Chapter 7 - Women’s Place in Hindu Religion

Well has it been said by Louis Jaccoliot, the celebrated French author of the Bible in India, that: “India of the Vedas entertained a respect for women amounting to worship; a fact which we seem little to suspect in Europe when we accuse the extreme East of having denied the dignity of woman, and of having only made of her an instrument of pleasure and of passive obedience”. He also said: “What! Here is a civilization, which you cannot deny to be older than your own, which places the woman on a level with the man and gives her an equal place in the family and in society”.

Long before the civil laws of the Romans, which gave the foundation for the legislation of Europe and of America, were codified by Justinian, the Hindu laws of Manu were closely observed and strictly followed by the members of Hindu society in general. Many of the Oriental scholars, having compared the digest of Justinian and the Mosaic laws of the Old Testament with the Hindu laws, have arrived at the conclusion that the code of Manu was related to them as a father is to his child. Yet the Hindu law-givers only repeated and codified the ethical principles which were inculcated in the Vedas. Following the teachings of the Vedas, the Hindu legislator gave equal rights to men and women by saying: “Before the creation of this phenomenal universe, the first-born Lord of all creatures divided his own self into two halves, so that one half should be male and the other half female”. This illustration has established in the minds of the Hindus the fundamental equality of man and woman. Just as the equal halves of a fruit possess the same nature, the same attributes, and the same properties in equal proportion, so man and woman, being the equal halves of the same substance, possess equal rights, equal privileged, and equal powers. This idea of the equality of man and woman was the corner-stone of that huge structure of religion and ethics among the Hindus which has stood for so many ages the ravages time and change, defying the onslaughts of the short-sighted critics of the world. Therefore, in India, whatever is claimed for the man may also be claimed for the woman; there should be no partiality shown for either man or woman, according to the ethical, moral, and religious standards of the Hindus.

The same idea of equality was most forcibly expressed in the Rig Veda (Book 5, hymn 61, verse 8). The commentator explains this passage thus: “The wife and husband, being the equal halves of one substance, are equal in every respect; therefore both should join and take equal parts in all work, religious and secular”. No other scriptures of the world have ever given to the woman such equality with the man as the Vedas of the Hindus. The Old Testament, the Koran, and the Zend Avesta have made woman the scapegoat for all the crimes committed by man. The Old Testament, in describing the creation of woman and the fall of man, has established the idea that woman was created for man’s pleasure; consequently, her duty was to obey him implicitly. It makes her an instrument in the hands of Satan for the temptation and fall of the holy man with whom she was enjoying the felicity of paradise. Adam’s first thought on that occasion was to shift the burden of guilt on to the shoulders of the woman. St. Paul, in the New Testament, shows that, through Adam’s fall, woman was the means of bringing sin, suffering, and death into the world. Popular Christianity has been trying lately to take away this idea, but, in spite of all the efforts of the preachers, it still lurks behind the eulogies that have been piled upon the conception of womanhood in Christian lands. How is it possible, for one who believes the accounts given in Genesis to be literally true, to reject the idea there set forth that woman was the cause of the temptation and fall of man, thereby bringing sin and suffering and death into the world? For one who accepts the Biblical account, there is no other alternative left.

In India, such ideas never arose in the minds of the vedic seers, nor have kindred notions found expression in the writings of the law-givers of later days. The Hindu legislators realized that both sexes were equal, and said before the world that women had equal rights with men for freedom, for the acquirement of knowledge, education, and spirituality. It is for this reason that we find in the Rig Veda the names of so many inspired women who attained to the realization of the highest spiritual truths. These inspired women are recognized by all classes as the seers of truth, as spiritual instructors, divine speakers and revealers, equally with the inspired men of vedic hymns. Those who believe that the Hindu religion debars women from studying the Vedas, or from acquiring religious ideas ought to correct these erroneous notions by opening their eyes to the facts, which are indelibly written on the pages of the religious history of India. The one hundred and twenty-sixth hymn of the first book of the Rig Veda was revealed by a Hindu woman whose name was Romasha; the one hundred and seventy-ninth hymn of the same book was by Lopamudra, another inspired Hindu woman. I can cite at least a dozen names of women revealers of the vedic wisdom, such as Visvavara, Shashvati, Gargi, Maitreyi, Apala, Ghosha, and Aditi, who instructed Indra, one of the Devas, in the higher knowledge of Brahman, the universal Spirit. All of these are the names of inspired women revealers of the spiritual wisdom. Everyone of them lived the ideal life of spirituality, being untouched by the things of the world. They are called in Sanskrit Brahmavadinis, the speakers and revealers of Brahman. They were devout performers of the religious rites, singers of holy hymns, and often discussed with great philosophers the most subtle problems of life and death, the nature of the soul and of God, and their inter-relation, and sometimes, in course of these discussions, they defeated the most advanced thinkers among their opponents.

