Abstract
The article explores documents in the so-called Vrindavan archives from Mughal times to extract information about individual women who appear there as complainants, sellers and donors. It seeks to establish what we can learn about women’s limited rights to inheritance and notes their total exclusion from peasant holdings. An appendix furnishes recorded descriptions (ḥuliya) of women who appeared before the local qāẓī (judge).
In formal works of premodern history individual women are rarely met with, and, then mostly if they were queens or princesses. It is, therefore, of some value if we have information of even rather pedestrian kind about the broader category of ordinary women. The present article sets out to explore the information contained in a set of documents that have survived from the Mughal period, having been preserved mostly by Goswamis of the Chaitanya sect at Vrindavan. The late Tarapada Mukherjee collected photographs of a large number of these documents, now partly deposited in the Vrindavan Research Institute, but also others which he found in temples, the Mathura District court, or private hands. He was also supplied copies of documents of the Gopinath temples at Vrindavan and Jaipur (xeroxed by the Institute of Vaishnav Studies, US). When he graciously furnished me with copies of these documents, there were inadequate indications of their present whereabouts, nor any identification numbers. Therefore, I arranged them chronologically and gave them serial numbers by which they would be cited below. They have now been scanned at the Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University and so are available to scholars being traceable through these numbers. In addition, the National Archives, New Delhi, has obtained a number of Vrindavan documents, mostly relating to the Govind-Dev temple establishment; and these, wherever used, have been naturally cited by the National Archives’ accession numbers.
As may be expected, these documents have infrequent references to women. Few as these are, these are still important because the Hindu women they tell us about, however briefly, are mostly plebeian women, whose position and entitlements in life we are usually so ignorant about.
One may assume, for example, that only plebeian women would have personally presented themselves at the qāẓī’s court (rather than be represented by a male agent, vakīl) to register a property sale, or, as in one case, to acknowledge receipt of a compensatory payment. In such cases, they needed to have their ḥuliya, or facial features, recorded presumably for purposes of identification. 1 Clearly, it was not expected that such women observed ‘purdah’. Our documents (Nos. 228, 252, 391A and 411A), indeed, offer records of ḥuliyas of five such women (see Appendix). Some aspects of appearance, namely, wheatish complexion, a broad forehead, dark-grey eyes and high nose are common to all, but only three have both their ears pierced and the same number have holes in their left nostrils. Only one woman (Īsarwī) had neither her earlobes nor her nostril pierced. We are, of course, not told anything about what the women wore or the ornaments, if any, they displayed. The age is always recorded.
While we are on the theme of women at the Qāẓī’s court, there is an interesting instance of a woman offering herself as a witness. A document in the National Archives (NAI-2671/13) contains the proceedings of the Qāẓī’s court of Mathura (Muḥammad ‘Ārif) in a property case, dated 27 February, 1675. The qāẓī decided to go to the site of the disputed property and ask the neighbours whose property this was. Of the six persons so asked, the sixth was Gangā Dāsī, daughter of Kishandās, son of Kon Rāi. Though in the Shariat the evidence of a single woman is valueless, this apparently did not weigh with the Qāẓī, who yet gave credence to Gangā Dāsī’s evidence.
A more substantive matter the documents illumine for us is the extent of women’s shares in inherited property. In the relatively large mass of documents concerning the sale of agricultural land, women are never mentioned among sellers. It seems as if they were simply not accorded the status of peasant landholders anywhere. It is, however, otherwise with urban property, where they do appear as property-holders or co-sharers in a property; and it is in this capacity that we meet most of them in our documents.
We begin here with a simple case. One Bihārī, son of Gordhan, Nirankālī, had built a hut out of brick, mud and wood, on land belonging to Seo Rām, the high priest of the Govind-Dev temple. Upon Bihārī’s death Seo Rām took possession of the materials of the hut, and paid ₹40 in compensation to Bihari’s daughter, Mst. (Musammāt = Ms) Īsarwī. This is recorded in an acknowledgement Īsarwī recorded before the Qāẓī on 6 June, 1669. Īsarwī’s own marital status is not recorded though in the ḥuliya she is stated to be 50 years of age. It would seem that she was deemed to be the only heir of her father, no other kinsman or kinswoman of the latter being mentioned. Īsarwī herself, when appearing before the qāẓī, was asked to sign, which she did by making a cross-like mark. She was obviously illiterate.
