Sri: Srimathe Ramanujaya nama: Srimad Vara Vara Munaye nama: Dear Sri Ramachandran, Your article is very good but it does not account for special cases. I have expressed my comments on your post and kindly reject the same if it does not apply. Also please forgive me if my reply,anywhere sounded rude. > What is this background base ? VEDAS > The Vedas form the backbone of mankind's birth, life, death, after > life and the entire gamut of interplay in the universe. The > Vedas are without end or beginning, without any gender, > invisible, eternally pervading,ruthlesslessly neutral and > ultimately are in 'Sound' form. It is said that the Vedas precede > even the Gods. Agree to all with the exception of the last statement. You're in deep trouble if you make a statement that vedas precede even the Gods. BTW which Gods are you talking about? One can not talk about any God other than Sriman Narayana whose vital breath is vedas(guys expert in puruSha sUktham clarify). So they(vedas and the Lord) co-exist. You had mentioned that Vedas are eternal without a beginning and an end. In another place you write gAyathri as the starting point of vedas, which is beginningless to use your own words,thus by contradicting your own statement. First of all it is only Narayana manthram(and no other manthram)which is equivalent to the vedas(in layman's words it is Narayana who is the veda and veda is Narayana due to the fact that the two are inseparable and also vedas being the vital breath of Narayana). Gayathri manthram became popular due to vishvAmithra otherwise I doubt if many people would oft quote it as you have done so. Every manthram/nama(including kEshava meaning the one who killed the demon kEshi) is only secondary to NArAyaNa manthram. I don't want to get into the topic of sanDhyAvandanam as I am less informed in such subject matters and moreover it is not my territory. But I hope some guys/members would speak on my behalf along these lines from the standpoint of Sri VaiShNavism. In contrast to what you wrote,a brAhmaNa does not have much physical strength(infact mental strength is more important than physical strength to sustain long gurukula life). ParashurAma-karNa is the classic example and how ParashurAma finds that karNa is not a brahmin is known to everybody. The example you mentioned is not a "slight" slip of tongue but a "gross" one because the story/line itself is reversed and hence the mathra is not the same. Slip of tongue(or Freudian slip of speech)can happen to anyone. This type of mistakes are gender free(applies to both men and women). No one can claim that from day one of his/her birth to the last breath of his/her life,he/she had been perfect in each and everything. That is the greatness of the lIla vibhUthi. FULL time chanting was alotted only to brAhmaNa not to other two varNAs. Other two varNAs can learn vEdas but their main profession respectively,is to protect and take care of the trade of the society/country. Vedas are eternal and universal. Any system(applies to vedic system) is called complete if and only if it accounts for all cases(general and special). It is very difficult to develop such a system. If child- bearing is considered as a case then I agree to some of your points. What about women who don't want to get married and hence child- bearing for those women doesn't even arise? But when one is young(be it male/female)rational thinking is lacking and hence most of the times(in kali yuga)kids are forced(without their consent) to learn and this type of enforcement have had a psychological effect(mostly bad) in the later years of their life. > THIS IS WHERE THE HINDU SYSTEM SCORES OVER ALL > OTHER SYSTEMS WHEREBY HIGHEST IMPORTANCE WAS GIVEN TO > FUNCTION/JOB PROFILE AND NOT THE COLOUR OF THE SKIN, MENTAL > CAPABILITY, PHYSICAL CAPABILITY,PERSONAL INTERESTS, GENDER ETC. > By observation of what nature had already intended in the > external,internal, physical, physiological, psychological at all > levels, the Rishis found that man had physical / external > capability for hard physical work and his physical limits could > also be stretched. Above paras of yours are contradictory. When it comes to physical capability surely a brAhmaNa will score a "duck" in comparison to people who are meat eaters. In this case a brAhmaNa would forfeit the rights. But vedas say that only a brAhmaNa can teach vedas while the other varnas can learn and chant but not eligible to teach. This alone proves that more than the physical strength what is needed is the mental strength. You have based all your arguments on physical capabilities only. > By contrast women were comparatively with a different > disposition. Especially, during the 3 monthly days, and also > during pregnancy from the 4th month till the 13th month > extensive rest, care, delicate physical, mental, emotional > handling had to be there. So women could not be subject > to hard physical Labour or their physical and mental limits > stretched beyond a point without damaging their internal organs > and causing emotional instability This is only in the case of cesaerian(2-3 months rest is advised after the delivery and if it is a normal delivery women can do work as usual from the 3rd or 4th day). Doctors themselves advise women to do normal work to have a normal delivery. Infact women who are pampered(without doing any physical work) during their pregnancy end up with lot of problems. If we go to villages we would see lot of women doing hard work till the last minute of the delivery. A woman does not produce children 365 days a year or throughout her life time that she should be barred from learning. What about men who may suffer from temporary illness? For example there is a 7 yr old boy who went to gurukulam learnt vedas say till 18-19 yrs and all of a sudden he had a stroke(or some complexity can be