Womens In our Society

[Guest guest]

Namaste Everyone, I have been ponderring about the follwing topics for a while now and needed you expert knowledge please.

 

1) How do we rank women in our hindu society and culture ? According to Hindu vedas, scripts, purans, Gita does women have equal rights as to a man has ?

 

2) Why are there only male Pandits, is women Bhramins allowed to do pooja at temple or visits house and conduct poojas there ? Nowerdays i have seen women doctors, CEO, engineers, boxers, karate instructor, you name it they got it, But i have yet to see a Woman Pandit ? Is Pandit an occupation ?

 

 

Thank you very much,

Namaste

[Guest guest]

There have been times when women were treated less than men but that it to do with society rather than what Hindu religion teaches. There have also bee times when women were equal to men especially in the Vedic age when there were female rishis such as Maitreyi and Gargi. Of course we know that Hinduism is the only surviving religion that honours the mother goddess.

 

Some sects may have restrictions on women, but other do not. For example there are female swami's called Swamini's in Hinduism, one example is the Chinmaya mission which has Swamini Vimalananda.

 

As for female Pandits, it's to do more with society than religion. For example will many people want a female pandit to do their rituals? Will women even want that? But there already are female priests such as 'Nutan Vimal Motilal'. You can read more about female priests about 2/3rd the way down the link below.

 

Please see the following link for more info.

http://www.atributetohinduism.com/Women_in_Hinduism.htm

[Guest guest]

Dear Sister,

 

This is a very good question. The position of women in the Hindu scriptures has always been very high. Women are considered to be the Shakti which even has more powers than men. There has been numerous instances when Gods were overpowered by demons and they all prayed to Goddess GAuri (wife of Shiva) to rescue them and hence the incarnations of MaDurga, Makali, and others. The place of mother is the highest in the Hindu society. Even the country is considered to be the mother land where as all other countries in the world consider their country as father land or just a country.

 

Women have demonstrated the finest examples of bhakti and valoury in Indian history... Meera BAi, Gargi, Sharada devi, ... queen of jhansi,... last but not the least Indira Gandhi... of late Klapan Chawla. India has been one of the first countries in the world to have a women prime minister.. whereas USA still doesn't have one. Becuase of the Indian influence even some of the neighbouring contries have had women leaders too i,e, in Srilanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh...

 

Coming to your point of women priests... wife of a men priests is also considered to be a priest or panditayin. BY scriptures women are not part of certain rituals such as cremation of deaths.... which is one of the important ritual along with the marriage, birth ceremonies. Because sight of a creamtion might be too much for the sensibilities of women. These days becuase of kaliyuga... priest ship is not a very lucrative occupation hence even the Brahmin friends have moved to other professions. Priest were synonimous with Brahmin,,,or the knowldgelable man... which later got

corrutped to .... by birth priests....

 

Hope this answers ome of the questions...

 

Regards,

[Guest guest]

about women's of bhakti movement held in india during british rule{ 17th century}

 

[Guest guest]

go to this discussion on this website, it also has what you want to know:

 

http://www.hindu-religion.net/showflat/cat/hinduism/86902/1/collapsed/5/o/1

 

and also this one: which was started by me /images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

http://www.hindu-religion.net/showflat/cat/hinduism/86338/2/collapsed/5/o/1

 

hope it helps,

Om Namah Shivaya

[ajit12]

Unfortunatly hinduism has alwya treated women shabbily and discriminated against them.Manusmiriti & yagnyawalkya smriti are very clear about it.Manusmriti says

'A woman has to be under care[bondage]of her father in childhood, husband in her youth, son in her old age.'

'A woman is not to be trusted , she is so lustful she will sleep with anyone given a chance.'

'A woman must stay with her husband even if he is cruel,drunkard, dieased or evil.'

 

Mahabharata & puranas are clear about a woman's role.A woman is not permitted to divorce or remarry after widowhood while a man is permites to remarry..She is to eat once a day,not leave the house if a widow.'Sahagaman' i.e. practice of Sati is recommended.

A woman is not entitled to property/money of her parents or husband . The references are too many to enumerate here.

Shakti principle is not feminine aspect of god.It comes ourt of Puruash/Prakriti Nyay and sex worship cult of shaktas.

Briefly ancient Indians thought that in order to produce both male & female are needed ,so to run the world both Purush & prakriti are needed.they did not understand the need for a man,who they could see did not perform any active function except the intercourse , but knew that a man is needed to produce although he plays no part except conception.Hence the concept of' Nirguna purush'.The entire idea of Shakti is sex worship as a female is needed for reproduction.

Gods & godesses are too many in indian Mythology, which has got no particular elavation to the status of women.

Woman has no right to carry out any reliogus ritual, Yagnya or ritul pooja. A man can carry out all rites alone.

A woman was considered impure during her period.

All bhakti literature is full of references about how a woman is a pitfall, avoid even seing a woman, a woman is door of hell etc. These very sages & saints would not have been born without a woman.

This inhuman treatment of women [e.g. lord Rama's treatment of Sita.] is true of all the religions and hinduism is no exception.all religions are made & run by men.so they will never in history have given the right treatmrent to women.

 

 

[Guest guest]

wow ajit, are you serious man??

thats crazy..