THE TRIUMPH OF BRAHMANISM 295
undergone a second marriage ceremony) and punarbhav (second husband) show that such marriages were quite common under the Pre-Buddhist Brahmanism. [1] With regard to Sati the position as to when it arose, [2] there is evidence to suggest that it existed in ancient times. But there is evidence that it had died out and it was revived after Brahmanism under Pushyamitra obtained its victory over Buddhism although it was some time later than Manu.
Question is this, why these changes were made by the triumphant Brahmanism? What did Brahmanism want to achieve by having girls married before they had become pubert, by denying the widow to the right to marry again and by telling her to put herself to death by immolating herself in the funeral pyre of her deceased husband? No explainations are forthcoming for these changes. Mr. C. V. Vaidya who offers an explanation for girl marriage says [3] that girl marriage was introduced to prevent girls from joining the Buddhist order of nuns. This explanation does not satisfy me. Mr. Vaidya omits to take into consideration another rule laid down by Manu—namely the rule relating to suitable age for marriage. According to that rule.
IX. 94. A man, aged thirty, shall marry a maiden of twelve who pleases him, or a man of twenty-four a girl eight years of age.
The question is not why girl marriage was introduced. The question is why Manu allowed so much discrepancy in the ages of the bride and the bridegroom.
Mr. Kane [4] has attempted an explanation of Sati. His explanation is that there is nothing new in it. It existed in India in ancient times as it did in other parts of the world. This again does not satisfy the world. If it existed outside India, it has not been practised on so enormous a scale as in India. Secondly if traces of it are found in Ancient India in the Kshatriyas, why was it revived, why was it not universalized? There is no satisfactory explanation. Mr. Kane’s explanation that the prevalence of Sati by reference to laws of inheritance does not appear to me very convincing. It may be that because under the Hindu Law of inheritance as it prevailed in Bengal, women got a share in property. The relations of the husband of the widow pressed her to be a Sati in order to get rid of a share may explain why Sati was practised on so large a scale in Bengal. But it does not explain how it arose nor how it came to be practised in other parts of India.
Again with regard to the prohibition of widow remarriage, there is no explanation whatsoever. Why was the widow, contrary to
1 See Kane—History of Dharmashastra, Vol. II, Part II Chapt.
2 The available evidence on Sati has been collected by Kane in his History of Dharmashastra Vol. II Part I pp. 617-636.
3 History of India Vol. II.
4 History or Dharmashastra.