1. Introduction Traditions That Are Once Invented in One Generation Tend To

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

1. Introduction Traditions That Are Once Invented in One Generation Tend To I. (A) Personal Details Role Name Affiliation Principal Investigator Prof. Sumita Parmar Allahabad University, Allahabad Paper Coordinator Prof. Reicha Tanwar Kurukshetra Univesity, Kurukshetra Content Writer/Author (CW) Dr. Manjeet Bhatia Delhi University, Delhi Content Reviewer (CR) Prof Reicha Tanwar Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra Language Editor (LE) Dr. Sonal Parmar Independent Editor , New Delhi (B) Description of Module Items Description of Module Subject Name Women’s Studies Paper Name The Discipline of Women’s Studies Module Name/ Title Women and issues of culture: religion and ideology Some Cases –Shah Bano, Roop Kanwar Module ID Paper-1 Unit-2 Module-7 Pre-requisites The reader is expected to have the knowledge of structure of society, religious and marriage practices; politics and religion; role of law and judiciary in cultural practices. Objectives To familiarize the reader with the Cultural status of Indian women based on the traditions sanctioned by religious practices. Keywords Culture, Religion, Judiciary, Traditions, Uniform Civil Code II. 1. Introduction Traditions that are once invented in one generation tend to pass on to the following generations. They usually have religious sanction. These traditions get modified and changed according to new contexts. As per their current utility, traditions are appropriated. Romila Thapari gives an interesting example to understand this modification of traditions. In the Mahabharata version of Shakuntala, King Dushyanta meets her and proposes gandharva marriage after having an open discussion with her. She lays down a condition that the son born out of this marriage would be declared heir to Dushyanta’s throne. The Mahabharata version had a large audience and indicated the powerful agency of women that could ensure her rights. On the contrary, Kalidas’s version of Shakuntala is the story of ‘a submissive, obedient, retiring young woman who is so overwhelmed by her love for Dushyanta that she is incapable of arguing for her rights.’ Nowadays, when we talk about Shakuntala we talk about the submissive one of Kalidas rather than the one of the Mahabharta whereas, when it was 1 written, the Kalidas’s version was available only to a small court circle. We choose this version in the name of tradition because it is more useful for our society today; a shy, obedient beautiful women over an assertive one that insists on a condition before accepting a marriage proposal. It depicts the present day attitude towards woman and her status in society. Traditions treat women as naturally subservient to men. Whereas, feminist have put forth well developed scholarship to ground home the understanding that such a view is socially constructed. Fredrick Englesii established that women are not by nature born as weaker sex, there is a history to relegating women to the status of the second sex. 2. Women, Religion, Culture and Changing Contexts In the history of independent India there are two cases that especially stand witness to the cultural status of women and the vested interests of communities in retaining religious identities and the status-quo. Instead of beginning with culture alone, which is an amorphous framework, I draw on the women’s issues within culture starting with the Shah Bano case. 2.1 Shah Bano ShahaBano , a 73 year old Muslim women was married to Ahmed Khan in 1932. They had three sons and two daughters out of this wedlock. In 1975, Ahmed Khan drove Shah Bano and their children out of the matrimonial home. In April 1978, she filed a petition against her husband for maintenance under section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973. Responding to this, on 6th November 1978, Ahmed Khan using the three times utterance way of Talaq under Shariatiii, divorced his wifeiv. He married another woman and had two children. Ahmed Khan was an advocate and had a flourishing practice. He pleaded that under Muslim laws, Shah bano was a divorced wife, and he had fulfilled his obligation towards her as a divorced wife by paying meherv, which was a sum of - 3000/- in the iddatvi period and therefore he was under no obligation to maintain her. This amount that was the agreed mehrvii. was 3000 silver coins according to Shaha Bano and not rupees The practice underscores the vulnerability of Muslim women who can be driven out of their homes and made destitute on the whims of their husbands. 