Those who have read the Upanishads, the philosophical portions of the Vedas, know that Gargi and Maitreyi, the two great women seers of Truth, discoursed on philosophical topics with Yajnavalkya, who was one of the best authorities in the vedic lore. There are many instances of women acting as arbitrators on such occasions. When Sankaracharya, the great commentator of the Vedanta, was discussing this philosophy with another philosopher, a Hindu lady, well-versed in all the scriptures, was requested to act as umpire.

If, in the face of such facts, the Christian missionaries say that the Hindu religion prevents women from studying the Vedas, or denies them a place in religion, we can only console ourselves by thinking that the eyes of our missionary brothers and sisters are not open to truths which exist outside the boundary-line of their own particular creed and religion. It is the especial injunction of the Vedas that no married man shall perform any religious rite, ceremony, or sacrifice without being joined in it by his wife; should he do so, his work will be incomplete and half finished, and he will not get the full results, because the wife is considered to be a partaker and partner in the spiritual life of her husband: she is called, in Sanskrit, Sahadharmini or ‘spiritual helpmate’. This idea is very old, as old as the Hindu nation. It is true that there were certain prohibitions for some women against certain studies and ceremonies, which were prescribed for those only who were in a different stage of spiritual development, just as a certain class of men were proscribed from the studies of some portions of the Vedas, or from performing certain ceremonies simply because they were not ready for them.

Coming down from the vedic period to the time when the Puranas and Epics were written, we find that the same idea of equality between men and women was kept alive, and that the same laws were observed as during the time of the Vedas. Those who have read the Ramayana will remember how exemplary was the character of Sita, the heroine. She was the embodiment of purity, chastity, and kindness, the personification of spirituality. She still stands as the perfect type of ideal womanhood in the hearts of the Hindu women of all castes and creeds. In the whole religious history of the world a second Sita will not be found. Her life was unique. She is worshipped as an Incarnation of God, as Christ is worshipped among the Christians. India is the only country where prevails a belief that God incarnates in the form of a woman as well as in that of a man.

In the Mahabharata, we read the account of Sulabha, the great woman Yogi, who came to the court of King Janaka and showed wonderful powers and wisdom, which she had acquired through the practice of Yoga. This shows that women were allowed to practise Yoga; even to-day there are many living Yoginis in India who are highly advanced in spirituality. Many of these Yoginis become spiritual teachers of men. Sri Ramakrishna, the greatest Saint of the nineteenth century, was taught spiritual truths by a Yogini.^[1]

As in religion the Hindu woman of ancient times enjoyed equal rights and privileges with men, so in secular matters she had equal share and equal power with them. From the vedic age women in India have had the same right to possess property as men; they could go to the courts of justice, plead their own cases, and ask for the protection of the law.

Those who have read the famous Hindu drama, called Shakuntala, know that Shakuntala pleaded her own case and claimed her rights in the court of King Dushyanta. Similar instances are mentioned in the one hundred and eighth hymn of the tenth book of the Rig Veda. As early as 2000 b.c. Hindu women were allowed to go to the battle-fields to fight against enemies. Sarama, one of the most powerful women of her day, was sent by her husband in search of robbers. She discovered their hiding-place and afterwards destroyed them.

