Charlie Peterson

11/7/04

HRS 220

Professor Dubois

Word Count: 1776

 

Analysis of Stephanie Jamison’s Sacrificed Wife/ Sacrificer’s Wife

 

Outline

I.               Introduction

 

II.             Selective Summary

A.   Dangerous tensions of hospitality

                                                     i.     Elements of hospitality

                                                      ii.     Gendered hospitality

B.    The gift & giver of marriage

                                                     i.     Bridal gift exchange – Bride as gift

                                                      ii.     Bridal gift exchange – Bride as giver

 

III.           Evaluation

A.  Does Jamison support the hospitality and marriage themes?

B.    Critique of philological studies

 

IV.           Wider Relevance

A.   Complexities of rituals and hospitality/marriage

B.    Importance of androgynous scholarship

 

Reading Analysis

I.          Introduction

            In the book Sacrificed Wife/Sacrificer’s Wife, Stephanie Jamison examines ancient India and the role of women in early Vedic rituals through ancient Vedic texts. In part IV of her book, Jamison analyzes hospitality and gift-exchange. In part V, Jamison studies the roles of women in early marriage rituals in the same Vedic texts. While I am not considering the primary stories and their respective translations, I am evaluating Jamison’s secondary interpretations and analyses of these stories and rituals. From her interpretations, Jamison concludes that the complex and occasionally contradictory roles of women are elucidated through the stories of hospitality and gift-giving, with marriage being the most fundamental and gendered form of hospitality.

 

II.        Selective Summary

Dangerous Tensions of Hospitality

            According to Jamison, hospitality rites were an integral aspect of ancient Vedic culture, and were written about in a variety of texts, ranging from the grhya and dharma manuals to the Atharva Veda Sanhita (157). The “elaborate mechanisms” of hospitality represented the interactions between the guest and host, and reflected the dangerous tension that existed between provider and the beneficiary (254). The host not only provided for the basic needs of the guest, such as water for the feet and mouth (157), a seat (165), and food (162), the host attempted to fulfill all wants of the guest. In some stories the host even provided the privilege of fornicating with his wife to the guest (154). The demands of the guests often became humiliating and hazardous to the host.

            In order to temper the vulnerability of the host to the whims of the guest, the quality of the hospitality rites was dependent upon the rank of the individual guest (182-183). “As the importance of the guest rises…the requirements become more exacting” (157). The gifts bestowed upon the guest, such as a cow or Arghya water, depended upon the guest’s worthiness (158). By calibrating the level of hospitality, the risk to the host was reduced.

 

I [Jamison] would suggest that the codification of hostly responsibility was in part a   response to the dangerous open-endedness of the hospitality relation, an attempt to limit what could or would be asked of a host, to control the unpredictable quality of this inherently risky relationship. In other words, I would suggest that behind the hospitality relation in general was the unsettling notion that a host might have to give whatever a guest demanded … (162)

 

Amplifying the tension, such calibration of hospitality was often difficult as the guest’s true identity was always unknown until the story’s conclusion. The demanding guests were often divine figures who eventually rewarded the hosts. “The disguised divinity of the guests in these stories is a crucial feature. There is more of an incentive to practice unquestioning hospitality if every guest, especially the more trying among them, may actually be a god in disguise …” (169). Although the level of hospitality depended on the rank of the guest, the hospitality rite was an assessment of the host. “The host’s merit comes from respecting the hospitality tie itself, regardless of the actual identity of the guest” (169). The host was expected to please the guest despite the dangerous tension.

            Jamison’s analysis of the hospitality rites reveals the inherent gendered qualities of the rites themselves. Jamison found that women were generally the vehicles for their husband’s/father’s hospitality, such as in the tale of Sudarśana and Oghavatī (155) and the Sūrya-Kuntī tale (165). Because women were the ones who performed the hospitality rites, they were often coerced into the most demeaning and hazardous actions. It was the wife who “acts as mediator for her husband in a risky or unpleasant situation, and he receives the benefits of her action” (155). The hospitality actions were often sexual. Jamison interpreted the foot-washing of the Soma Sacrifice to be sexually charged (173). However, the woman’s role was contradictory. While she was forced to perform the hospitality rites by her husband, by performing the rites she became more of an actor than her husband.

