Indian Women Hood-1.Pdf
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
VIVEKANANDA KENDRA PATRIKA A DISTINCTIVE CULTURAL MAGAZINE OF INDIA (A Half-Yearly Publication) Vol.39 No.1, 77th Issue Founder-Editor : MANANEEYA EKNATHJI RANADE Editor : P.PARAMESWARAN INDIAN WOMANHOOD THROUGH THE AGES (This is the edited reprint of the Vivekananda Kendra Patrika with the same theme published in August 1975) EDITORIAL OFFICE : Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan Trust, 5, Singarachari Street, Triplicane, Chennai - 600 005. The Vivekananda Kendra Patrika is a half- Phone : (044) 28440042 E-mail : [email protected] yearly cultural magazine of Vivekananda Web : www.vkendra.org Kendra Prakashan Trust. It is an official organ SUBSCRIPTION RATES : of Vivekananda Kendra, an all-India service mission with “service to humanity” as its sole Single Copy : Rs.125/- motto. This publication is based on the same Annual : Rs.250/- non-profit spirit, and proceeds from its sales For 3 Years : Rs.600/- are wholly used towards the Kendra’s Life (10 Years) : Rs.2000/- charitable objectives. (Plus Rs.50/- for Outstation Cheques) FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTION: Annual : $60 US DOLLAR Life (10 Years) : $600 US DOLLAR VIVEKANANDA KENDRA PATRIKA Indian Womanhood Through The Ages INDIAN WOMANHOOD THROUGH THE AGES CONTENTS 1. Editorial 1 2. The Vedic Pageant 4 3. Women in Rig Veda B.S.Upadhyaya 13 4. Out of the Mists of Antiquity 18 5. The Epic Women 21 6. Sita - The Ideal Women Smt.Prema Pandurangan, M.A. 30 7. Draupadi and Sita 33 8. Kaikeyi and Manthara 41 9. Taara (An Extract from Rajaji’s writings) 44 10. Kunti - A Model of Woman’s Uprightness 45 11. Manu and His Psychology of Womanhood Gleanings from “Kamayani” and 51 “Manu Dharma Sastra” 12. The Age of the Later Samhitas, Brahmanas and Upanishads 55 13. Role of the Women in the Religious History of Tamil Nadu A.Subramaniam 57 14. Women in Tamil Sangam Literature P.N.Appuswami 64 15. The Position of the Women in Karnataka during Chalukyas of Badami Miss. B.N.Sarvamangala 74 16. The Distilled Wisdom of Ages 78 17. Women in Silappadikaram and Manimekhalai A.Subramanian 83 18. Basava’s Benediction Dixit P.V. 88 19. The Transition to the Archives of History 94 20. Sakuntala Extracts from Rabindranath Tagore 101 21. Redemption of Women In Deval Smriti 106 22. Women in the Imperial Age of Kanuaj Extracts 107 VIVEKANANDA KENDRA PATRIKA Indian Womanhood Through The Ages 23. Glimpses Corridors through the of History S.C.Dube 112 24. From the Genderless One to the Duality of Man and Woman Padma-Bhushan V.Raghavaiah 120 25. The Oriental View of Woman Ananda Coomaraswamy 130 26. The Burden of My Tale Satya 133 27. The Position of the Women before the Advent of the Moghuls 137 28. The Middle Period K.M.Panikkar 139 29. Borrowed Customs M.Mujeeb 143 30. The Divine Messengers 148 31. Kannada Women Who made History P.V.Dixit 153 32. From the Annals of History 156 33. Ahalyabai Holkar and a Regiment of Women Prof. P.Mahadevan 158 34. Changing Pattern of Tribal Womanhood in North-East India Prof. J.Ganchaudhuri 160 35. Swami Vivekananda Speaks 164 36. The Paths of Change 169 37. Women and the Freedom Movement S.Ambujammal 173 38. Women Patriots of India 176 39. Women’s Liberation: An Episode in Bengal Basudha Chakravarty 178 40. Sr. Nivedita - The Dedicated 182 41. Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi Swami Pavitrananda 191 42. Sri Aurobindo’s Vision of the Mother Sri Aurobindo 197 43. Pen Portraits of Some Forgotten Flowers 199 44. Sarojini Naidu Tara Ali Baig 211 45. Women In India-Past, Present, Future Smt.Louella Lobo Prabhu 215 46. Liberation of Women In India and Its Limits Kamala Spolia 221 47. Lib or no Lib-He cannot live without them D.P.Sudha 227 VIVEKANANDA KENDRA PATRIKA Indian Womanhood Through The Ages 48. Women’s Liberation Movement Nandini Mehta 228 49. Indian Woman-Her Position In Society Dr.(Mrs.) Radhakrishnamurthy 238 50. Social Service 244 51. Hingne Stree Shikshan Sanstha, Poona 251 52. A Splash of Colour 253 53. The Gracious Octogenarian Visalakshi Narayanaswamy 259 54. Pioneering Women of Tamil Nadu 260 55. A Veteran Speaks Kuyilee Rajeswari 265 56. D.K.Pattammal The Divinely Endowed Minstrel Kuyilee Rajeswari 268 57. Bihar’s Master Craftsman 271 58. Sri Sarada Math-Its Origin and Growth Pravrajika Amalaprana 272 59. The Temples of Learning At Salem 275 60. Women and Social Work 276 61. The Healing Touch 281 62. An Appeal through the Ages 284 63. The Women’s Liberation Movement and its Relevance to India Mrs.Shashi Deshpande 287 64. Vaidik Nari Risi Dr.Roma Chaudhri 295 65. Three Tamil Epic Heroines Prema Nandakumar 300 VIVEKANANDA KENDRA PATRIKA Indian Womanhood through the Ages EDITORIAL Indian Womanhood Through