In the fifth book of the Rig Veda we read that King Namuchi sent his wife to fight against his enemies. She fought and eventually conquered them. There have been many instances of women holding high political powers, governing states, making laws, and administering justice to all. Throughout the history of India are to be found the names of many women who have governed their own territories. Some women of later dates resisted foreign invaders.^[2] The history of India records the wonderful generalship of the Rani of Jhansi, who held a portion of the British army in check during the famous mutiny of 1857-58. She headed her troops against the British, dressed like a cavalry officer, and after a hard fight she fell in battle and died, in June, 1858. Sir Hugh Rose declared that the best man on the enemy’s side was the Rani of Jhansi, not knowing that the Rani was not a man, but the Queen herself.

Not long ago a Hindu lady, Aus Kour by name, was elevated by the Hindus, with the help of the British Government, to the disputed throne of the disorganized and revolted State of Patiala, in the northwest of India. She has been described by English historians as the most competent person to govern that state. In less than a year she brought peace and security into all parts of her dominions.

Ahalya Bai, the Queen of Malwa, governed her kingdom with great success for twenty years, devoting herself to the rights and welfare of her people and the happiness of her subjects; she was so great and popular that both the Mohammedans and the Hindus united in prayers for her long life; so little did she care for name and fame that, when a book was written in her honour, she ordered it to be destroyed, and took no notice of the author.

America boasts of her civilization and the freedom of her women, but we know how little power and how few privileges have been given to women. The cause of this is deeply rooted in the Biblical conception of womanhood. It is claimed that Christianity has elevated the condition of women; but, on the contrary, history tells us that it is Christianity that has stood for centuries in the way of the religious, social, and political freedom of women. Think of the women’s suffrage societies, and how hard they are struggling to win recognition of the rights of their sex.^[3] Roman law and Roman jurisprudence gave woman a place far more elevated than that given to her by Christianity. The Christians learned to honour women from the pagans. The Teutonic tribes believed, like the Hindus, in the perfect equality of both sexes in all domestic and social relations, and held that a queen was as good as a king. Even to-day the Christian nations fail to see this equality between man and woman.

The Hindu law allows the women a much greater share in the management of property than most of the statutes of the Christian nations. In family affairs, religious or secular, especially in business or trade, a husband in India cannot take any step without consulting the female members of the family.

It is often said that Hindu women are treated like slaves by their husbands, but it is not a fact. On the contrary, the Hindu women get better treatment than the majority of the wives of Englishmen or of Americans endowed with the spirit of an English husband. Sir Monier Monier Williams says: “Indian wives often possess greater influence than the wives of Europeans.” The number of wife-beaters is considerably smaller in India than in Europe or America. He is not a true Hindu who does not regard a woman’s body as sacred as the temple of God. He is an outcast who touches a woman’s body with irreverence, hatred or anger. “A woman’s body”, says Manu the law-giver, “must not be struck hard, even with a flower, because it is sacred”. It is for this reason that the Hindus do not allow capital punishment for women. The treatment of woman, according to Hindu religion, will be better understood from some of the quotations from the laws of Manu and ther law-givers.

Manu says:

1. “The mouth of a woman is always pure” V, 130.

2. “Women must be honoured and adorned by their fathers, husbands, brothers, and brothers-in-law, who desire their own welfare” III, 55.

3. “Where women are honoured, there the Devas (gods) are pleased; but where they are dishonoured, no sacred rite yields rewards” III, 56.

4. "Where female relations live in grief, the family soon wholly perishes; but that family where they are not unhappy ever prospers” III, 57.

5. “In like manner, care must be taken of barren women, of those who have no sons, of those whose family is extinct, of wives and widows faithful to their lords, and of women afflicted with diseases” VIII, 28.

6. “A righteous king must punish like thieves those relatives who appropriate the property of such females during their lifetime” VIII, 29.

7. “In order to protect women and Brahmins, he who kills in the cause of right commits no sin” VIII, 349.

8. “One’s daughter is the highest object of tenderness; hence, if one is offended by her, one must bear it without resentment” IV, 185. (Compare this with the statements of the missionaries that the Hindu religion sanctions the killing of girls).

9. “A maternal aunt, the wife of a maternal uncle, a mother-in-law, and a paternal aunt, must be honoured like the wife of one’s spiritual teacher; they are equal to the wife of one’s spiritual teacher” II, 131.