2 Under Muslim law they are authorized just the mehr and nothing more with which they have to maintain themselves. The magistrate and court gave a verdict in favour of Shah Bano and directed Ahmed Khan to pay -25/-per month to her. The amount was enhanced by the High Court in the revision application to - 179.20/- per month. It was a verdict that recognized Muslim women’s rights though, Ahmed Khan moved the Supreme Court against this judgment. At that time, the distinction between maintenance on destitution (section125), and maintenance on divorce was quite blurred. So was the distinction between criminal (sec-125) and personal (civil)viii . The question of destitution of Muslim women was outside the purview of the court. Ahmed Khan argued that : 1. The High court had exceeded its jurisdiction and violated Muslim personal law as laid down by Shariat. 2. Shah Bano’s application for maintenance fell under the Muslim personal laws of marriage and divorce. Her case should be judged only under this law. 3. If questions of marriage, divorce and maintenance fell under personal laws, criminal laws should be kept out of it. He produced written statements from the Muslim Law Board, that said that under Shariat the husband was obliged to maintain only up till three months after divorce (iddat). Shariat did not deal with how the woman would maintain herself after the iddat period, so the question was outside the purview of the court. The matter went before the Chief Justice of India. Justice Chandrachud referred to many verses from the Holy Quran According to the said Aiyat 241 and 242 of Prophet Mohammed, there is an obligation on Muslim husband to provide for the divorced wife. Aiyat 241 of SURA II of the Holy Quran Wali’l motallaqatay For divorced women Mata un Maintenance (should be provided) Bil maroofay On a reasonable (scale) Haqqan This is a duty Alal muttaqueena on the righteous 3 Ayat 242 Kazaleka yuba Thus doth God Iyyanullaho Lakum ayatehee la Make clear His signs Allakum Taqeloon To you: in order that you may understand In short, the Holy Quran supported a fair deal for divorced women and this was a direction from God. Under Section 125 of the Cr.p.c., a wife who was without any income and has no source of income and was neglected by her husband was entitled to maintenance, which included a divorced wife who was not remarried. It was said that, if a divorced wife was unable to maintain herself, the husband’s duty to provide maintenance did not cease with the expiration of the iddat period and she could take the recourse of section 125 of the Cr.p.c.. Thus the judgment laid out very clearly that there was no conflict between the provision of section 125 and those of Muslim personal laws on the question of a Muslim husband’s obligation to provide maintenance for a divorced wife who was unable to maintain herself Ahmed Khan argued in the court that since he had paid the whole of amount that he was liable to pay under the customary or personal law that applied to the parties at the time of divorce, so the petition under section 125 was liable to be dismissed. According to the judgment, the ‘mehr’ or dowry paid at the time of marriage to a wife was a mark of respect and if paid at the time of divorce would not be considered in the category of mehr or dowry. Thus the detailed judgment dismissed the appeal and upheld the HC judgment in favour of Shah Bano. After the Judgment was made public, radical Muslims took it as an assault on their personal laws. Moderate and progressive Muslims who were in favour of reform in personal laws in order to support Muslim women’s rights got sidelined by the radical forces of Muslin and Hindu communities taking centre stage. Earlier Muslim women had used sec-125 of Cr p.c. to get maintenance. In these cases Chief Justice Krishna Iyer had delivered judgments. In his judgments he had expressed the need for judicial reform in Muslim personal 4 laws. Whereas, in the Shah Bano case judgment had gone ahead and ruled that section 125 Cr. P. C., and Shariat were mutually consistent, ‘in any case, section 125 being part of criminal law, cut across the ‘barriers’ of religion.’ix and ‘ A common civil code would help the cause of national integration by removing disparate loyalties to laws which have conflicting ideologies’x was interpreted by the Muslim community as an assault on their religious identity. Muslim religious leaders came together and the Ulema (Scholar-Priests) issued a fatwa (proclamation) that this judgment was against the teaching of Islam. Wide publicity was given to this fatwa and the issue took the form of a communal agitation almost, as if Islam was in danger. Hindu communalists supported the judgment and further attacked Muslim personal laws. Muslim demanded the repeal of the judgment and Muslim women be kept out of sec- 125 Cr. p. c. Such a stand got a fillip from the judicial order to open the Babri Masjid site (which was laying sealed under the Babri Masjid- Janmabhoomi controversy with the case in court), even for Hindu worship. The Visva Hindu Parishad, (a radical Hindu organization), celebrated the District Magistrate’s decree by taking out a victory procession to which Muslims retaliated by taking out a ‘mourning procession’.