Gift & Giver of Marriage

Women are an integral part of their husband’s hospitality mechanisms. Husbands gain this power because they possess their wife through marriage, and can give them away under the terms of hospitality (236). Jamison explains how the future husband acquires the bride in her analysis of women and marriage in part V. The husband may receive the bride as a gift from the bride’s family, or as an emancipated woman who gives herself to him. Marriage represents an alliance between two families, with the gift exchange of the bride as the link (207). In a situation where the father is responsible for giving the bride away, the bride’s family assesses the bride’s economic value before presenting her to a prospective husband (208). Furthermore, both families perform a cost/benefit analysis of the bride before any marriage (210). These processes transform the bride into a commodity to be traded between two parties (210). Jamison analyzes the eight different types of marriages in the Vedic texts in order to understand the importance of the woman as a gift between the father and future husband. The most desirable of the marriages included willing and mutual exchanges between the families (212). “Both the paternal and conjugal representatives are willing parties in an exchange of property, which establishes a particular type of linkage between them” (212). In the seven types of acceptable marriages (not including the Paísāca marriage), they all followed elaborate ceremonies in which the woman was a proper gift (212).

            In Vedic customs, the event of a woman giving herself away for marriage was not extremely common, but Jamison interprets the texts to mean that occasionally, this did occur from time to time. The law texts dictate that the maiden may emancipate herself from her family and search for a husband on her own when her father is unable to find a husband for his daughter (254). “The legal, narrative and ritual texts concur in giving an unmarried girl some latitude for finding a husband on her own or for actively participating in the family quest” (240). This event occurred in a Rig Veda hymn, which relates the story of Apālā, who, on her own, participates in a Vedic husband-finding ritual (pati-vedana) (240). This hymn “depicts a young girl approaching puberty performing a coming-of-age ritual for herself. She is alone and uses the equipment and mantras of the most solemn of Vedic solemn rituals, the Soma sacrifice, to attract the god Indra and, and ultimately, a husband” (240). In addition, Jamison compares the husband-finding aspect of the śrauta ritual, called the Sākamedha, with the Aśvemedha ritual (241, 243). In both rituals, women actively participate in the husband-finding rite. Although unusual, women sometimes had to find their own husbands. It is the father’s responsibility to find a husband for his daughter, but in the event that he cannot find a suitor, sometimes the girl takes it upon herself to find a husband.

III.       Evaluation

Jamison’s philological evidence supported her thesis that the ancient Vedic texts revealed a complex system of hospitality rituals, including marriage. Her chosen examples of Vedic texts all elaborated on the themes of dangerous tensions that existed within the hospitality rite and the gift/giver relationship in marriage. In part IV, Jamison introduces the reader to several stories of hospitality rites that exemplify the dangerous and gendered functions. However, her analysis in part IV was often briefly limited to short interpretations of the numerous stories. She provides few large conclusions to the chapter. Through several stories in part V, Jamison supports her themes of the role of women as gift and occasionally giver in marriage exchange. In part V, her interpretations became lengthier and more insightful to the complex nature of the role of women in the ancient Vedic text.

            Jamison’s philological analysis of the early Vedic texts revealed a fundamental flaw in her study: it was difficult to draw conclusions for an entire society based solely on an analysis of texts. While her conclusions supporting the multifaceted roles of women in the hospitality rituals were well substantiated within the stories, it was difficult to apply these conclusions to the broader ancient Aryan culture (253). Further discussion would have been helpful. It was also difficult for the reader to assess the completeness of the interpretation. Jamison decided what portions of text to translate and share with the reader, and Jamison decided what portions to leave out. Furthermore, there have been other scholarly translations and interpretations of the same texts (e.g. Oldenberg and Hillebrandt’s translations) pointing to the susceptibility of drawing single conclusions (186). Given the variety of texts available and the multiple interpretations, I appreciate her resolution not to draw simple conclusions concerning the role of women (253).