(In India, the wife of a spiritual teacher is regarded as a living goddess).

10. “Towards the sister of one’s father and of one’s mother and towards one’s elder sister, one must behave as towards one’s mother; but the mother’ is more venerable than they” II, 133.

11. “But the teacher is ten times more venerable than the sub-teacher, the father a hundred times more than the teacher, but the mother a thousand times more than the father” II, 145.

12. “A chaste wife, who after the death of her husband constantly remains chaste, reaches heaven, though she have no son, just like those chaste men" V, 160. (Compare this with the statements of the missionaries that Hindu widows are cursed by their religion).

13. “In that family where the husband is pleased with his wife and the wife with her husband, happiness will assuredly be lasting” III, 60.

14. “Offspring, the due performance of religious rites, faithful service, highest conjugal happiness, and heavenly bliss for the ancestors and one’s self, depend upon the wife alone” IX, 28.

15. “Let mutual fidelity continue till death; this may be considered as a summary of the highest law for husband and wife” IX, 101.

From other Hindu laws:

“Woman possesses an unequalled means of purification: they never become (entirely) foul”.

“Women are pure in all limbs”.

1. “Man is strength, woman is beauty; he is the reason that governs and she is the wisdom that moderates”.

2. “He who despises woman despises his mother”.

3. “He who is cursed by a woman is cursed by God”.

4. “The tears of a woman call down the fire of heaven on those who make them flow”.

5. “Evil to him who laughs at a woman’s sufferings; God shall laugh at his prayers”.

6. “The songs of women are sweet in the ears of the Lord; men should not, if they wish to be heard, sing the praises of God without women”.

7. “There is no crime more odious than to persecute women, and to take advantage of their weakness to despoil them of their patrimony”.

8. “The woman watches over the house, and the protecting divinities (devas of the domestic hearth are happy in her presence. The labours of the field should never be assigned to her”.

9. “When relatives, by some subterfuge, take possession of the property of a woman, her carriages or her jewels, such evil-doers shall descend into the infernal regions”.

10. “The virtuous woman should have but one husband, as the right-minded man should have but one wife”.

Here is the definition of a wife given in the Mahabharata:

A wife is half the man, his truest friend;
A loving wife is a perpetual spring
Of virtue, pleasure, wealth; a faithful wife
Is his best aid in seeking heavenly bliss;
A sweetly-speaking wife is a companion
In solitude, a father in advice,
A mother in all seasons of distress,
A rest in passing through life’s wilderness.

The Christian missionaries say that these laws are most horrible! Yet today in some parts of Europe women are yoked together with horses and cattle in the field, and obliged to do the roughest labour!

The unmarried daughter, not the son, inherits the mother’s estate. This is the Hindu law. The special property of the wife which she gets as dowry cannot be used by the husband. A wife in India is not responsible for the debts of her husband or son. The mother in India owns her children as much as the father does.

Mrs. F. A. Steele, who has written several novels on Indian life, and who resided in India for twenty-five years, writes of Indian women: “In regard to the general position of women in India, I think it is rather better than our own. Women in India can hold property, and a widow always gets a fixed portion of her husband’s estate”.

Some American ladies who lived in India, not as missionaries but as impartial observers, have corroborated these statements. It is generally said that the Hindu law makes no provision for the Hindu widow.

Let us see what an English historian says:

“In the absence of direct male heirs, widows succeed to a life-interest in real and absolute interest in personal property. The daughters inherit absolutely. Where there are sons, mothers and daughters are entitled to shares, and wives hold peculiar property from a variety of sources over which a husband has no control during their lives, and which descends to their own heirs, with a preference to females”.^[4]

Much has been said against the marriage customs of the Hindus. I have heard a great deal of objection to them, in this country especially. It is true that marriage by courtship is not considered by the Hindus to be the highest and best system; they say this method generally proceeds from selfish desires, or the mere gratification of passion. Marriage, according to the Hindu ideas, must be based on the ideal of the spiritual union of the souls, and not on the lower desires for sense pleasures. It must be a sacred bond. The Hindus were the first to recognize marriage as an indissoluble holy bond between two souls. Even death does not dissolve it; and this idea prevails in the hearts of many Hindu wives, who do not care to remarry after the death of their husbands, but prefer to devote their lives in fulfilling spiritual duties.