Recommended publications
  • Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow Volume 11: 11
    LANGUAGE IN INDIA Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow Volume 11 : 11 November 2011 ISSN 1930-2940 Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D. Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D. Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D. B. A. Sharada, Ph.D. A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D. Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D. Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D. S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D. G. Baskaran, Ph.D. L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D. Women in Mahabharata: Fighting Patriarchy Maneeta Kahlon, Ph.D. ======================================================== Vyasa’s Portrayal of Women Vyasa casts his women—Kunti, Draupadi, Gandhari, Shakuntala, Devayani, Savitri, Damayanti— both in the heroic mould and as victims and practitioners of elements of patriarchy The image of women in the original stratum of the epic is that which is etched out in the words of Shakuntala, as she upbraids Dushyanta for fickleness, contesting patriarchy and traditions of gender relations. ―A wife is a man‘s half, A wife is a man‘s closest friend; A wife is Dharma, Artha and Karna, A wife is Moksha too . A sweet-speaking wife is a companion in happy times; A wife is like a father on religious occasions; A wife is like a mother in illness and sorrow. The wife is a means to man‘s salvation . Happiness, joy, virtue, everything depends on her.‖ Citation Study of Male Authority and Subordination This paper is a study of the three central characters of Mahabharata and how they deal with male authority and subordination. The characters of Kunti, Gandhari, Draupadi conform to the elements of Stridharma while also manifesting exigent actions. Language in India www.languageinindia.com 11 : 11 November 2011 Maneeta Kahlon, Ph.D.
    [Show full text]
  • Component-I (A) – Personal Details
    Component-I (A) – Personal details: Prof. P. Bhaskar Reddy Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati. Prof. Korada Subrahmanyam Center for ALTS, University of Hyderabad. Dr. N. Siva Senani Hyderabad. Prof. Korada Subrahmanyam Center for ALTS, University of Hyderabad. Component-I (B) – Description of module: Subject Name Indian Culture Paper Name Vedic, Epic and Puranic Culture of India Module Name/Title Encyclopedic Nature of Mahabharata Module Id IC / VEPC / 18 Pre-requisites Familiarity with Rāmāyaṇa Objectives To introduce Mahabharata, its contents and give an idea of its encyclopedic nature. To demonstrate that Mahabharata is a Smriti. Keywords Mahābhārata / Pāṇḍavas / Kauravas/Śāntiparva / Anuśāsanaparva/ Bhīṣma / Droṇa / Great war of ancient India / Dharma E-text (Quadrant-I): 1. Introduction Literature is an important aspect of the culture of a period and needs to be read and understood in a sympathetic way, i.e. it must be approached as it was designed to be, or as it was approached by the people of the society that one is trying to understand. Mahabharata, one of the two epics of India, is indeed familiar to all in India, but two aspects make this module necessary. Much as Mahabharata is well known, only a few would have read it fully or know it fully. The second aspect is that over the years people have approached it in their own way and continue to do so resulting in a wide variety in the ways it is understood. That Mahabharata is a huge epic and is amenable to multiple interpretations has only increased this. In such a situation, it would be useful to introduce the text as a whole and introduce the traditional way of understanding the text – both in understanding the culture of the Mahabharata period and in appreciating the epic.
