Lopamudra: The Feminist Icon We All Need

Manisha Malhotra

As I read the 179th hymn in the RigVeda, I am shocked. I wouldn’t expect a modern woman to be so open about her private life but Lopamudra slays. She is open about Sage Agasthya’s ignorance of duties to his wife and composes a hymn about it.

While I love that she is highly intelligent and a well-known scholar, from a brief reading of what the Mahabharata has to say about her, I am surprised that she is mentioned as a creation of Sage Agasthya. It is the age-old trope of desirable women being created by men. The cool girl, as Gillian Flynn put it. However, Lopamudra doesn’t stay within the cool girl boundaries. She owns her desires and needs and openly asks for her husband to perform his duties to her. There is, however, one aspect to consider. As the ultimate entity, Brahman, according to the Vedas is genderless, boundless and formless, it could only have created a perfect woman with no internal bias. The very notion of perfect, however, eludes me here. What makes her perfect?

To my eye, her independent identity as a distinguished scholar, a Veda Drishta Rishiki (a scholar or rishi who can hear Vedic hymns) and a fiercely independent woman. She asked for the consummation of the marriage to be done on a bed like the one in her father’s palace, a perfect example of her self-confidence where she was willing to stand up for what she believed she deserved. She also asked for the pair to be dressed appropriately for the consummation and when Agasthya reminded her that he was a mere scholar, she asks him to use his position and knowledge to earn money. She stood firm in what she believed in and the very fact that such a strong female character appears in the Vedas is a source of joy for me.

I am concerned about fully understanding Lopamudra. The sutras in the Vedas have three meanings each, as scholars say, worldly, spiritual and vibrational. In the spiritual sense, my interpretation of these verses is that Lopamudra is hidden Divine Knowledge and Sage Agasthya is a (metaphor/generalization) for a stable person. Lopamudra can be split into Lopa, meaning hidden and Mudra, meaning gem. From my understanding, Mudra in the Vedas can only mean knowledge. I believe that the verse is from the point of view of the divine knowledge who beckons the stable person to create perfect knowledge and attain fruits of sadhana. The fruit of sadhana is always of Sat or true nature, which is considered a higher form of fruit than most others.

Considering the spiritual aspect of the verses Lopamudra wrote, it seems to be gesturing to the reader that once they have stabilised themselves in their sadhana, they should work on attaining the fruit of sadhana. While it may seem materialistic to ask a person to earn money, in the spiritual sense, the only currency is knowledge. Lopamudra, thus, seems to be encouraging her reader to gain more knowledge and spread the joy. The fruit of sadhana could be interpreted as more texts or more Vedic verses which are said to be revealed to sages in deep states of meditation and are certainly fruitful for the rest of the world.

Whether we look at Lopamudra from a literal lens or a spiritual one, she seems to be inspirational, independent and iconic. In my belief, she is certainly the feminist icon we all need inspiring us today.