Women according to Hindu Dharma... a brief perview

Indian Women as per the Sastras

Many people across the world and in India celebrate International Women’s day on March 8^th. Let us Introspect and ask  ourselves few questions :

®     do we need to  have a special day for women?

®     are they not special all 365 days in a year?

®     should the principles of equality be applied between a man       and a woman?

I would now like to dwell deep into how Ancient India treated women and what the sastras say about women. I have taken only the examples of how as per the sastra women used to play and important role and continues to play an important role.

Let’s start with applying the principles of equality in some of the Vedic rituals. Those who complain that women have no right to perform Yegna/sacrifices on their own must remember that men too have no right to the same without a wife.

If they know this truth they would not make the allegation that Hindu Sastras look down upon women.  A man can perform a yegna/homa/sacrifice only along with his wife. He does them for the well being of all mankind and for his own inner purity.  It is for this purpose that after the samavartana following the completion of his student bachelorhood, he goes through the samskara called marriage.

Marriage or vivaha is known as saha-dharma-charini-samprayoga.  It means (roughly) union with a wife together with whom a man practises his dharma.  The clear implication is that carnal pleasure is not its chief purpose, but the pursuit of dharma.  The Sastras do not ask a man to pursue dharma all by himself but require him to take a helpmate for it.  The wife is called Dharma Patni, Saha Dharma Charini, thus underlying her connection with dharma, and not with Kama or Sensual pleasure.  Here is proof of the high esteem in which the Sastras hold women.

Only a householder with a wife may perform the Yegna or sacrifice and not student-bachelors and ascetics.  If the wife were meant only for sensual gratification, would the Dharma Sastras have insisted that a man cannot perform sacrifices after her death?

Women’s “libbers, who note  that  a women cannot perform a sacrifice on her own, must also recognize the fact that the husband loses the right for the same without the wife and this is according to the Vedas themselves ( Patnivatasya Agnihotram Bhavati).

Our Sastras have thus given a high place to women in the matter of duties and works.

Just as society is divided according to occupations and the duties are different, so too there are differences between men and women in domestic life. Running a household means different types of work. By nature women can do the household chores much better than men. In truth there is no disparity between men and women, nor are women discriminated against as present-day women’s libbers or so called reformers allege.  Work is divided for the proper maintenance not only of home but the nation on the whole; and care has been taken not to have any duplication. There is no intention of lowering the status of any section in this division of labour.

The vocations have to be properly divided for the welfare of mankind.  If everybody paid attention to this fact, instead of talking of rights, it would be realized that the Sastras have not discriminated against women or any of the so called classes or castes.

Do women need to go out to work and earn?

When the marriage of girls got delayed and they had to stay at home doing nothing, the parents wondered why their daughters should not study, go to work and start earning.  The money would also come in handy when the girls were to be married.  Thus started the practice of women going to work.  

At first the parents felt a little embarrassed or a sense of shame about doing something they thought to be improper , that is depending on the daughters own earnings for her marriage expenses.  They were also worried and fearful about the girls being exposed to various risks and temptations.  But, in due course, this worry and fear vanished.  Also the parents came to think that there was no need to feel awkward about their daughters going to work.

At first we felt sheepish that our women went out to work, but, by and by we learned to accept it.  Now we take it as an advance, a step forward in our civilizations.  Most Parents have thrown all sense of responsibility to the winds and are not worried in the least about their daughters going out to work and, indeed, take pride in it.  

Has our Dharma sunk to such low depths?.

That women are receiving higher education and are working is a great step forward” proclaim reformists and women’s liberals.  A great injustice done to them in the past has been undone, they add.

No injustice was ever done to women in the past and if at all any injustice was done, it was to men.  

How does a man realise himself? 

He has to perform many religious ( read dharmic)  works, he has to learn the truth and feel it inwardly through nityakarmas and nitya sadhanas. In this way alone  will he be able to have control over his mind and purify the same.

A married woman does not need such difficult sadhanas or such ardent and intense practice to reach the same goal.  All she has to do is to support her husband in his pursuit of Dharmic work.  By respecting the wishes of her husband such a wife obliterates not only her wishes but all feelings of honour and dishonour and all ego-sense.  In this way she comes close to stilling her mind.  When the mind is utterly dedicated to another person in an attitude of surrender, should it not be close to being blotted out?  Is there any promotion for a woman higher than this?

A woman exalted by inner purity occupies a position far higher than another who earns a promotion in her office.    This is how many a woman in the history of this land won powers far greater than those earned even by the sages.  According to Tiruvalluvar if such a women says, let there be rain, it will rain, and it must rain. If she says to the sun, don’t rise, it will not rise. Such a women can retrieve her husband even from Death.  

Our Sastras, our traditions give these women a place more elevated than that accorded to any sage or deity.  We see from the Puranas that a woman of lofty character can transform even gods into little children by sprinkling water on them.  Our religious texts speak about how a woman may rise to true heights of glory and how she is enshrined in a temple and worshiped.  They do not ever condemn her to an inferior position.  It seems that it is the reformists and liberals who do so by preventing her from rising to the heights of glory.

