Nahta Bandhu Abhinandan Granth

Author(s): Dashrath Sharma
Publisher: Agarchand Nahta Abhinandan Granth Prakashan Samiti

Page 574

jars). Shrines containing her images are reverentially visited, nine-day Vratas performed, fasts duly observed and the sacred Candi read on the Mahāştamí day. Even now women folk bathe in the rivers or tanks early every morning for the first nine days of the bright fortnight of the month of Aśvina and worship the small images of the Devī, made of clay, with all devotion. All these undoubtedly show that this practice of worshipping the Devi has been followed from times immemorial.
The most peculiar characteristic of this religion is that women and Sūdras are not at all prohibited from practising the Sadhana. The Rudrayāmala says that a woman may also be a Guru who is a Kulina (practising Kulācāra), of auspicious appearance, fair faced and lotus-eyed, endowed with intellect, calmness of mind, proficient in mantras and in their meanings, ever engaged in japa and devoted to the worrhip of her lștadevatā." The Gautamīya Tantra declares that the people of all castes, irrespective of sex, may receive its mantras, In the Cakra there is no caste at all, even the lowest Caņdāla being deemed, whilst therein, higher than the Brāhmaṇas. The Mahānirvāna Tantra' says : "That low Kaula who refuses to initiate a Candāla or a Yavana into the Kaula dharma, considering them to be inferior, or a woman out of disrespect for her, goes the downward way. All two-footed beings in this world, from the vipra (Brāhmaṇa) to the inferior castes, are competent for Kulācāra." This is no doubt the most revolutionary aspect of this religion which in the course of centuries attracted millions of follou ers to its fold.
Another great factor that contributed to its tremendous growth and popularity is that in the Tantras, the duties of each of the castes as well as those of the king are not prescribed much differently from Manu, the great law-giver. The Mahānirvana Tantra speaks very highly of the family-life. It rigorusly prescribes that one should never be allowed to take to ascetic life who has children. wife or such like near relations to maintain. We have in the ninth chapter of the Mahānirvana Tantra (Samskaras) "sacraments from conception until marriage". entirely in consonance with Brāhmaṇic texts. In the tenth chapter we have the direction for the disposal and the cult of the dead (Sraddha). "A peculiarity of the Sāktas in conncetion with marriage consists in the fact that side by side with the Brāhma marriage for which the Brāhmaṇic prescriptions are valid, there is also a Saiva marriage, that is, a kind of marriage for a limited period which is only permitted to the members of the circle (cakra) of the initiates. But children out of such marriage are not legitimate and do not inherit.4" Thus, the Brähmanic raw also applied to the Sāktas and as such the section concerning civil and criminal law
1. Ibid. 807-08 ff. 2. Cf. "Sarva varnādhikārasca nārīnān yogyameva ca". 3. Chap, XIV, Vs. 137 and 134. 4. Avalon, 117. It is, however, incorrect to call them illegitimate children. on the other hand, off-springs of a Brahma marriage are preferential inheritors.
इतिहास और पुरातत्त्व : ८५