When I looked at the
scriptures, one thing that struck me was that there were not too many
woman writers....
And yet, there was
abundant evidence that women were respected utmost in India, in the
ancient days! Their contributions towards spiritual evolvement was
revered, documented, and even suggested to the future generations....
We had several spiritual
giants of a significant number among women of ancient days.. Just
that, somehow the scripting did not seem to have happened by them to
a very great extent, when we look at the available information!
Literacy was not in the
modern sense of the term... The bulk of the knowledge was handed
down by the word of mouth...
Yes, I could delve a
little deeper into the 'scripting' aspect especially when it is about
handing over the spiritual knowledge to the future generations...
A few popular names
were....
(An indicative few
instances...)
Avvaiyar (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avvaiyar
)
Meera Bai (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meera
)
and then from other parts
of the world (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Women_writers_(ancient)
)
The manuscripts available
do not provide any clue about 'scripting' done by ancient women...
If it is true, that there
were very few who actually 'wrote' ... then it is interesting to
note that the 'coverage' did not try to isolate the role of a woman
away from spirituality-related-texts... It is the present day
authors who try to 'make out something' according to their own levels
of understanding... The well-known-spiritual Masters only glorified
the role of women, in various ways, emphasizing the 'shakthi' aspect
in all forms, living and non-living! (For instance, Aadi Shankara,
who wrote about Goddess form Parvati, who interacted with a lady to
be only challenged about his experience of a 'family-life', and then
the gratitude towards his mother, when he kept his word to be beside
her when she was about to leave, and also the rare invocation of
special powers to give a respectful send off to his mother's mortal
remains... all this are indicative of what he inherited from his own
predecessors! )
The kind of lessons I got
from my own elderly women of our family, (grand mother, great
grandmother, grand aunts, eldest of aunts etc... most of them
illiterate ), during my kid days, made a unique and distinct
contribution to my deeper understanding of 'femininity' of a human
form, and provided a firm base to relate with the references
available in the scriptures at its deeper levels of spiritual
meaning!... I wish I had also asked them the 'why' about a conspicuous lesser-presence of woman scribes in spiritual literature, when they themselves could supplement so abundantly to the
'pint-sized-me'!!! Now, most of them are physically dissolved(they
are no more)! I am very hopeful, that the modern woman would evolve
to realise their potential, and rise to such glorious levels that,
their own 'protection' becomes a non issue, due to the reverence
which accrues to them, and respect towards them becomes an inevitable
outcome to their very 'way of being!'. Maybe, it is a long way to
go... but with technology, and its tools, speed can reduce the time
needed, to traverse the illusionary distance !
Psn (7th January, 2014)
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