Gārgī Vācaknavī

Gārgī Vācaknavī (“Gārgī, daughter of Vacaknu”) is a philosopher who appears in the third chapter of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (c. 7th–6th century BCE), at the great philosophical contest held by King Janaka of Videha. She is one of the very few women in the Upaniṣads, and one of the earliest named women philosophers in any tradition. Of all the Brahmins who question the sage Yājñavalkya at Janaka’s court, she alone challenges him twice, and she is the one who finally declares him the winner.

The first challenge

The contest begins when Yājñavalkya claims the king’s thousand cows as “the most learned”. After several challengers have been answered, Gārgī stands up. Her question concerns the ground of the world: “Since this whole world is woven back and forth on water, on what is water woven?” “On air, Gārgī.” “On what is air woven?” “On the intermediate regions.” She presses him through a ladder of worlds — the gandharvas, the sun, the moon, the stars, the gods, Indra, Prajāpati — each time asking on what the last is woven. When she asks, “On what are the worlds of Brahman woven?”, Yājñavalkya stops her:

Gārgī, do not ask too many questions, or your head will shatter apart. You are asking too many questions about a deity about whom one should not ask too many questions. Gārgī, don’t ask too many questions! (3.6.1)

She falls silent — and the assembly moves on.

The two arrows

Later she rises again and addresses the assembly: “Venerable Brahmins, I will ask him two questions. If he answers them, none of you will beat him in a debate about Brahman.” To Yājñavalkya she says:

As a fighting man of Kāśī or Videha, stringing his unstrung bow and taking two arrows that pierce the enemy, would rise to face him, so I have risen to face you with two questions. Answer them! (3.8.2)

Her first question: “That which is above the sky and below the earth, which is between the sky and the earth, and which people call past, present and future — on what is that woven back and forth?” “On space.” Her second: “On what, then, is space woven?” Yājñavalkya answers with his description of the imperishable (akṣara): “neither coarse nor fine, neither short nor long… without breath, without mouth, without measure, without inside or outside; it eats nothing, and no one eats it. At the command of this imperishable, Gārgī, the sun and moon are held apart; the earth and sky are held apart; moments, hours, days, nights, fortnights, months, seasons and years are held apart… This imperishable, Gārgī, is the unseen seer, the unheard hearer, the unthought thinker, the unknown knower” (3.8.8–11).

Gārgī turns to the assembly: “Venerable Brahmins, you should consider yourselves lucky if you get away from him by merely paying him homage. None of you will ever defeat him in a debate about Brahman” (3.8.12).

Significance

Gārgī’s questions are among the deepest in the Upaniṣads: they push the search for the ground of the world to the point where ordinary answers fail, and so provoke Yājñavalkya’s account of the imperishable — the ancestor of the Advaitic Brahman. Her presence at a public philosophical debate among Brahmins shows that, in the late Vedic period, at least some women were educated in the Vedas and took part in philosophical discussion. In modern India she has become a symbol of women’s intellectual equality; her name is borne by colleges, awards and scholarships.