The Perfect Wife (Stridharmapaddhati)

Tryambakayajvan Is Almost Certainly The Famous Tryambakarayamakhin (Ad 1665-1750), Minister To Two Of The Maratha Kings Of Thanjavur (Sahaji And Serfoji). Famous In His Own Right As A Scholar Of Religious Law, He Is Described In A Contemporary Text As A Learned Minister, The Performer Of Vedic Sacrifices, And A Patron Of Scholars. In The Stridharmapaddhati, Tryambaka Summarizes For His Eighteenth-Century Audience A Tradition That Was Then Already Over A Thousand Years Old. The Treatise Advocates Conformity And Tryambaka Is Interested In Women Not As Individuals But As Parts That Fit Into And Strengthen The Whole. That Whole, For Him, Is Dharma. The Work Is, In Itself, An Admission Of The Power Of Non-Conformist Women To Wreck The Entire Edifice Of Hindu Society. For, When Women Are 'Corrupted', All Is Lost. Translated From The Sanskrit By I. Julia Leslie