    [Show full text]
  • The Mahabharata
    VivekaVani - Voice of Vivekananda THE MAHABHARATA (Delivered by Swami Vivekananda at the Shakespeare Club, Pasadena, California, February 1, 1900) ​ ​ ​ ​ The other epic about which I am going to speak to you this evening, is called the Mahâbhârata. It contains the story of a race descended from King Bharata, who was the son of Dushyanta and Shakuntalâ. Mahâ means great, and Bhârata means the descendants of Bharata, from whom India has derived its name, Bhârata. Mahabharata means Great India, or the story of the great descendants of Bharata. The scene of this epic is the ancient kingdom of the Kurus, and the story is based on the great war which took place between the Kurus and the Panchâlas. So the region of the quarrel is not very big. This epic is the most popular one in India; and it exercises the same authority in India as Homer's poems did over the Greeks. As ages went on, more and more matter was added to it, until it has become a huge book of about a hundred thousand couplets. All sorts of tales, legends and myths, philosophical treatises, scraps of history, and various discussions have been added to it from time to time, until it is a vast, gigantic mass of literature; and through it all runs the old, original story. The central story of the Mahabharata is of a war between two families of cousins, one family, called the Kauravas, the other the Pândavas — for the empire of India. The Aryans came into India in small companies. Gradually, these tribes began to extend, until, at last, they became the undisputed rulers of India.
    [Show full text]
  • The Complete Mahabharata in a Nutshell
    Contents Introduction Dedication Chapter 1 The Book of the Beginning 1.1 Vyasa (the Composer) and Ganesha (the Scribe) 1.2 Vyasa and his mother Sathyavathi 1.3 Janamejaya’s Snake Sacrifice (Sarpasastra) 1.4 The Prajapathis 1.5 Kadru, Vinatha and Garuda 1.6 The Churning of the Ocean of Milk 1.7 The Lunar and Solar races 1.8 Yayathi and his wives Devayani and Sharmishta 1.9 Dushyanta and Shakuntala 1.10 Parashurama and the Kshatriya Genocide BOOKS 1.11 Shanthanu, Ganga and their son Devavratha 1.12 Bhishma, Sathyavathi and Her Two Sons 1.13 Vyasa’s Sons: Dhritharashtra,DC Pandu and Vidura 1.14 Kunthi and her Son Karna 1.15 Birth of the Kauravas and the Pandavas 1.16 The Strife Starts 1.17 The Preceptors Kripa and Drona 1.18 The Autodidact Ekalavya and his Sacrifice 1.19 Royal Tournament where Karna became a King 1.20 Drona’s Revenge on Drupada and its Counterblow 1.21 Lord Krishna’s Envoy to Hasthinapura 1.22 The Story of Kamsa 1.23 The Wax Palace Inferno 1.24 Hidimba, Hidimbi and Ghatotkacha 1.25 The Ogre that was Baka 1.26 Dhaumya, the Priest of the Pandavas 1.27 The Feud between Vasishta and Vishwamithra 1.28 More on the Quality of Mercy 1.29 Draupadi, her Five Husbands and Five Sons 1.30 The Story of Sunda and Upasunda 1.31 Draupadi’s Previous Life 1.32 The Pandavas as the Incarnation of the Five Indras 1.33 Khandavaprastha and its capital Indraprastha 1.34 Arjuna’s Liaisons while on Pilgrimage 1.35 Arjuna and Subhadra 1.36 The Khandava Conflagaration 1.37 The Strange Story of the Sarngaka Birds Chapter 2 The Book of the Assembly Hall
    [Show full text]
  • Symbols and Motifs in Abhigyan Shakuntalam by Kalidasa=
    Symbols and Motifs in Abhigyan Shakuntalam by Kalidasa= Symbols and Motifs in Abhigyan Shakuntalam Kalidasa has made an extensive use of symbols and motifs in the play, Abhigyan Shakuntalam. The narrative of Shakuntalam opens in the forest where Shakuntala dwells in the hermitage of sage Kanva. King Dushyanta arrives in the forest while on a hunting trip. He is greatly impressed with the natural environment and peaceful ambience of the hermitage. The description of the hermitage, its dwellers, the flora and the fauna is elaborated in detail by the poet. These descriptions are rich in sensuous images, metaphors and symbols that heighten the poetic and emotional impact of the story. The poet describes the power of the ascetics and this theme has been a recurring theme and a motif in Hindu mythology. Kalidasa has made use of motifs like the, ‘curse motif‘ and ‘the singnet ring motif’, along with the use of ‘memory and recollection,’ in the play. The curse motif is an important recurrent motif in Indian mythology, where the curse by an ascetic determines the fate of the individual. It also affects the course of action in the Shakuntalam. The two motifs- the curse motif and the signet ring motif guide the course of the narrative in the Shakuntalam. After her Gandharva form of marriage with king Dushyanta, Shakuntala is totally lost in her dreams of love and companionship. When Dushyanta leaves for Hastinapur, he assures Shakuntala about her place in his houselold. He promises to send his men to take her to her real home with dignity.
