AT the beginning of the twentieth century, His Reverence Upasani Baba, who was a contemporary of Saibaba of Shirdi, started a hermitage at Sakori. The hermitage gradually became a place for Dharma and pilgrimage. Virgins in that asrama were addressed as 'sati'. Sati Godavari, among the satis, became eminent by her own meritorious deeds.
In this ashram training was imparted through worship, sacred recitations, chanting Bhajans, religious discourses, study of the vedas, and instructions about the sacrificial rites, etc. Sanskrit was a medium of day-to-day communication. Some of the women in the ashram became scholars. Discarding the traditional shackles they carried, they performed sacrificial rites rituals concerned with marriage openly and unhesitantly. These satis supervised the performance of sacrifices not only in Maharashtra, but also in other places in India and abroad.
Keeping the Sakori ideal in view, the Shankara Seva Samiti of Pune started teaching Sanskrit and purohitya to women at Udyanaprasada Karyalaya in 1976. At the beginning, there were only sixteen women trainees. But within ten years there were 160. Among them fifty were elderly women and the rest were younger and included unmarried girls, married and divorced women, and widows. Initially, they were trained in the knowledge of rites of worship, reading of religious texts, marriage procedures, and conducting of different types of sacrifices. Students began the training by performing the rites connected with bathing the deities, (Abhiseka), smaller or larger forms of worships, rites about different vows and observances, etc. Slowly, they learned to perform certain sacrifices. It should be particularly noted that purohitya was not restricted to women who were Brahmin by caste but was also open to women of other caste and class.
At the beginning, the training aimed mostly at imparting knowledge. In order to help the society, women purohitas used to perform rites free of charge. As time passed on, they began to accept some amount of money as 'dakshina' and used to hand it over to the authorities of Shankara SevaSamiti. Now, they get almost the same amount as the male purohitas.
Women who were trained in the Samiti started giving lessons in various houses. They taught three batches at a time, and made the concept of 'Lady purohita' popular. Originally, women took up this task almost as a hobby, but those intending to add to their family income also did well. This training extended to some ten districts in Maharashtra. In the last decade (1986-96) about six thousand ladies were trained. Currently lady purohitas outnumber the male purohitas. Their families encourage them and society has welcomed this new development. The male purohitas tried to criticize and oppose the movement when it began but they seem now to have accepted it.
Following are the benefits accrued from the new awakening:
- The female purohitas are easily available.
- The female purohitas display more affinity while conducting the various vows and observances.
- In an era of social equality the system helps to reduce the dominance of male priests.
- Women were freed to pursue vedic studies.
Priests from other castes also came to be trained in certain villages. All the rituals are performed by the new priests. The various new branches of purohitya include: Arya samaji systems _ which also claim to be Vedic. Jnanaparbodhini method _ they have dropped the unnecessary details, shortened the duration of certain rites like Upanayana, Vivaha, Sraddhaviddhi etc. Due to their busy lives, urban people cannot afford to give much time to rituals. So some shortcuts are being sought. Professional priests are very good at cutting the rituals short according to the time available. For example, the usual five days marriage ceremony is now reduced to a day's ritual.
It is also possible to specialise in different kinds of priesthood these days. Today there are Pavamana priets, Rudra-Priests, Shraddha priests, funeral priests, sacrificial priests, and Rigveda recitation priests. Insome urban areas like Mumbai or Pune, people even substitute video or audio cassettes for priests. But nothing has generated as much interest as the emergence of women purohitas. Far from provoking any hostility, their presence has been largely welcomed by society and their numbers are growing.
V. L. Manjul
Manushi, Issue 99