If marriage is one of the many samskaras to render a man pure, for a woman it is the single samskara that gives her the ultimate fruits of all samskaras.  Now the essence of this samskaras is cast away and what remains, the refuse, is retained.  Marriage and the householder’s stage of life are not meant for carnal pleasures alone.  They constitute a path for liberation.  If this truth is understood people will appreciate that the role assigned to women by the Sastras is just and proper.

Few seem to have realized the undesirable economic consequences of women going to work.  This is on the unemployment problem.  Until some years ago parents had this excuse for their daughters going to work: Let her work till she gets married.  Otherwise she will have to stay at home brooding over things and being sorry for herself.  Going to work will be a way of spending the time.  Besides, the girl’s earnings will come in handy for the dowry and other expenses of marriage.  The idea then was to let the daughter work until her marriage and then asks her to resign her job.  The groom and his people thought it demeaning for the bride to work after the marriage.

This attitude changed not before long. How? During the past 50-70 years the Brahmin community has developed an increasing appetite for money.  Owing to this greed that grew with the years, girls going to work even after their marriage became a more widely accepted practice.  The result is that the noble duties of motherhood like child care are neglected in man houses ( not all).  

It is the same as in western countries and the warmth and sincerity governing relationships involving parents and children and other family members have rather come  down or coming down.( There would be exceptions to these in some family though)

On the economic front too the phenomenon of more and more women working has had a different consequence.  These days thousands of young men are unemployed.  At the same time, in some families both husband and wife work and earn.  If the husband alone worked, the wife’s   job would go to a young man who is without work.  Unfortunately, husbands no longer take pride in caring for the wife and family with their earnings alone; they want the wife also to earn.  At first the parents reluctantly sent their daughters to work.  Then the husband did the same perhaps half-heartedly.  As for the wife, she is now proud to be working.  In fact, she is so used to working outside that she does not like being confined to her home.  When she earns on her own she wants to spend as she likes without being questioned by her husband.( This does not apply to single Mothers who have to take care of her family 

To stay at home does not mean to be locked in.  There is no shortage of Sastras and Puranas in Sanskrit and in other languages.  If women develop a taste for them, they will keep reading them for a whole lifetime and find happiness.  They may form satsang groups and read such books by turns at home.  There is no need to form a club for this or for that matter a Kitty party or some other organisation nor any board.  The satsang may be held at home without any office bearers like president, secretary, committee members and so on.  This is basically to avoid contests and rivalry for positions.  To stay at home does not mean being caged in.  Besides, women will not lose their most precious possession, femininity. 

For women, surely this is far better than going to work out of greed and losing their femininity in the process, not to speak of earning the higher reward of Atmic well being.  It is also keeping with a women’s nature.  For a woman to work in an office on the pretext that she is otherwise confined to the four walls of her home may be the cause of so many problems, so many evils.  Though there is much talk of women’s liberation, what we actually see is that they have to work under so many people and have to be answerable to so many of them. 

• Is there peace in such a life? 
• In the liberation that is so much talked about, is there the bliss of domestic life?
• Are working women able to cook at leisure, eat in peace, and enjoy the warmth and affection of children?

Each man thinks of his own selfish interests and is least bothered about others.  People never pause to wonder whether others suffer on their account.  There is no feeling for others, no sense of justice.  In some families there is “double income” because both husband and wife earn while in some others even one member does not have a job and so has no income.  Isn't this a sad state?.  

There may of course be exceptions of some women who go to work to support their family due to her husband's inability to earn or in dire circumstances where feeding her dependents and taking care of an ailing or a disabled husband becomes priority.

If women decide not to work after their marriage it is possible that the vacancies thus created will be filled by the unemployed men.  Families without any means so far will then benefit.  Working women must think about this and those who try to bring equality between men and women ought to consider the logic behind this observations.

Nowadays people do not know where to apply the principle of equality and where not to.  Each entity or aspect of life has its own way of being, its own character; that is how life in the universe is ordained.  It is incorrect to contend that there must be sameness about everything, that all things must be equal.  To insist on such sameness and equality is to wreck the natural order of life.  Each finds its fulfillment and true happiness in being related to another as intended by nature and in promoting the common social life.  To pursue an arbitrary kind of equality instead of this means not only the denial of happiness on the individual level but jeopardizing family and social life.

Nature has assigned the job of child bearing ‘only to Women’.  However much we fight for equality we cannot change this fact of life.  It is the natural dharma of women to care for children and to be Grihalakshmis.  They do not lose anything by doing so, nor do they become superior in any sense by refusing to do it.  Equality in such matters has no meaning.

Please ponder over..................

HariOM

Some of the compilations and extracts are from the Voice of the Guru- Shri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi
- The late Pontiff of the Shankara Mutt, Kanchi