    [Show full text]
  • Editors Seek the Blessings of Mahasaraswathi
    OM GAM GANAPATHAYE NAMAH I MAHASARASWATHYAI NAMAH Editors seek the blessings of MahaSaraswathi Kamala Shankar (Editor-in-Chief) Laxmikant Joshi Chitra Padmanabhan Madhu Ramesh Padma Chari Arjun I Shankar Srikali Varanasi Haranath Gnana Varsha Narasimhan II Thanks to the Authors Adarsh Ravikumar Omsri Bharat Akshay Ravikumar Prerana Gundu Ashwin Mohan Priyanka Saha Anand Kanakam Pranav Raja Arvind Chari Pratap Prasad Aravind Rajagopalan Pavan Kumar Jonnalagadda Ashneel K Reddy Rohit Ramachandran Chandrashekhar Suresh Rohan Jonnalagadda Divya Lambah Samika S Kikkeri Divya Santhanam Shreesha Suresha Dr. Dharwar Achar Srinivasan Venkatachari Girish Kowligi Srinivas Pyda Gokul Kowligi Sahana Kribakaran Gopi Krishna Sruti Bharat Guruganesh Kotta Sumedh Goutam Vedanthi Harsha Koneru Srinath Nandakumar Hamsa Ramesha Sanjana Srinivas HCCC Y&E Balajyothi class S Srinivasan Kapil Gururangan Saurabh Karmarkar Karthik Gururangan Sneha Koneru Komal Sharma Sadhika Malladi Katyayini Satya Srivishnu Goutam Vedanthi Kaushik Amancherla Saransh Gupta Medha Raman Varsha Narasimhan Mahadeva Iyer Vaishnavi Jonnalagadda M L Swamy Vyleen Maheshwari Reddy Mahith Amancherla Varun Mahadevan Nikky Cherukuthota Vaishnavi Kashyap Narasimham Garudadri III Contents Forword VI Preface VIII Chairman’s Message X President’s Message XI Significance of Maha Kumbhabhishekam XII Acharya Bharadwaja 1 Acharya Kapil 3 Adi Shankara 6 Aryabhatta 9 Bhadrachala Ramadas 11 Bhaskaracharya 13 Bheeshma 15 Brahmagupta Bhillamalacarya 17 Chanakya 19 Charaka 21 Dhruva 25 Draupadi 27 Gargi
    [Show full text]
  • Agriculturists and the People of the Jungle: Reading Early Indian Texts
    Vidyasagar University Journal of History, Volume III, 2014-2015 Pages 9-26 ISSN 2321-0834 Agriculturists and the People of the Jungle: Reading Early Indian Texts Prabhat Kumar Basant Abstract: Historians of early India have understood the transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture as a dramatic transformation that brought in its wake urbanism and state. Jungles are believed to have been destroyed by chiefs and kings in epic encounters. Does anthropology support such an understanding of the processes involved in the transition from hunting –gathering to agriculture? Is it possible that historians have misread early Indian texts because they have mistaken poetic conventions for a statement of reality? A resistant reading of the early Indian texts together with information from anthropology shows that communities of agriculturists, pastoral nomads and forest people were in active contact. Agriculturists located on the cultural or spatial margins of state societies colonised new areas for cultivation. Transition to agriculture was facilitated by the brahman-shramana tradition. Keywords: The Neolithic Revolution, Slash and burn cultivation, Burning of the Khandava forest, The Arthashastra, The Mahabharata, Jatakas, Kadambari. The history of India in the last five thousand years is a history of the expansion of agriculture. Anyone who has mapped archaeological sites over the last five thousand years will testify that though there are cases where the wild has made a comeback, the general trend has been that of conquest of the jungle by agriculturists. I wish to study the processes involved in the transition to agriculture in early India, though such studies are handicapped by lack of information in contemporary texts.