From another document from the Qāẓī’s court at Mathura, dated 17 February, 1732, it transpires that a small piece of land with brickwork remains was sold by three women to Rām Saran, later to be chief priest of the Govind-Dev temple. The women were (a) Mst. Dayālī, wife of Rerū, (b) Mst. Jīū, wife of Gūjar s/o Rerū, and (c) Mst. Bisākha, wife of Tejā s/o Rerū (Doc. No. 391A). Though it is not specifically mentioned, it is clear that the three women were widows and had so inherited the land that must have originally belonged to Rerū. This implies that, in the absence of direct male heirs, the property could go to the widow of the deceased and the widows of his deceased sons.
The widow’s limited right to inheritance is also established by another document of the same year (No. 392A, dated 11 January,1732), also from the court of the Qāẓī of Mathura. Here the land sold was obviously inherited from one Ballabhdās, the family tree being as follows, based on the details furnished in the statement:
The names of the actual heirs of Ballabhdās who sold the land are asterisked.
The names of the sellers in this family show that the inheritance was shared only among sons: if there were daughters, as is likely, they had no claim at all once there were sons. Among the sons Har Gobind alone was alive (his son Kishor La‘l appearing as his vakīl). The other three sons of Ballabhdās were obviously not alive since their shares of inheritance had now been passed on to their sons. Here, however, comes the interesting fact that the inheritance shares of two grandsons of Ballabhdās now belong to their respective widows. It is possible that this happened because the two men concerned, Harlāl and Harkishan, had not left any sons before they died; otherwise the share in inheritance would presumably have passed on to them, as in all other cases in this family.
An earlier document (No. 252, dated 10 October, 1693) establishes that if there was no son, the widow as well as daughters would share the inheritance. Here Mst. Rām Kunwar, the wife of Rām Cherā (deceased), appeared in person at the Qāẓī’s court to sell residential land at Vrindavan owned by her in concert with her two married daughters Kishan Kunwar and Chand Kunwar. Obviously, in this case the daughters shared the paternal inheritance in the absence of sons. Practically the same situation is implied in a document dated 27 June, 1719 from the township of Kāmān (NAI-2691/10), where Mst. Manohri, wife of Munnā, a Khandelwāl Banya, and her daughter, Mst. Pārbatī make a gift of a house jointly owned by them, and so presumably inherited from Munnā, deceased.
A contrary case is furnished in a document (No. 396E) from the qāẓī’s court dated 28 February, 1735, where the sellers are Gokul Chand, son of Rāmdās, his mother, Mst. Mahjū and sister, Nathū. Here the fact obviously is that despite the presence of a son, the property of Rāmdās deceased was shared by Rāmdās’s wife and daughter as well.
The right of a widow over her husband’s property in the event of their sons pre-deceasing the father was at issue, when Braj Kunwār, in the line of Jīv Gosa’in, died (1700). His sons had predeceased him, and he himself had not transferred his office or property to anyone. What was now disputed was not his widow Krishnapriya’s right to inherit Braj Kunwār’s own property, but whether part of the property had belonged not to her husband but to the Amber ruler. In 1706, she transferred much of the property she had inherited to Braj Kunwār’s brother’s son, Gopī Raman. When her favour shifted to her daughter’s son, Gopīnāth, it was claimed in opposition that a daughter’s son could never succeed to a spiritual seat in the Chaitanya (Gaudīa) sect (Doc. No. 327 of c. 1718). 2 Here possibly the customary law of inheritance was also being kept in mind, which denied, in a son’s presence, any right of inheritance being allowed to the daughter.
