FEMALE SWAMIS

Many will know that there are nuns in Vedanta, but not many will know that there are women swamis.  The term for a women swami is pravrajika, meaning "woman ascetic."

To become a swami, a woman follows the same path as a man, which entails first spending four to five years in brahmacharya, the initiation period in which the aspirant takes the first monastic vows. The woman is known as a brahmacharini, corresponding to the male brahmachari.

Brahmacharya is an active period of education and discipline at the literal foot of a guru, either at a guru's own home or at an ashram, that is at a retreat, hermitage, or monastery. The brahmacharini treats the guru as a father and as a god, in absolute obedience and practicing complete chastity.

Following this educational period, the brahmacharini is eligible to take final vows called sannyas.  This is formal entrance into monastic life, dedicated to the practice of complete renunciation of self and the attainment of knowledge of the supreme Reality, Brahman.  A brahmacharini who has taken the final vows is called a sannyasini, corresponding to the male sannyasin.

In the Ramakrishna Order, or, in India, with the Sarada Math, the sannyasini takes on the title of pravrajika, the same as the title of Swami. 

The Sarada Math, incidentally, is an order of nuns organized in India in 1954 in the name of Sri Sarada Devi, the wife of Sri Ramakrishna.  Sri Sarada Devi is also known as Holy Mother. 

On September 22, 1959, Christopher Isherwood recorded in his diary that Swami Prabhavananda had departed for a visit to India.  He said that the swami had with him five nuns who had just taken their final vows, thus becoming the swami's first pravrajikas.  These would have been nuns from the Vedanta Temple in Santa Barbara which was a convent.