The Ages THE CONCEPTION OF WOMANHOOD The earliest formulation of this scientific EAST AND WEST truth is to be found in the concluding lines of the Purusha Sukta hymn, held in great he conclusions of modern scientific veneration by all inheritors of Vedic Tresearch have established, among other tradition. Prajapati, having created the things, the fact that many an old-world worlds out of Himself, broods over all, myth is an allegorical or symbolic partaking of both male and female, presentation of the laws of nature which properties and yet transcending them as are basic to all creation. A significant case well. He has for his spouses Shri and in point is that all nature is androgynous. Lakshmi, and shines resplendent through In the inanimate sphere it has been explored day and night with stars and suns through matter, force, and power down to surrounding him, ‘Shrischate lakshmischa the positive and negative elements patnyau, ahoratre parsve, nakshatrani imbedded in energy. Biologically, we have rupam, asvinauvyaktam.’ its analogue in the distinction between male An indistinct, if not confused, echo of it and female. But the remarkable feature may be detected in the Biblical version of about this differentiation is that the Creation. According to it, God first created component parts are not separate or Adam and then, finding that he lacked disparate or mutually exclusive, but that companionship, took out a rib from his body each runs into the other interminably and as he lay asleep, and fashioned out of it inextricably. This is the androgynous woman to be his companion, complement property of all creation as a logical corollary and consummation. Mankind’s generation of which we have arrived at that point was still a far cry, and, to account for it, where, theoretically, male can be Adam had to disobey God, commit sin and, transformed into female and vice versa, as punishment for it, had to be expelled partly through natural processes and partly from paradise. This is the myth of the Fall with the aid of surgery. Such sex- of Man from a state of pristine innocence, transformations are now a common place and it is attributed to the frailty of woman of modern biological experiments. his wife Eve ! Here may be detected the 1 VIVEKANANDA KENDRA PATRIKA Indian Womanhood through the Ages germ of the idea of the superiority of man economic speculation is obsessed with the over woman, and it has been a decisive idea of inequality of the sexes with a factor in, the shaping of Western civilisation reciprocal proneness for each to blame it synchronously with the origins and spread all on the other, largely it would seem, to of Christianity. It has crystallised a major score a debating point here or there. attitude to life itself which is almost Suppression, discrimination, exploitation exclusive to the West, and to which may and similar pejorative terms are handy be referred the confused evolution of missiles in this ‘battle of the sexes’ as European culture. ‘Cherchez waged in our own time. But La femme’ is still the the issues that are unalterable fixation of the highlighted are, in the last Western man to his analysis, peripheral and do counterpart, -Woman. not, indeed cannot, touch, The primitive Christian much less change, the Church assiduously fostered stubborn facts of nature. this attitude, and to it we Chief of them is the owe the twin phenomena of obligation to motherhood monasticism in its most which is squarely laid on extreme and bizarre forms, the woman and woman as well as a detestation of alone. It is not difficult to woman as the fans et origo show how the driving spirit of all human ills. So we may underlying the Women’s Lib say, without inaccuracy, movement is a revolt that man not only exploited against motherhood and the woman for his most imperious needs but, ineluctable corollary of it, namely, the at the same time, gave her a bad name to rearing of a family. This is the heart of the preserve his own dominance inviolate! What matter, as we may infer from the fact that is now known as the age of chivalry’ was a the word’ culture’ which we bandy about breakthrough from such odious so freely and unthinkingly, stems from the obscurantism to the opposite extreme of root idea of ‘kula’ which is the bed-rock of idealising her into a goddess on earth, to home and family. It is not an accident that act as a curb on man’s predatory and wherever you find this militant movement libidinous instincts and impulses. What has gaining ground, there you invariably find uniformly eluded the grasp of the Western the slow decay or actual break-up of the mind is the unalterable truth of their family and the consequent dissolution of a separate incompleteness. This is where our whole structure of civilised living.