    [Show full text]
  • Part 1: the Beginning of Mahabharat
    Mahabharat Story Credits: Internet sources, Amar Chitra Katha Part 1: The Beginning of Mahabharat The story of Mahabharata starts with King Dushyant, a powerful ruler of ancient India. Dushyanta married Shakuntala, the foster-daughter of sage Kanva. Shakuntala was born to Menaka, a nymph of Indra's court, from sage Vishwamitra, who secretly fell in love with her. Shakuntala gave birth to a worthy son Bharata, who grew up to be fearless and strong. He ruled for many years and was the founder of the Kuru dynasty. Unfortunately, things did not go well after the death of Bharata and his large empire was reduced to a kingdom of medium size with its capital Hastinapur. Mahabharata means the story of the descendents of Bharata. The regular saga of the epic of the Mahabharata, however, starts with king Shantanu. Shantanu lived in Hastinapur and was known for his valor and wisdom. One day he went out hunting to a nearby forest. Reaching the bank of the river Ganges (Ganga), he was startled to see an indescribably charming damsel appearing out of the water and then walking on its surface. Her grace and divine beauty struck Shantanu at the very first sight and he was completely spellbound. When the king inquired who she was, the maiden curtly asked, "Why are you asking me that?" King Shantanu admitted "Having been captivated by your loveliness, I, Shantanu, king of Hastinapur, have decided to marry you." "I can accept your proposal provided that you are ready to abide by my two conditions" argued the maiden. "What are they?" anxiously asked the king.
    [Show full text]
  • "Where Women Are Honored, There the Gods Are Pleased; but Where They
    CHAPTER I WOMAN'S POSITION IN INDIA. IS SHE BOND OR FREE? "Where women are honored, there the gods are pleased ; but where they are dishonored, no sacred rite yields reward." hus, in the year 200 B . C., wrote Manu, the great law-giver of India-India, whose mind was full Tgrown when the western nations were yet unborn ; India, whose life rolled on while the West, like the dragon fly, lived and died to live again . While Europe was still in a state of primitive barbarism, the IndoA Bharatryans(India) of had reached an elevated state of moral and spiritual perfection ; and in the realm of intellectual culture they had attained an eminence which has not yet been equalled by the most advanced of western countries . Not only had they a perfect alphabet and a symmetrical language, but their literature already contained models of true poetry and remarkable treatises on philosophy, science, and ethics when the forefathers of the modern western nations were still clothed in skins and could neither read nor write. In their firm grasp of the fundamental mean- ing and purpose of life, and in the organization of their society with a view to the full attainment of the fruits of life, namely, "to take from each according to his capacity, and to give to each according to his needs," they had attained to a high degree of excellence, which has been recognized by the greatest of both western [9] MY MOTHER INDIA and oriental scholars. Says Max Mtiller, the noted scholar of oriental languages "If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power, and beauty that nature can be- stow-in some parts a very paradise on earth-I should point to India .
    [Show full text]
  • Poetry's Afterthought: Kalidasa and the Experience of Reading Shiv
    Poetry’s Afterthought: Kalidasa and the Experience of Reading Shiv Subramaniam Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2019 © 2019 Shiv Subramaniam All rights reserved ABSTRACT Poetry’s Afterthought: Kalidasa and the Experience of Reading Shiv Subramaniam This dissertation concerns the reception of the poet Kalidasa (c. 4th century), one of the central figures in the Sanskrit literary tradition. Since the time he lived and wrote, Kalidasa’s works have provoked many responses of different kinds. I shall examine how three writers contributed to this vast tradition of reception: Kuntaka, a tenth-century rhetorician from Kashmir; Vedantadesika, a South Indian theologian who lived in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and Sri Aurobindo, an Indian English writer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who started out as an anticolonial activist and later devoted his life to spiritual exercises. While these readers lived well after Kalidasa, they were all deeply invested in his poetry. I wish to understand why Kalidasa’s poetry continued to provoke extended responses in writing long after its composition. It is true that readers often use past literary texts to various ends of their own devising, just as they often fall victim to reading texts anachronistically. In contradistinction to such cases, the examples of reading I examine highlight the role that texts themselves, not just their charisma or the mental habits of their readers, can have in constituting the reading process. They therefore urge us to formulate a more robust understanding of textual reception, and to reconsider the contemporary practice of literary criticism.