IV.       Wider Relevance

            In interpreting the ancient Vedic text, Jamison’s conclusions are similar to the general remarks of Dubois (Dimensions of Religious Life 1). Jamison finds an interrelationship between the worldly and divine rituals of hospitality and marriage that are difficult to separate in the ancient Vedic texts. Concerning hospitality, Jamison found that it was difficult to differentiate the responsibilities of the earthly hosts and guests from religious context. “Ritual and hospitality cannot be separated (174). In most of the stories described by Jamison, the guests were actually disguised deities, so that the hosts’ acts of hospitality were actually part of a ritual sacrifice to their gods. “The libidinous visitor [who fornicated with Oghavatī] turns out to be Dharma” (155). Jamison found that such duality can be found in the word choice of the Vedic texts. She dissected the meaning of the term “Śrāddha” in the Manu’s Cups story to mean obligation in both basic hospitality and in ritual (177). The binary significance is also revealed in the dually earthly and ritual Śrāddha ceremony honoring the family dead by hosting Brahmans (182).

            Women have important roles in the various religious traditions we have studied. However, it seems despite this, their importance has been marginalized by a culture of androcentric scholarship. Jamison presents a fresh interpretation of the early Vedic texts from an androgynous perspective. Apart from investigating the “conceptual position of women in early Indic society,” Jamison “aims to make a general contribution to the study of women and gender…” (4). Jamison’s conclusions are strengthened by her decision not to simplify the complex and occasionally contradictory roles of men and women (253). While it is difficult to directly apply her conclusions to ancient Vedic society, they should be considered a significant hypothesis. Her conclusions provide an important alternative to previous androcentric hypotheses concerning ancient Vedic culture. Perhaps her work could be supplemented with archaeological work that also examines gender differences.

 

________________________________________________________________________

 

Timothy Wright

HRS 220/Dubois

November 9, 2004

Word Count: 1889

 

 

Stephanie W. Jamison, Sacrificed Wife/Sacrificer’s Wife Chapters IV and V:

“The Anxieties of Hospitality” and “Women and Marriage”

 

Outline

1.     Selective Summary

a.     Chapter IV: The Anxieties of Hospitality

                                                     i.     The Perils of Unquestioning Hospitality

                                                      ii.     Manu’s Cups Revisited

                                                        iii.     The Nexus of Ritual and Hospitality

b.     Chapter V: Women and Marriage

                                                     i.     Bride as Commodity

                                                      ii.     Marriage as Gift Exchange

                                                        iii.     Marriage by Capture (With and without a fight)

  

2.     Evaluation

a.     Attempting to Grasp the “Bigger Picture”

b.     Support of Claims

c.     Viewpoint and Perspective

 

3.     Wider Relevance

 

 

Sacrificed Wife/Sacrificer’s Wife

Selective Summary

            In Chapter IV “The Anxieties of Hospitality”, Jamison examines the dynamics of ancient Indic hospitality through the lens of epic narrative literature. The Mahabharata book of “Sudarsanopakhyanam,” for example, tells the story of a wife’s obligation to her husband’s unquestioning vow of hospitality. While the husband is away collecting firewood, a Brahman comes to visit and demands guest-offerings from the wife. She attempts to gratify his requests with the customary gifts of a seat and water, but the Brahman still wants more. “My business is with you, o fair one,” the Brahman states, “Undertake it without hesitation” (qtd. in Jamison, 154). The pair go off to consummate the Brahman’s request, despite the wife’s deep shame and embarrassment. Meanwhile, the husband returns from his work and immediately notices his wife’s absence. He calls out to her, but she does not respond fearing that she has shamed her husband. The Brahman, however, emerges from the hut and informs the husband all that has occurred. Free from jealousy and anger, the husband responds, “Let your sexual pleasure be my greatest enjoyment, o first of seers/For the first law of the householder is to honor a guest who has come” (155). Pleased at the husband’s words, the Brahman reveals himself to be the great Dharma, and promises rewards to the couple for maintaining such pious hospitality. Although this tale ends on an upbeat note, it vividly exemplifies the inherent anxieties that may occur in guest/host relations, and the central role that women play in mediating this tension.

