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| Goddess Gayatri |
Biggest problem which Hinduism faces when it is being
evaluated through the western prism of Abrahamic faith . I was watching a speech by Sadhguru where
he mentioned a very critical defining feature of Hinduism. He says, unlike
Western faiths, Hinduism did not place anyone at a pedestal where questions
would not reach. Forget the Prophets and Masters, even Gods were received with
affection and a list of questions. Nothing was ever beyond debate in Hinduism,
not even Gods. This very nature of Hinduism has often been cause of concern and
confusion for Western thinkers, troubled by a religion, which is seeped so deep
into our culture of exploration of truth through investigation and examination.
When the western scholars approach the Vedic Indian wisdom, oftentimes their
approach itself is based on the assumption that they are approaching a civilization,
a religion which is inferior to theirs. This makes it hard for them to accept a society which was an intellectually flourishing society of emancipated
souls, thousands of years before the time when even dark ages descended on
Europe. We have been enslaved for years, unfortunately, and the biggest loss
for us has been the loss of History.
Our lack of knowledge of our own history, offers the
vested interests an opportunity to create a sense of inferiority in our own heritage, and thus
by implication, creates a sense of supremacy for the western scholars as compared to the Indians. Feminism
is one of their favorite subject. The commitment, trust and faith in Hinduism of the followers confounds them. Without the fear of punishment in this life and afterlife, having
faced the worst of persecution of Muslim rulers, centuries after centuries,
Hindus of this country remain committed to their faith. This has confounded the
west. The left, the Islamists, the westernists come together as an odd union,
to bad-mouth Hinduism, trying to corrode the faith, which remained unblemished through the hostilities of the centuries.
Their whole scheme and plan rests on one singular assumption- That Lord
Macaulay has already left the land ready for them to rule over, that we as
Hindus and Indians, would not know anything about our own history, so complete
would be the wipe out earlier by the British and later by the Leftists.
A Vedic society is considered to a patriarchal society.
Communists use the term Manu-vadi and Patriarchal interchangeably. Do we even
know, Manu (India that is Bharat-IV) ruled over the Vedic Indian world in 3000 BC (Thousands of years
before Virginia Woolf in England wrote lamenting how Libraries of Oxford
remained closed to the women)? This man, the grand Patriot of Hindu world, Manu, who
formulated the societal rules for the Vedic world, had two sons- Priyavrata and
Uttanpada and three daughters- Akuti, Devahuti and Prasuti. This man,
much-maligned by the leftist feminists, educated his daughters well. Devahuti,
one of the daughters of the Great Manu- in language,
literature and Philosophy, at the time when Man, as a species was barely crawling out
of the caves. When I close my eyes, I can visualize the first Monarch of human
race, sitting on the banks of river Sarasvati, affectionately watching over his
daughter as she pens the most ancient hymns in the most ancient book of
spiritual and philosophical thoughts- Rig-Veda. Later we find him, watching
over his daughter, shunning all the riches and getting married to the ascetic
thinker, Kardama. He tells the great Sage, not that I am looking for a groom
for my daughter. The language is telling. Says Manu- “My daughter, who is the
sister of Priyavrata and Uttanapada is seeking a suitable husband in terms of
age, character and good qualities.”
The Sage responded- “Since your daughter has not married
and has not given her word to anyone, our marriage according to Vedic system
can happen.”
(Implication being that had she given her heart to someone, it was impossible to marry her, a woman to another).
The founder of Hindu socio-legal system, thus got his
Daughter married to a non-warrior man, as was her desire, and Devahuti,
eventually would give birth to the great sage Kapila who would stand opposing
the rituals of Vedic religious process. What is even more
interesting in a world where Intellectuals laugh of at the young men and women
as upstart, Sage Kardama and Devahuti, took Sage Kapila as their teacher and
learned spiritual lessons from their own Son. Annoyed Aryans did not expunge their writings from the Rigveda and they remained as resepected as they were. This is how intellectually
liberal was the Vedic India.
Gargi Vachaknavi- Learned lady, Gargi, named after her
father, Sage Vachaknu (Yes, you got that right, do not always believe when
Western ‘indologists’ claim that Indian daughters went deprived of the illustrious
names of their Manu-vadi fathers), was one great thinker of somewhere around
700 BC. When Yagyavalka is considered as
the most learned of the thinkers and awarded with Cows by the King Janaka in
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, his claim is challenged by many other sages. He
defeats all of them in debate and then Gargi appears with the most metaphorical
of her questions, requesting Yagyavalka to define the Space and the Self. There
is a volley of questions which move to and fro. When Yagyavalka says that the
world is woven back and fro on air, she questions –
“On what then is air woven
back and froth?”
Sage Ghosha- was another woman seer who contributed in the
Rig Veda, where she composed hymns in the honor of Ashvini Kumars, the twin
Gods, and the ancient doctors. It is said that Sage Ghosha suffered with
leprosy and was cured by Ashvini Kumar.