Mrs. Steele says: “I have seen many a virgin widow who gloried in her fate”. Marriage is not considered to be the only aim of life. There are nobler and higher purposes, and they must be accomplished before death comes. The whole spirit of the marriage laws in India is in favour of the legal union between one man and one woman, but they allow a little latitude for the preservation of the race. It is said that a man may marry a second wife for progeny alone, with the consent of his first wife, in case she should be barren.

The aim of Hindu law-givers was to build a society where the moral and spiritual evolution of the individual should be free from legal interference. Therefore they divided society into classes, and set forth laws for each class; the marriage laws in India have been many-sided in order to suit the different tendencies which prevailed among different classes. Hindu law-givers understood that one law would not do for all people. The higher the class in society, the more restricted are their laws; for instance, the same law-giver, who allows the marriage of widows amongst the lower classes, sets forth arguments against its practice among women of a higher class. Nearly all Hindu widows of the lower classes can remarry after the death of their husbands; but. it depends upon the choice both of the husband and the wife. The Hindu law provides for the remarriage of widow^[5] and of divorced women in the same way as for the remarriage of widowers and divorced men. According to the law, a wife may abandon her husband (if she chooses) if he be criminal, insane, impotent, outcast, or afflicted with leprosy, also because of his long absence in foreign lands, and can take another husband. The Roman law gives no other causes of divorce than these. Similarly, a husband may abandon his wife if she be drunken or adulterous, afflicted with leprosy, or cruel towards husband and children, and can remarry. But the Hindu law does not allow a divorce simply for incompatibility of temper, nor because of the simple desire in either party to marry another.

It is said that the greatest curse is the child-marriage in India, and that it is sanctioned by religion; but this is not true. Religion distinctly forbids it, and in many parts of India so-called child-marriage is nothing but a betrothal. The betrothal ceremony takes place some years before the real marriage ceremony; sufficient cause may prolong the period of betrothal for even three or four years. In Northern India the real marriage does not take place until the parties are of proper age; it is attended with music, feasting, and the presentation of gifts. A betrothed wife stays in her father’s house until the time of her real marriage. In Southern India, customs are not the same; many abuses have crept in, and child-wives are often given to their husbands at too tender an age. The Hindu law does not prevent the remarriage of the betrothed wife after the death of her betrothed husband, but it says that under such circumstances the parents of the betrothed wife commit a sin as of giving false witness before the court of justice.

According to the Hindu law, it is better for a girl of a high caste to remain unmarried for life than to marry one who is not of noble birth or from a family of the same caste, or one who is unqualified and illiterate.

Eight different kinds of marriages are described and discussed by Hindu legislators,^[6] among which marriage with the consent of the parents of both parties, and not a sentimental love contract, is considered to be the highest. In ancient times, when the country was governed by Hindu kings, the Svayambara system of marriage was very common. It was the system of free choice of a husband by the maiden. Those who have read The Light of Asia, by Sir Edwin Arnold, will remember how Buddha was married. But when the Hindus lost their political freedom they would have been unable to prevent the intermixture of races had such liberty been continued; so they abandoned that system of marriage and adopted that of betrothing their sons and daughters in their youth. The betrothal, however, is not practised in all parts of the country.

Christian missionaries have brought false charges against the moral character of Hindu women; and some of our own country-women, having enlisted their names as Christian converts, have, I regret to say, joined these missionary detractors in bringing false charges against Hindu women. If you wish to know the true condition of the women in India, you will have to reject ninety-nine per cent of the statements which you hear from the missionaries, or from Christian converts who come from India. There are immoral women in India, as there are in every other country, but it is more than wicked to make such sweeping statements as that there is no morality among Hindu women. The Pandita Ramabai said: “I would not trust one of my girls in any Indian home. The immorality in that country is horrible”.^[7]

Self-burning of widows was not sanctioned by the vedic religion, but was due to other causes. Some say that, when the Mohammedans conquered India, they treated the widows of the soldiers so brutally that the women preferred death, and voluntarily sought it. It is often said that the ‘Christian government’ has suppressed Suttee; but the truth is that the initiative in this direction was taken by that noble Hindu, Rajah Ram Mohan Roy, who was, however, obliged to secure the aid of the British Government in enforcing his ideas, because India was a subject nation. The educated classes among the Hindus had strongly protested against the priests^[8] who supported this inhuman custom (which prevailed only in certain parts of India), and efforts had been made to suppress the evil by force; but, as it could not be done without official help, appeal was made to the Viceroy, Lord Bentinck, and a law against Suttee was passed. Thus the evil was practically suppressed by the Hindus themselves, aided by the British Government.