A further reason for this tension is that fact that both the host and the guest are acting under the “machinery of hospitality” (162) as prescribed by Indic tradition. Once the guest sets the wheels of hospitality in motion, both parties—guest and host--are under mutual obligation to fulfill their formulaic role. For the host this obligation to hospitality can be decidedly risky, involving hardships, degradation, or even in the extreme case, murder. In the stories of Durvasas and Cyavana, for example, Kusika and his wife are required to fast and hold vigil over their ascetic guest Cyavana as he sleeps for 21 days, and furthermore be ready to massage Cyavana’s feet when he awakes. Kusika and his wife, after a few disappointments, prepare a great feast for Cyavana, wherein the visiting ascetic proceeds to assemble the food, his bed and seat, and sets it all on fire (166). Similarly Durvasa, the guest of Krsna, burns the “beds and bedcovers and the well-adorned maidens (!)”(167), and then requires rice milk from his hosts. Wasting the food that he demands, Durvasa tells Krsna to “Quickly smear your limbs with rice milk” (167). Finally in the story of Sibi, a visiting Brahman orders his host to “prepare, cook, and serve” his son as a meal. During the meal preparation, the Brahman burns down Sibi’s house and belongings. When presented with his requested food, the Brahman instead tells Sibi to eat the meal, thus having the host eat his own son (169). In each of these three stories however--just as in the first--the visiting guests are actually divinities, and are so pleased with their hosts’ extreme devotion to hospitality that they restore all things to their original state.

            By establishing the recurrent themes of anxiety and unquestioning hospitality through examples in the narrative literature (and the wife’s central role as mediator), Jamison is then able to return to the Vedic ritual of Manu’s Cups for a more insightful analysis, suggesting that the clear model for understanding this ritual is via the framework of hospitable guest reception (173). “The gods come to the ritual ground, are offered a meal and entertained, and sent off at the end well-fed” (173). In addition to these thematic similarities, Jamison further illustrates the linguistic connection between myth and ritual through the coexistent use of such words as sraddha (implying hospitality more than simply faith in Brahmans) (181), prataritvan (embodying the concept of both stranger and priest) (188), meni (meaning the power of negative exchange) (188), and yac (embodying the anxiety of both guest and host in the act of asking/begging) (191). The lesson, as Jamison points out, is that ritual and hospitality cannot be separated (174), and that the wife is a central figure in both--at once mediator and symbolic offering, each connected inextricably with her sexuality (174).

In Chapter V “Women and Marriage”, Jamison extends the model of guest/host relations and gift exchange to the domain of marriage. Just as guest/host relations involve anxiety in both parties in hospitality rites, the marriage alliance engenders similar anxieties “which need their own institutionalized means of resolution” (207). First, Jamison makes plain the notion of the maiden as a commodity. For example, a famous story found in both Vedic and epic literature has the king Haryasva (during a negotiation scene) say, “Tell me her bride-price, o best of the twice born, with some consideration for (the extent of) my property” (209), implying that the bride is not merely being bought, but is rather a token of economic exchange. In fact in the Sanskrit legal texts, Jamison notes eight different forms of marriage (Brahma, Daiva, Arsa, Prajapatya, Asura, Gandharva, Raksasa, and Paisaca), of which the first four are variations on the concept of “bride as gift” (215). In Daiva marriage, for example, the texts state, “(The gift of a maiden) to an officiating priest within the vedi when the (other) Saksinas are being led away, that is the Daiva (marriage)” (216). Similarly the Asura marriage is “the gift of a maiden occurring to rule, on having received from the bridegroom a pair or two of oxen by law…” (216).