Sage Lopamudra, who was the wife of
great sage, Agastya, was another of Twenty-Seven learned woman sages, poetesses
and intellectuals who contributed to the Vedas. Lopamudra was senior by few
centuries to Gargi and Sage Ghosha (latter were almost contemporary) and wrote
sometime around 2000 BC. Here Lopamudra calls her husband, sage Agastya for some intimacy, because
time, but is fleeting. She writes
(Mandala I, Hymn 179)
“Through many autumns
have I toiled and labored, at night and morn, through age- inducing dawning.
Old age impairs the
beauty of our bodies. Let husbands come near unto their spouses."
She says those who have been assigned great tasks, who are
working and have not yet accomplished, they must come to their wives. She is
not a servile woman without her wants and desires. She is a woman awaken. And
then we also find a woman whose love transcends the bodily desires.
There is
Sage Maitreyi. Maitreyi was the wife of Sage Yagyavalka and has contributed the
verses to Rigveda. Born sometime in 800 BC, she is named after her father. Whether
she was a real woman and wife or was she a soul-companion to sage Yagyavalka is
debatable, since Mahabharata considers her as an unmarried philosopher. Her
love, is for the soul, as she composes brilliantly-
“Lo, verily, not for the love of a husband is a husband
dear, but for the love of the soul a husband is dear.
Not for the love of the wife is a wife dear, but for the
love of the soul a wife is dear.”
– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.
These references settle beyond doubt that Women not only
participated in the intellectual world of Vedic India, this participation was
more than welcomed and encouraged. Women were encouraged not because of some
external influence, rather because it was inherent in the Hindu philosophy. Ancient Aryans were more spiritual than
martially inclined, as nature was kind, lands were aplenty, unlike deserts
where every square feet of the land needs to be bled for and every drop of
water has to be contested. India was a world which offered an environment of
emancipation to its women for a long time, until it was run over by desert
races who considered women as bounty and political tool.
Coming to the Sati, the ritual with which the left and the
West loves to beat the Hindus with, an ancient world although looked with affection
with an end of life together, thought never did it mandated the same. The love
for Sati was much a romantic notion, primarily arising from a deep belief that the
death was never an end, rather a step into after-life- the part of a continuous
cycle. Popular fascination was more like the fascination of people at the later
date with Romeo and Juliet. During the period of humiliating slavery, being
ruled by people who considered women as wealth and bounty to be looted and
settled, much like cattle (we see that in ISIS even today), many opted to
surrender to a death in honor than living as a slave and concubine, a
sex-object. Still, those were temporary responses to temporary terror and times
of turbulence. Religion is an opium for masses, particularly when the pain is
unbearable. It is easy to judge from a distance, but in all possibility
justifications for deaths were invented from scriptures to explain the sudden
end of life merely because the monarch was getting replaced. Later, it became a
stigma, but it never had a real religious sanction. It was challenged and
removed from the social scheme in early 18th century itself. It is a
surprise that the stick is still held firmly by vested interests to beat
Hinduism. They, sure of the fact, that Hindus would not have read their own
scripture, show the verses from our own books selectively. So following verse from
Atharva Veda is often shared:
“Choosing her husband’s world,
O man, this woman lays
herself
Down beside thy lifeless body.
Preserving faithfully the ancient custom.
Bestow upon here
both wealth and offspring.”
This is where they end the hymn. However, in truth, this
is metaphorical. The wife goes and lies besides the husband. Thus she
accompanies right until the boundary which separate the life from the death.
Right until then and no further. This is where the next verse comes, which
quite cunningly, our leftists and Abrahamanic brother’s ignore. We, who have
been fed for centuries on Macaulay’s curriculum, are not even aware of the
verse which follows and changes the whole thing. It says (while it comes from
Hymn 3, of the Book 18 of Atharva Veda, the Hymn itself is borrowed in Atharva Veda from Rigveda, so it is
not an afterthought of 900 BC, it comes from 3000 BC)-
“Rise, come into the world of life, O woman: come he is
lifeless
By whose side thou liest.
Wifehood with this thy husband was thy portion who took
Thy hand and wooed thee as a lover.
I looked and saw the youthful dame escorted, the living to
the dead:
I saw them, bear her.
When she with blinding darkness was enveloped, then did I
turn her back
And lead her homeward.
Knowing the world of the living beings, Aghnya! Treading the
path.”
So the spiritual and metaphoric company ends here, and as
the husband’s body is put to the cremation-fire, wife, the one who cannot be
harmed (Aghnya) is led homeward. Read my fellow countrymen, read. Don't let their agenda use your ignorance. Our being born Indians is a matter of accident. But it is still a matter of pride. We are fortunate and let us not be apologetic about it.
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