introduced)and had to have complete rest for 2-3 months and then becomes alright. Would you say that he would become ineligible to continue chanting because there was a break? Or what about the learning/knowledge he gained prior to the attack? Should he vomit all those things? So why can't females also be sent much before they reach puberty. Even if they learn for two years that's a good learning. At the age of 6/7 I don't think there is much of a difference in mental and physical capacity between boys and girls. > Hence the common saying among Hindus "Mata Pita Guru Daivam". > Guru and God are also secondary to MOTHER Therefore, the woman > though not permitted to chant the Vedas is considered > not inferior but superior. This is a wrong interpretation. Mother comes first because everybody (including the Lord in incarnation form and excluding Sri)comes from a mother's womb and hence she is mentioned first. This doesn't imply that God is secondary to her. Mother tells the baby who the father is and the father's duty is to send the children to the right guru/AcArya and it is AcArya who uplifts the soul spiritually. > a) One of the names of Vishnu worship is called prominently > SriVaishnavism. The first word is Sri i.e. female. Sri is also > the prefix for Srinivasa of Tirupati, on whose chest rests the > female. HIS strength and locus standi is derived from Sri > and not the other way. According to SriVaiShNavism, Sri is considered as the "daya/compassion (an attribute)" of the Lord and hence She is inseparable from Him. It is because of Sri, He starts the lIla vibhUthi but He has all the energy that is needed to run both vibhUthis,and this energy is not derived from any external source other than Him. This has been highlighted and cautioned by Sri YAmunAcArya & Sri Ramanuja against all other philosophies. The Lord has sadguNAs namely j~nAna,bala,aishvarya,vIrya,shakti,thEjas(which play an important role in the doctrine of vyUhas). I guess you're mixing up the advaita views and lakshmi tanthram on "shakti aspect" and Sri Ramanuja's views "clearly" differ from those of Sri Shankara's. Learned members are requested to throw light on this. > b) The great Sankracharyars of Kanchipuram worship Kamakshi > (female) as a primary deity. Moreover, only for the Sankracharya > status, the Seers can see and bless anyone elder or younger, male > or female, except the MOTHER. Therefore, once a person is chosen by > the Mutt to be the future pontiff,has to give up among other > things 'seeing' his mother forever. He may see his father and the > father may also meet him after his ascending the Mutt > throne. This is because He can bless his father as a human, and > once he ascends the Mutt seat he becomes impersonal to all, except > his Mother. If by mistake he sees his mother, he has to come down > and prostrate before her. Otherwise, all, even his own father has > to prostrate before him. The Sankracharyar will prostrate only > before God and no one else. The only human exception is his own > mother. Hence his mother is forbidden to see him and he is equally > forbidden to see her. You have been praising women all along and now you have dropped them on the floor by saying that sanyasi(according shaivaite/advaitic tradition)is forbidden to see his mother who is the "cause" for the existence of sanyasi. Your statement should have been explicit saying that only according to "Advaitic tradition" a sanyasi is forbidden to see his mother. Advaitic philosophy itself is "impersonal" and obviously those who follow that have to be impersonal which is not the case with SriVaiShNavism. You are making a statement as if your point is the universal truth as far sanyasis are concerned. Your point is not valid in SriVaiShNava tradition and I request bhAgavathas to share thoughts on the same. > Coming to our modern day, can someone say why are there no > women in the fire fighting agencies, in military (there is a small > percentage everywhere in Western modern nations, but this is > still a miniscule percentage as an exception, not an active force > to reckon); in oil rigs; in diamond mines; as engine drivers; cab > drivers; long distance lorry drivers; Not because of some > chauvinistic discrimination, but because these are not the natural > potentialities of women. Their forte as per the ancient Indian > Rishis etc. was in pushing, encouraging, urging man and children > to the Vedic path. Physically, they may be wife, sister, mother, > but their real purpose is to represent Gayathri to goad man to do > his job diligently. There are not that many women in many areas. Possible reason could be that they had been subjugated as "physically and mentally less capable" for yugas/ages. Many chinese women know martial arts. Only now women have started coming out of the house to explore "what the world really is". Infact according to psychologists,the divorce rates are high because women are no longer financially dependent on men and they are literate unlike the the women of yester years. Because of this independence of women,men feel insecured these days. I do agree that there are some natural physical constraints for women but still the explanation is not unambiguously clear and also the question, why sUdras are ineligible to learn the vedas, has gone unanswered. In one of the questionaire on SriBhAShya(Sri Ramanuja's commentary on brahma sUthra),Sri U.Ve SriBhAShyam Srirangam Narasimhachar swami said that these days women have the desire to know and learn many things and hence Jeeyars and AcAryAs encourage women to learn. Everything was written based on my limited knowledge and hence once again seek forgiveness if I(or the tone or the contents)unintentionally sounded rude anywhere. AzhvAr EmperumAnAr JIyar thiruvadigaLE sharaNam NC Nappinnai
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