The University Grants Commission’s decision some time back to introduce courses in ‘pourohitya’ (Hindu religious rituals) at the graduate and post-graduate levels was an imaginative one. It is in keeping with everything else in this hi-tech era of ours, that Vedic priestly rituals should be learnt in a proper and scientific manner by those acting as intermediaries between God and humans. But, this is also a field, in which most of the orthodox Hindus would not agree, that women have equally, the right to be priests.
But, women pundits are already creating ripples in various parts of India by becoming priests. A successful priest earns anywhere between Rs 15,000 and Rs 35,000 per month. Further the demand for women pandits is registering a new high as “most of the pujas are done in the afternoon when men are away and, with a woman pandit around, housewives feel safe, compared to bare-chested male priests in transparent dhotis, women priests are always a welcome sight,” avers one Sanskrit scholar Diwadkar.
“They are very methodical, quality-conscious and above all, sincere. Men, on the other hand are interested in extracting as much money as they can.”
In the South, even a decade ago, Chennai may not have had the unique distinction of having a purohit’s female children practising  priesthood or ‘purohitam’. Now it has this distinction as Muneeswaran, a much-respected and highly-qualified purohit has trained his two daughters to perform all rituals under his guidance. 
Pleasant surprise
So when 16-year-old Subhalakshmi and her older sister 21-year-old Purnima claim that they have trained for the priesthood, it comes not only as a pleasant surprise but an avant-garde break with tradition. The girls are simultaneously pursuing their formal education too. At the same time their father Muneeswaran has a rider in place. “I ask the girls to officiate only, when the family is comfortable with them”. As such this marks another exclusive male bastion on its way, into  the ‘havan kund’?
Further down south in Coimbatore, however, a Palghat Brahmin, Gomathi, has been running a funeral service with a large Brahmin clientele for over two decades! “With the help of my daughter Karpagam, we have helped conduct more than 10,000 funerals,” says Gomathi, who found her calling at the advice of an uncle, himself a priest who conducted last rites for the dead.
New role
“An NRI from Palghat was so impressed by my handling of his father’s funeral, that he asked me to light the pyre of his mother, when he was unable to reach the place in time,” Gomathi says .
Significantly, it had taken some reformist Hindu organisations like the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, Shankar Seva Samiti and Jnana Probodhini in the early 90s to dispel some of the myths (like menstruating women being ‘impure’) and open the doors of temples to female priests.
And it is only now that those initiatives are bearing fruit. In this matter, Maharashtra leads the rest of India and there are around 3,000 women priests in Maharashtra itself, spread around in cities like Pune, Nashik, Satara, Nagpur and Mumbai..
As yet many Vedic schools do not admit women scholars to train as priests. But there are a number of Vidyalayas that have come out with special courses for ladies alone. Panini Kanya Mahavidyalaya in Varanasi is one of the four of its kind. (The other two in Pune and one in Kodungallur, Kerala.)
“Religious rituals were never out of bounds for women,” says Acharya Medha Devi, principal of the Mahavidyalaya.
Established in 1971 by Acharya Dr Prayag Devi, the institution has trained hundreds of  women.       
Maharaja Features