi Mahaswami when someone who was
not initiated into Gayathri asked him if he can chant Gayathri.  I give
below the incident that was published.

saidevo
27 May 2007, 08:16 AM
Paramacharya and Children: Baby--Lily--Billy
author:..... SriMaTham Balu
compiler:... T.S. Kothandarama Sarma
book:......... Maha PeriyavaL - Darisana AnubhavangaL vol. 2, pages 177-187
publisher:.. Vanathi Padhippaham (May 2005 Edition)

Baby--Lily--Billy

A veLLALa (farmer) devotee asked, "Can I chant the Gayatri Mantra?"

A question that creates dharma saN^katam (embarrassment to do what is
right)! Either of the two replies yes or no is bound to bring up criticism.

SriMaTham's work is to foster and preserve the Sanatana dharmas. The
confrontations that Bharat had in the last thousand years are numerous. The
Bharata samudAya (public) has always had the skills to preserve its roots,
withstanding the attacks, bending like reeds when a hurricane blows and then
raising its head once again after storm passes.

But then should SriMaTham intervene in every change? What is its share?
Today's thinking becomes obsolete tomorrow and cast away. Though no one can
control the gush of floods after it broke the dam, a day has to come when
the floods will recede and the flow is streamlined in the river?

Nobody has any knowledge if PeriyavaaL had such thoughts. But he had the
unique ability to ease a delicate situation and leave it to its natural
course.

PeiyavaaL did not give a direct reply to the devotee. "How many children you
have?" he asked.

A surprising reply came from him. "By your grace I have been bestowed with
three girls: one five years old, another three and the last six months..."

Periyavaa said: "Name one girl as Gayatri, another as Sandhya and the third
as Savitri. Call the three girls by those names. Not as Baby--Lily--Billy!

"If you thus repeatedly say the names Gayatri--Sandhya--Savitri, you would
get the puNyA (fruits) of Gayatri Mantra chanting."

The devotees face displayed his happiness. Periyavaa had given him his
anugraha of clarity of thought, when he was hesitating to take up an act
that was against the sampradAya (tradition).



On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 1:58 AM, Sunil Bhattacharjya <
sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Dear friends,
>
> In all such contentious issues we have to see what the Dhramashastra
> says. Manu says that the before marriage a girl has to be protected by the
> father. Under these conditions can a girl be sent to Gurukula unless the
> gurukula is in the girl's own home, ie. the father himself conducts the
> Vedic studies? Manu says that the Dharma shastra is based on the Veda. It is
> another thing that to maintain the superiority it is said that in case
> of conflict the opinion of the Veda is supreme, though any such conflict has
> never been reported, To my knowledge while the girl has to be always under
> the father's protection the boy is alloweed to be under the protection of
> his guru. This itself shows that this is the primary criterion why girls are
> not sent to acquire Vedic education. But there have been instances where the
> girls did study the Vedas from their own fathers.
>
> Now that the girl has to be in home where her father (in his absence of
> father where her brother or her next caretaker) is she is given other
> appropriate tranings (depending on what the father can provide) to equip her
> for playing the required roles in life.. She may not be given access to the
> Veda and the upanayanam may not be requred, if her father is not an acharya
> himself.
>