Sir Monier Monier Williams says: “Perhaps the most important point to which he (Rajah Ram Mohan Roy awakened attention was the absence of all vedic sanction for the self-immolation of widows (Suttee, in Sanskrit Sati). It was principally his vehement denunciation of this practice, and the agitation against it set on foot by him, which ultimately led to the abolition of Sati throughout British India in 1829”.^[9]

The exclusion of women from the society of men, which we find in some parts of India, is not due to their religion, but to other causes. Although this custom existed among the aristocratic classes of the Hindu community, still it came into practice largely for self-defence against Mohammedan brutality. The purda system, that is, the custom of not allowing women to appear in public without a veil, was not of Hindu origin, but was introduced into India by the Mohammedans. There are many parts of India where the purda system does not exist at all, where men mix freely with women, travel in the same vehicle, and appear in public with the women unveiled. Sir Monier Monier Williams writes: “Moreover, it must be noted that the seclusion and ignorance of women, which were once mainly due to the fear of the Mohammedan conquerors, do not exist in the same degree in provinces unaffected by those conquerors”.

Every one has heard the old missionary tale of the Hindu mothers throwing their babies to the crocodiles in the Ganges. Touching pictures of a black mother with a white baby in her arms, calmly awaiting the advent of a large crocodile, have adorned many Sunday-school books. Perhaps this story arose from the fact that in certain places poor Hindu mothers place the dead bodies of their little ones by the riverside, because they cannot afford the expense of cremating them.

The zeal of the pious missionaries for Christianizing India was the cause of the story of the car of Jagannath. Sir Monier Monier Williams says: “It is usual for missionaries to speak with horror of the self-immolation alleged to take place under the car of Jaggannath. But, if deaths occur, they must be accidental, as self-destruction is wholly opposed both to the letter and spirit of their religion”^[10]

As regards female infanticide, Pandita Ramabai herself wrote:

“Female infanticide, though not sanctioned by religion and never looked upon as right by conscientious people, has nevertheless, in those parts of India mentioned been silently passed over unpunished by society in general”.^[11]

The Pandita does not perhaps know that numbers of dead bodies of illegitimate babies are picked up every year in the streets and vacant lots of New York and other large American cities. What does American society do about such criminals? Is it not equally reasonable to charge these evils to the Christian religion as to lay all the sins of India at the door of the Hindu religion?

High-caste Hindu women generally learn to read and write in their own vernacular, but they do not pass public examinations. Hindu religion does not prevent any woman from receiving education; on the contrary, it says that it is the duty of the parents, brothers, and husbands to educate their daughters, sisters, and wives. So, if there be ignorance among Hindu women, it is not the fault of their religion, but rather of their poverty.

Malabar boasts of seven great poets, and four of them were women. The moral sentiments uttered by one of them (Avyar) are taught in the schools as the golden rules of life. The writings of Lilavati, a great woman mathematician, still form the textbook in native schools of the Hindus.

It is often said by the Christian missionaries that Hindu religion teaches that women have no souls, and that they are not entitled to salvation. On the contrary, all the sacred books of the Hindus testify against such outrageous falsities. Those who have read the Bhagavad Gita, or the Upanishads, know that, according to Hindu religion, the soul is sexless, and that all men and women will sooner or later reach the highest goal of religion. It was in India that women were first allowed to be spiritual teachers and to enter into the monastic life. Those who have read the life of Buddha know that his wife became the leader of the Buddhist nuns. There are today hundreds of Hindu Sannyasinis (nuns) who are recognized as spiritual teachers by the Hindus. The wife of Sri Ramakrishna, the great Hindu Saint of the nineteenth century, has become a living example of the great honour and reverence that are paid by Hindus to a woman of pure, spotless, spiritual life.