What tribulation a widow might face after the death of her husband is brought home to us by an official letter dated 2 May, 1716 (Doc. No. 323). Here we are told that Mst. Bhagīrathī, wife of Debīdās, deceased, resident of Mathura, had complained that one Bhagwatīā and Mst. Khorā, wife of Bhawānīdās, tenants of the house (ḥavelī) of Mst. Bhagirathī’s late husband, had broken the lock of a chamber and taken from there three bills (tamassuk) and money and ornaments. Moreover, they owed the complainant ₹200 (in unpaid rent?). On her complaint, the local faujdār sent a mason Lachhmī to inspect the house and he had estimated the value of the house and land at ₹498. The complainant had required the two tenants to pay the amount they owed her and vacate the house, but to no avail. Why the valuation of the house was required is not clear; but it shows that the house was obviously no mean dwelling.
Despite being harassed by her recalcitrant (and allegedly thievish) pair of tenants, Mst. Bhāgīrathī, was able to afford a vakīl (agent, representative) to pursue her plaint, and so must be deemed to belong to the prosperous class unlike most of the women with whom we have been earlier concerned. But she was not alone in such a position. It is remarkable that a fairly large number of donations of houses that the holy men (Gosā’ins) of the Chaitanya sect received came from women, who must, therefore, have had much property at their command.
A parwāna dated 12 May, 1662 (Doc. No. 250) issued by Kishordās, an official of Mahārāja Bishan Singh of Amber, is to the effect that his mother Chaṁpā Bāī had built a kunj (cottage within grove) at Vrindavan, which she now wished to donate to Braj Kunwār (priest in Jīv Gosā’in’s line); and Kishordās therefore directed his servants to hand it over to the latter.
On 31 October, 1711, Bijaī Singh, who was then the ruler of Amber, issued a parwāna to his officials in Toda Bhīwan (Toda Bhīm) presumably then in his jāgīr, to oversee the transfer of a house (ḥavelī) and a shop in Toda Bhīm, belonging to (the late?) Kaitam Mahājan (banker), which had been donated by his wife Kānhū to the Govind-Dev temple. 3
On 26 April, 1715, a donation by instant gift (hiba) of a house (ḥavelī), built of baked bricks and woodwork, situated in Vrindavan, was registered at the Qāẓī’s court, as having been made by Mst. Bodī, wife of Sūrdās Brahman, to the Govind-Dev temple (Srī Gobind Rāī) and its priest Gosā’in Jagannāth (Doc. No. 322A).
On 27 June, 1719 the Qāẓī’s office at Kāmān registered the gift of a ḥavelī there to the same beneficiaries (Srī Gobind Rāī and Gosā’in Jagannāth) by Manoharī, wife of Munnā s/o Lākhū, Banya (Baqqāl) (deceased?) of the Khandelwāl sept and their daughter Mst. Pārbatī, the gifted ḥavelī being made of baked brick and containing ‘halls and cells’ (NAI- 2691/10).
Finally, we have a gift-deed (now surviving in copy) (NAI-2671-26) dated 14 November, 1760 by which Mst. Bishan Kunwar, wife of Bangālī Rāi s/o Mansī Indarman, caste Mahājan (banker), Agarwāla, of Arhan sept, resident of Shāhjahānābād (Delhi), gifted by hiba one house (ḥavelī-i kunj) built of baked brick, red stone, roofed with wood and boards, together with many trees and a pucca well, in Kunj muḥalla, Vrindavan, to Gusā’in Rām Saran, chief priest of the Govind-Dev temple.
Of the above five women donors, thus, three came from the Banya caste with husbands actually described as bankers or merchants. It is possible that all the women donors were widows, in which capacity they had inherited the property that was now donated. It, however, needs to be noted that in the four cases where husbands are named, there is no explicit indication that they were dead.
