Gargi Vachaknavi was one of the celebrated “nine gems” of King Janaka’s court and among the few women philosophers of the Vedic age. In the great debate of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad she alone pressed Yajnavalkya with searching questions on the ground of all existence — before declaring him the wisest among them.
That a woman could hold her own at the summit of Mithila’s philosophical assembly is, for the region, a point of enduring pride: a sign of the openness of Janaka’s court of knowledge.