Lastly, the position of women in Hindu religion can be understood better by that unique idea of the Motherhood of God, which is nowhere so strongly expressed and recognized as in India. The mother is so highly honoured in India that the Hindus are not satisfied until they see divinity in the form of earthly mother. They say that one mother is greater than a thousand fathers, therefore the Hindus prefer to call the supreme Being the Mother of the universe. The divine Mother is greater than the “Creator” of other religions. She is the Producer or the Creator, or the First-born Lord of all creatures. There is no other country in the world where every living mother is venerated as an incarnation of the divine Mother, where every village has a guardian mother who protects all as her own children.

Listen to the prayer that rises every day to the almighty Mother of the universe from the hearts of Hindu worshippers:

“O Mother Divine, Thou art beyond the reach of our praises; Thou pervadest every particle of the universe; all knowledge proceeds from Thee, O infinite source of wisdom! Thou dwellest in every feminine form, and all women are Thy living representatives upon earth”.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Cf. Life and Sayings of Ramakrishna, by Prof. F. Max Müller, published by Scribner and Sons, New York.

[2]:

The heroic queen Chand Bibi, who defended the fort of Ahmednagar against the attacks of the Moghul emperor Akbar, may be called the Joan of Arc of India.

[3]:

The following extract from a letter sent by Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Bishop Potter, of New York, on 15th January, 1901, will give an idea of the situation:

“Ever and anon public thought is aroused by a terrible tragedy, like the one enacted in Paterson, or by some unusually open manifestation [of?] vice in the streets of our cities. Though an aroused public sentiment can repress the evils for a time in one locality, they reappear at once, with renewed energy, in many others. Occasionally, church officials make their protests, but no one seems to understand the hidden cause of all these outrages.

“The authorities of the Episcopal Church are just now aroused to action. The first step to be taken is to teach woman a higher respect for herself, and the rising generation a more profound reverence.

“The Church and the Bible make woman the football for the jibes and jeers of the multitude.

“When, in their marriage service, it is the duty of woman to obey, and be given away by some man, she is made the inferior and subject of man.

“All our efforts to suppress the social evil are hopeless until woman is recognized, in the canon law and all church discipline, as equal in goodness to bishops, archbishops, and the Pope himself.

“The sentiments of men in high places are responsible for the outrages on woman in the haunts of vice and on the highway. If in the same respect the masses are educated to feel for cathedrals, altars, symbols, and sacraments were extended to the mothers of the race, as it should be, all these problems would be speedily settled.

“When our good men in State and Church try to suppress the terrible outrages on woman, while they deal with the evil on the surface, they should begin the lasting work of securing to her equal honor, dignity, and respect by sharing with her all the liberties they themselves enjoy.

“The lesson of inferiority is taught everywhere, and in these terrible tragedies of life we have the result of the universal degradation of woman.”

[4]:

Cf. Mill: History of India, Vol. I, p. 248.

[5]:

That the remarriage of widows in vedic times was a national custom can be easily established by a variety of proofs and arguments. The very fact of the Sanskrit language having from ancient times such words as didhishu, ‘a man that has married a widow,’ parapurva, ‘a woman that has taken a second husband,’ paunarbhava, ‘a son of a woman by her second husband, are enough to establish it.”—Indo-Arians, by Rajendra

[6]:

Cf. Manu, III, 21-33.

[7]:

Fitchburg Sentinel, 18 April, 1898.

[8]:

Brahminism [Brahmanism?] and Hinduism, p. 482.

[9]:

Some of the Brahmin priests perverted the meaning of the vedic text which describes the funeral ceremony of the ancient Hindus. The true meaning of that verse is: “Rise up, woman, thou art lying by one whose life is gone; come, come to the world of the living, away from thy husband, and become the wife of him who grasps thy hand and is willing to marry thee.”—Rig Veda, Bk. 10, Hymn 18, verse 8.

[10]:

Cf. Brahmanism and Hinduism, p. 118.

[11]:

Cf. High-caste Hindu Women, p. 26.