Rich women could be donors, but there was little role that they themselves could have played in the religious worship and ritual of the Chaitanya sect. Two women, however, appear in the ranks of what seems to have been a dissident group within the sect. In a Braj document (dated 25 March, 1713) a number of persons calling themselves jamīdārs and mokadams (headmen) of village Ariṭh (now Rādhākund) acknowledged that at the tanks of Radhakund and Krishnakund, in that village, Vaishnavites used to assemble to hear sermons and songs, the access to these rituals being controlled by the Govind-Dev temple. ‘Some time ago’, they go on to say, Rāmchand Ghosh Thakur, Swami Mohandās and six others (all named) had been barred from the precincts of the kunds. Now they had been re-admitted. Among this group of eight are the names of two women, Gobindpriya and Krishnapriya. 4 But the concession given to this group was subsequently again withdrawn. In a bilingual document dated 25 March, 1716 (NAI-2671/21) the same zamīndārs and muqaddams of the village acknowledge that access to the tanks would be controlled by Gusain Jagannāth, then custodian of the Govind-Dev temple. In the Braj text, the same members of the group, including the two women, are again named and now forbidden to approach the tanks. Clearly, this group for some reason was not acceptable to the Govind-Dev temple management, though its members, including the two women, were apparently anxious to participate in the ceremonies at the two sacred tanks.
There were other public observances in which both men and women joined without anyone’s permission or prohibition. In 1625, the Central Asian traveller Maḥmūd Bal
Quite late in the next century, another visitor, Murtaẓā Husain Allāhyār Bilgrāmī, wrote of similar mixed assemblages. Writing in 1782, but recalling his trip to Vrindavan in 1730–1731, he describes how young men and women, of ages between 13 and 20 years, assembled at Gyān Gudrī (still a quarter in Vrindavan near the Yamuna) in the evening, engaging in song, laughter and play with one another until a ghaṛī (22½ minutes) past sunset, when with lighted candles in their hands, they returned home. 6
It was, perhaps, inevitable that a scandalous incident should get associated with these assemblies. Murshid Qulī
Through these snippets one can hardly claim to have reconstructed a significant fragment of women’s history. There is undoubtedly in our texts a pervasive air of women’s subjection; but there are also hints of assertion and independence when we come across figures like Īsarwī and Dayālī. One wishes one should know more about what further lay behind the transactions in which women were involved, but this is unluckily denied to us.
Appendix
Descriptive notes (ḥuliyas) of women appearing at the court of the Qāẓī of Mathura
(Mst. = Musammāt, best rendered by modern ‘Ms’)
‘Mst. Īsarwī [daughter of Bihārī, s/o Gordhan, Nirankālī], female deponent: wheatish complexion, broad forehead, extended eyebrows, eyes dark grey, high nose, one black mole … on left cheek. About 50 years [of age]’. Deposition before the Qāẓī, 3 Sha‘bān 1079 (6 January, 1669). (Doc. No. 228). ‘Mst. Rāmkunwar [daughter of Parmānand s/o Bālkishan & wife of Rāmchera s/o hākur Brahman], the said female seller: wheatish complexion, broad forehead, extended eyebrows, dark grey eyes, high nose, hole in left nostril. Full height. About 76 years’. 9 S[afar 1105 (10 October, 1963). (Doc. No. 252). ‘Mst. Dayālī [wife of Reru s/o Nashyā], the said female seller: wheatish complexion, broad forehead, extended eyebrows, eyes dark-grey, high nose, one mole below right eye-lids, hole in left nostril, large holes in both earlobes. Full height. About 60 years’. (20 Sha‘bān 1144 = 17 February, 1732). (Doc. No. 391A). ‘Mst. Jīū [daughter of Gūjar s/o Rerū], [daughter-in-law of No. 3], the said female seller: wheatish complexion, broad forehead, eyebrows set close to each other, eyes dark-grey, high nose, hole in the left nostril, large holes in both ears. Full height. About 18 years [altered by over-writing to 58 years!]’. (20 Sha‘bān 1144 = 17 February, 1732). (Doc. No. 391A). ‘Mst. Besākhā, [daughter of Narautam Lallū Māthur], the said female seller: wheatish complexion, broad forehead, extended eyebrows, eyes dark grey, high nose, whisker-hair, numerous moles, small-pox marks scattered, but few on face, holes in both earlobes. Full height. About 51 years’. (17 Zilhij 1171= 22 August, 1758). (Doc. No. 411A).