The Mahāvastu: tid-bits

Whilst preparing the Mahāvastu for publication on Suttacentral, I occasionally come across tid-bits worth mentioning. Rather that create a new threads for each tid-bit (as I have done previously), I thought I would create a thread where all future tid-bits can be mentioned.

So this is it.

Here’s my first tid-bit on this thread. It’s one that raises an eyebrow.

In the chapter “Amarā”, a girl named Amarā (a previous incarnate of Yaśodharā) was being wooed by Mahauṣadha (a previous incarnate for the Buddha). Mahauṣadha asks Amarā’s parents for her hand in marriage. She was 10 years old at the time.

WHAT THE…?

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I think we need to understand that the whilst the formal bonding of marriage would occur at such age I don’t think it should be assumed sexual relations would occur that early.

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[quote=“stuindhamma, post:2, topic:4719, full:true”]
Here’s my first tid-bit on this thread. It’s one that raises an eyebrow.

In the chapter “Amarā”, a girl named Amarā (a previous incarnate of Yaśodharā) was being wooed by Mahauṣadha (a previous incarnate for the Buddha). Mahauṣadha asks Amarā’s parents for her hand in marriage. She was 10 years old at the time.

WHAT THE…?
[/quote]Just because one marries someone so young, does not mean one expeects children from them so soon.

Many cultures wherein woman are married off so early, they stay at home or with their husbands until they are of childbirthing age.

Different times.

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While child marriage is often associated with India, it is unknown in the EBTs, where 16 is, so far as I know, the earliest age mentioned for marriage. I am also not aware of any such passage in early Brahminical texts, though I could well have overlooked something.

So this is very striking. Whether it constitutes a historical shift, a regional situation, or simply that this is omitted from the EBTs, I could not say. But it is possible that it is the earliest reference for child marriage in any Indian text.

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If that is the case, cross-referencing it with whatever is the “second oldest” account of child marriage could be useful in setting a tentative (probably wide) timeframe as to when this text was written, since we are not taking it as a solidly “historical” text.

Whenever it was written, such a practice was (probably) normal, hence why they had the Bodhisatta do it, depicted as living as a (relatively) normal member of society.

It is also possible this was young even for the time, but that brings up more troubles than it puts to rest.

Indeed, it could help with location in time/space, or possibly social context. This text has, in fact, been fairly well studied, but I am not sure if this detail has been noticed.

I haven’t yet done research on the Mahávastu, so this might be irrelevant, but there is indeed an old Indian document (~1-200BCE?) called the Manusmṛti that recommends, in one of its sections, that men be age 30 and women be age 12 when they marry.

I am sure this must had made sense back then. Maybe increased the chance of successful procreation?

The age of 12 would be as close as possible to the beginning of a woman’s fertile life, thus allowing for as many children to be made as possible - something really important when child mortality was very high and you needed as much as helping hands as possible cultivating the land or carrying on with the family’s occupation.

The age of 30 would mark the point from which a man would be knowledgeable enough be given a plot of land or passed on to a workshop.

One thing I noticed since I was young is that, at least back where I was born (Brazil) the richer you are the narrower will be one’s social circle. In some cases, boys and girls born from rich and prestigious families would be put and encouraged by both sides to be together and become friends from as early as kindergarten.

I remember coming across at least 2 - 3 couples which have been together since the ages it is normal for boys and girls to say they have a girlfriend / boyfriend. And this definitely was seen as a sign of tradition and moral strength, hence the perpetuation of the model.

Do you have any information on how old was Mahauṣadha when he asked Amarā’s for her hand in marriage?

Beside that, isn’t the norm among nobles, within royal families, to have marriages strategically arranged to preserve dynasties or fulfill political deals?

No. The text does not mention his age.

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It’s probably that, along with the fact that “childhood” and “children” are vastly different social categories across cultures, let alone cultures and time.

Just read “childrens” literature from the 1800s. They wrote like they were writing for adults, or rather, to us they seem to be writing as adults for adults.

Even Alice in Wonderland makes for hard reading for your average Western child now, simply because it is old.

In some past cultures, children were just small, slightly simpler, adults.

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This may well be of comparable age, but the Manu is a very problematic document. Its dating—like most Indic texts—is very uncertain, and in fact it seems certain it is composed of elements from different periods. Moreover, there are multiple different versions. So it would be a matter of determining which recensions contain the claim and assessing the age of that section or sections.

The Manu is the most famous, but there are several similar texts, which I would assume make similar claims. I’m not sure, though, that any of them are earlier than the Mahavastu.