Secondly we have to keep in mind that there is verse (whch I do not recall
> at this moment but many of the mebers may know), which says that no smriti
> can violate the spirit of the Manu smriti. Keeping this in mind there has
> been liberalisation in the subsequent Yugas. Thus for the different yugas
> there are different smritis. Parashara smriti, which is for the Kali yuga
> has even allowed a woman to walk out of marriage and remarry, but in that
> too there are some criteria to be met. If we keep this in mind then we
> really do not see any real conflict among the smritis also.
>
> Regards,
>
> Sunil K. Bhattacharjya
>
>
>
> --- On Fri, 9/18/09, Anbu sivam2 <anbesivam2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Anbu sivam2 <anbesivam2 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] yagnOpaveeta & women
> To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Date: Friday, September 18, 2009, 11:31 AM
>
>
> The idea of upanayanam is to initiate Gayathri Manthra in the Vatu who is
> getting into adolescence.  Gayathri Manthra is a prayer for inciting the
> intellect so it knows the real from the unreal.
>
> This world is unreal and is held to be real by the mind.  The unreal is
> negated only by the intellect.  So the the mind and the intellect are
> opposites.
>
> In our concept the mind is a feminine personification.  The karma kaanda of
> the Veda is dedicated to the Mind and the Gnana Kaanda is dedicated to the
> intellect.  A girl getting into adolescence is given bhooshanam for the
> role
> that she has to play from then on and the boy on the contrary gets a
> kOmaNam!
>
> Hope people understand why unanayanam is not done for the girls.
>
> *(See my second Musing based on this concept).*
>
> On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 1:26 PM, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <
> svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > I am responding to this topic more than a month after it was posted. Only
> > because it is something worth responding to.
> >
> >
> >
> > The one ventral thing to keep in mind about all our samskAra-s is that
> > there are many schools of thought about them, championed by very
> respected
> > and respectable people, but not all such views have the sanction of
> custom
> > and tradition.
> >
> >
> >
> > For example, in the dharmasUtra-s, there are varying opinions about
> > remarriage of widows or of a woman whose husband has abandoned her.
> Contrary
> > to popular opinion, it is not always simply prohibited. However,
> different
> > AcAya-s express different opinions on when it can be allowed. You cannot
> > simply say that Apastambha says one thing and vasishTha says another,
> > therefore there is no consistency in the Hindu thinking about it. Rather,
> in
> > any particular case, the custom to be followed will have to be influenced
> by
> > whether the family follows the Apasatambha sUtra or the vasishTha sUtra.
> In
> > this case, there is no one siddhAnta that is common to all people, but
> there
> > are multiple choices dictated by usage and family tradition.
> >
> >
> >
> > Similarly, in the mImAMsA sUtras, there is a discussion about who is
> > entitled to perform yajnas for which the upanayana is a prerequisite. In
> > this case, too, many respected names are cited as holding different
> > opinions, but the final siddhAnta is unmistakably one.
> >
> >
> >
> > Regarding commonly seen domestic rituals, again, not everything is
> covered
> > in the dharmaSAstra. Even for such a central life-defining ritual as
> > marriage, there is nothing in the dharmaSAstra texts about the woman
> wearing
> > a cord around her neck as a Mangalsutra. Yet, centuries old traditions
> for
> > all communities feature some version or the other of a Mangalsutra. One
> > simple way of looking at these cases is to see whether the concerned
> > dharmaSAstra prohibits a particular commonly observed ritual.
> >
> >
> >
> > Human beings do things in a million different ways, which cannot all be
> > anticipated and set down in iron-clad do-s and dont-s. The strength of
> the
> > dharmaSAstra-s is that they do not attempt to do so. Rather, family
> > traditions, commonly observed customs, the advice of elders in the
> community
> > and the practices followed by the learned (SishTAcAra) are all given some
> > importance.
> >
> >
> >
> > In any situation, dharma does not stand up and announce itself, "here I
> > am". The dhArmic way to do things has to be learned and cultivated.
> >
> >
> >
> > Vidyasankar
> >
> >
> >
> > >
> > > I was reading a Kannada book ' saMskAragaLu mattu mAnaveeya moulyagaLu'
> > > written by Sri Srikanta Kumara Swamy. In this book, it is said that
> women
> > > is entitled to undergo 'upanayanaM' and can do saNdhya vandanaM
> > regularly.
> > > Author, justifies his claim by quoting some incidents in rAmAyaNa &
> > > other texts. Besides this, author also makes some interesting
> > > observations on rAkshOghna hOma (a sort of ritual which we observe
> before
> > > house warming), kooshmAnda bali (here in South India, we cut pumpkin
> into
> > > pieces apply some kumkum & turmeric powder to symbolize the animal
> > > sacrifice to dikpAlaka-s, kshetrapAla & vAstu purusha etc. in house
> > > warming ceremony). He says these rituals are meaningless & donot have
> any
> > > base in dharma shAstra.
> > >
> > > I'd like to get more insights into this issue i.e. threading ceremony
> to
> > > women & saNdhyA vandana by women from the prabhuji-s.
> > >
> > > Kindly ignore if it is out of the scope of advaita.
> > >
> > > Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> > > bhaskar
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