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[1] [2] [3] Rig Vedic verses suggest that women married at a mature age and were probably free to select their own husbands in a practice called swayamvar or through Gandharva marriage. [4] The Rig Veda and Upanishads mention several women sages and seers, notably Gargi Vachaknavi and Maitreyi (c. 7th century BCE). [5]
Women enjoyed far greater freedom in the Vedic period than in later India. She had more to say in the choice of her mate than the forms of marriage might suggest. She appeared freely at feasts and dances, and joined with men in religious sacrifice. She could study, and like Gargi, engage in philosophical disputation.
Gargi, alongside Vadava Pratitheyi and Sulabha Maitreyi, was one of the most prominent women of the Upanishads. [10] She was as knowledgeable in Vedas and Upanishads as men of the Vedic times and could very well contest the male-philosophers in debates. [11] Her name appears in the Grihya Sutras of Asvalayana. [12]
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (c. 1500 – c. 500 BCE), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (c. 1500 –900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the urban Indus Valley Civilisation and a second urbanisation, which began in the central Indo-Gangetic Plain c. 600 BCE.
It begins with a declaration that "the object of all missions to the heathen is to substitute for these systems the Gospel of Christ", thereafter lists sati for each year over the period 1815–1824, which totals 5,369, followed by a statement that a total of 5,997 instances of women were burned or buried alive in the Bengal Presidency over a ...
Maitreyi, who is also mentioned in a number of Puranas, "is regarded as one of the most learned and virtuous women of ancient India" [30] and symbolizes intellectual women in India. [16] A college in New Delhi is named after her, [4] as is the Matreyi Vedic Village, a retreat location in Tamil Nadu. [31]
The rationales of individual women for keeping purdah are complex and can be a combination of motivations, freely chosen or in response to social pressure or coercion: religious, cultural (desire for authentic cultural dress), political (Islamization of the society), economic (status symbol, protection from the public gaze), psychological ...
The recorded history of Andhra Pradesh, one of the 28 states of 21st-century India, begins in the Vedic period. It is mentioned in Sanskrit epics such as the Aitareya Brahmana (800 BCE). [1] [2] [3] Its sixth-century BCE incarnation Assaka lay between the Godavari and Krishna Rivers, [4] one of sixteen mahajanapadas (700–300 BCE).