    [Show full text]
  • PB November 2011.Indd
    Relevance of the Mahabharata Dr Narendra Kohli he Mahabharata speaks about eter­ The Super Narrative nal truths and deals with India’s poetry, The Mahabharata narrates the saga of the Pan­ Thistory, sociology, religion, and spiritual davas and is embedded with numerous compli­ philosophy. It actually covers every aspect of mentary stories and philosophical texts. Through human life and is not limited to any specific them the epic establishes various personal, social, time, place, or people. Therefore, this priceless political, and spiritual values and illustrates life cultural and spiritual epic, which is the longest at many levels. The highest truths are put in a and most sublime of India’s epics, now belongs poetic form of extreme elegance, beauty, depth, to world culture. Since the journey of mahakala, and structure. The Mahabharata illustrates emo­ great time, is unbroken, it would be wrong to be­ tional ups and downs with astounding clarity lieve that we have nothing to do with events that and sincerity; it does not leave aside any one occurred in the past. Modern history may div­ of them: envy, hate, beauty, romance, love, ani­ ide humanity’s uninterrupted journey through mosity, desire, lust, anger, excitement, fear, re­ time into distinct ages and periods, but spirit­ pugnance, grief, and so on. All these emotions ual literature does not. Like a sand dune, which are just as strong and relevant in individuals at has a constantly changing crest and a base that present as they were then. Indian metaphys­ remains unchanged for thousands of years, ics believes that the entire creation is regulated the changes in society and human psyche are by ritam, divine cosmic law.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Values of Women in Abhijnanasakuntalam: an Analysis Dr
    International Research Journal of Interdisciplinary & Multidisciplinary Studies (IRJIMS) A Peer-Reviewed Monthly Research Journal ISSN: 2394-7969 (Online), ISSN: 2394-7950 (Print) Volume-I, Issue-I, February 2015, Page No. 69-73 Published by: Scholar Publications, Karimganj, Assam, India, 788711 Website: http://www.irjims.com Social Values of Women in Abhijnanasakuntalam: An Analysis Dr. Pritilaxmi Swain Asst. Professor, Dept. of Sanskrit, Pali & Prakrit, Bhasha Bhavana, Visva-Bharati (A Central University in India), Santiniketan, Birbhum, West Bengal, India Abstract The Abhijnanasakuntalam is a marvelous work of the great poet and playwright Kalidasa, the brightest star in the firmament of Indian poetry. Kalidasa's imagination holds in perfect fusion the two elements of natural beauty and human feelings. Out of three plays of Kalidasa, Abhijnanasakuntalam is generally regarded as a masterpiece. The word ‘Abhijnana’ in the title signifies ‘a token of recognition’ (here a ring), which is instrumental in bringing about the final recognition of Sakuntala by the king. It is a Nataka in Seven Acts, based on the love-story of king Dushyanta and the maiden Sakuntala. Social values form an important part of the culture of the society. Values account for the stability of social order. They provide the general guidelines for social conduct. Values such as fundamental rights, patriotism, respect for human dignity, rationality, sacrifice, individuality, equality, democracy etc. guide our behaviour in many ways. Values are the criteria people use in assessing their daily lives; arrange their priorities and choosing between alternative courses of action. There are Seven Acts in Abhijnanasakuntalam. Each Act of Abhijnanasakuntalam reflects various social values of women which are more beneficial to human society and the present day world.
    [Show full text]