A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t2.115

v2.c19.s3.t2.115

There can be no doubt that the great majority of the "Songs of the Lady Elders" were composed by women. First of all, the monks never had so much sympathy with the female members of the community, as to warrant our crediting them with having composed these songs sung from the very hearts of women. We need only recall the difficulties which, according to tradition, Gotama placed in the way of his foster-mother when she desired to found the order of nuns, and the reproaches which are cast at Ānanda in several parts of the Canon on account of his friendly attitude towards women. For the same reason it would never have occurred to the monks to ascribe songs to the women, if an incontestible tradition had not pointed at this direction. Mrs. *Rhys Davids*² has pointed out the difference in idiom, sentiment and tone between the "Songs of the Elders" and the "Songs of the Lady Elders." One has only to read the two collections consecutively in order to arrive at the conviction that, in the songs of the nuns, a personal note is very frequently struck which is foreign to those of the monks, that in the latter we hear more of the inner experience, while in the former, we hear more frequently of external experiences, that in the monks' songs descriptions of nature predominate, while in those of the nuns, pictures of life prevail.³