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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.
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.
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).
Most females were allowed to pursue education without significant constraints in the Vedic period. [105] Women's education, unlike in the subsequent periods was not neglected. Female scholars were also present during this period. The educators of this period had divided women into two groups – Brahmavadinis and Sadyodvahas. [105]
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 status of women in India has been subject to many great changes over the past few millennia. With a decline in their status from the ancient to medieval times ...
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]