In marriage by capture, or Raksasa, the necessity of defeating one’s enemies is the fundamental prerequisite to the legal sanctification of this type of marriage. However it too embodies the concept of gift exchange wherein the heroic deed is the symbolic mechanism of exchange, or in other words “having a manly deed (virya) as the bride-price” (225). Jamison notes the echoes of this type of marriage in orthodox ceremonies where just before the bride mounts the chariot (which itself is found in Raksasa), two servants squabble over the “ungirding” of the bride, a “dim and controlled reference to the conflict that might accompany some departure of bride and groom [in Raksasa marriage]” (225). In Paisaca marriage, on the other hand, almost the same pattern of events unfolds as in the Raksasa marriage, save for the conquering of enemies, which made this type of marriage illegal. A passage from the Mahabharata illustrates this point: “This (woman) cannot be led/married by you, without (your) having conquered great chariot (fighters)” (228). Thus regardless of the various type of marriage--whether of mutual desire, imbursement for services, or capture--the central theme throughout is the emblematic position of women in mediating the exchange between parties. As Jamison concludes in this chapter, “the types of marriage in ancient India thus show a thorough-going preoccupation with the type of exchange each involves, and the difficult cases… test but do not pass beyond the limits of this exchange system” (250).

Evaluation

In my evaluation of Jamison’s use of the primary sources and her claims, I found myself necessarily returning again and again to both the Introduction and Conclusion sections of her book in an attempt to grasp the “big picture” of Jamison’s meticulous analysis. Assuredly this is due more to my rather complete lack of familiarity with Indic custom and literature, both ancient and contemporary. The author’s exhaustive, and yet impressive use of linguistic analysis is arguably her greatest strength, while at the same time it may leave some readers (such as myself) fumbling in a metaphoric darkness. It is analogous to a Far Side cartoon, wherein you think you “get it”, but ultimately are never quite sure. One passage from Part I, however, I found particularly illuminating: “In paying attention to gender, I simply seek to add to the stock of available conceptual structures, interpretive schemata, and to do so through the application of common philological methodologies: collection, confrontation, and context-sensitive reading of a variety of texts” (5). And further in her conclusion she states:

 

I hope that after this work it will no longer be possible to treat the ancient Indian

wife, ritual or otherwise, as a footnote, a minor figure on the fringes of activity,

pitiable but irrelevant. I also hope that it will not be possible to uncomplicate her functions,
neatly summarize her social and conceptual niche. I have tried neither to overglorify her

positive roles, nor to wallow in her humiliations, but to present she as she appears to me:

‘the bearer of all paradox’ (257).

 

With these two statements in mind, I feel unequivocally that Jamison has succeeded on both parts. Her thorough consideration of disparate textual sources, combined with her meticulous analysis, makes clearer both the conceptual and paradoxical role of women in ancient India. By comparing narrative literature such as the Mahabharata to the Vedic, Jamison reveals an underlying thematic similarity between myth and ritual, and further demonstrates that women, though normatively cast at the periphery of Indic culture, are a chief mediator and conduit for a variety of Indic social expressions.

Further, I do not believe that Jamison is arguing that her analysis supplants previous examinations of women in ancient Indic society, but instead helps to enlarge the conceptual picture in this area. Thus I found her treatment both balanced and insightful, and moreover a rich source for additional studies, whether within ancient India itself, or through the framework of Indo-European comparative analysis.

Wider Relevance

Just as in our previous studies, Jamison’s work elaborates on the both the inherent difficulties and rewards in attempting to more fully understand the factor of gender as it relates to religious experience. As we have seen, there is often a paucity of textual material in regards to women throughout many cultures, and because of this fact a complement of sophisticated methodologies are often necessary to tease out the roles that women do and have played in religious life. But this effort inevitably bears fruit, for it gives a fresh voice to the often unarticulated power that women hold. Whether it is through the Anastenaria, midwifery, Christian mysticism, the Qu’ranic word of God, or the wisdom of a “Devoted Wife” to a Brahmin, the importance of women in both religious and cultural contexts is immense when one knows where and how to look. As such, Jamison’s work continues the thread of understanding stimulated by our class objectives, not merely of gender and religion, but also of the diverse ways that people have employed in attempting to articulate the mysteries of human experience.