Maitreyi

Maitreyi
Mahabharata character
Early 19th-century Sanskrit manuscript of the Rigveda. Maitreyi, an ancient Indian philosopher, was familiar with the Vedas and other sacred texts; ten hymns in the Rigveda are attributed to her.

Maitreyi ("friendly one") was a Hindu philosopher who lived during the later Vedic period in ancient India. She is mentioned in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad as one of two wives of the Vedic sage Yajnavalkya; he is estimated to have lived around the 8th century BCE. In the Hindu epic Mahabharata and the Gṛhyasūtras, however, Maitreyi is described as an Advaita philosopher who never married. In ancient Sanskrit literature, she is known as a brahmavadini (an expounder of the Veda).

Ten hymns in the Rigveda are attributed to Maitreyi, and she explored the Hindu concept of Atman (soul or self) in a dialogue with Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. According to this dialogue, love is driven by a person's soul, and Maitreyi discusses the nature of Atman and Brahman and their unity, the core of Advaita philosophy. This Maitreyi-Yajnavalkya dialogue is the topic of Sureshvara's varttika, a commentary.

Maitreyi is cited as an example of the educational opportunities available to women in Vedic India, and their philosophical achievements. She is considered a symbol of Indian intellectual women, and an institution is named in her honour in New Delhi.

In the Asvalayana Gṛhyasūtra, the daughter of the sage Maitri is referred to as Sulabha Maitreyi and is mentioned in the Gṛhyasūtras with several other women scholars of the Vedic era. Her father, who lived in the Videhan capital of Mithila, was a minister in the court of King Janaka.