Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s5.t1.63

v2.c27.s5.t1.63

“ Who asks woman for advice? The world deems their understanding shallow; even when truths issue from their lips, none listen thereto. Yet what is the world without woman? We have the forms of Sakti⁴ with the fire of Siva; we are at once thieves and sanctuaries; we are vessels of virtue and of vice—of knowledge and of ignorance. The man of wisdom, the astrologer, can from the books calculate the motion and course of the planets; but in the book of woman he is ignorant: and this is not a saying of to-day, it ever has been so: our book has not been mastered, therefore, to hide their ignorance, they say, in woman there is no wisdom! Yet woman shares your joys and your sorrows. Even when you depart from the mansion of the sun, we part not. Hunger and thirst we cheerfully partake with you; we are as the lakes, of which you are the swans; what are you when absent from our bosoms?"