The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c16.80

c16.80

Varāhamihira’s theory is indeed true to a very great extent. The monastic life was a very difficult one ; a person could lead it honorably only if he could control his passions effectively. One way of enabling him to do so was to emphasise that the pleasures of the home life were ephemeral and worthless, and the woman who formed the centre thereof, was the most detestable object in the world. In the *Yogavāsiṣṭha* for instance, Rāma when anxious to renounce the world is made to observe that the woman is the mine of all imperfections and the cause of all sorrows. His arguments advanẹd in this connection are very interesting. ‘Desire for enjoyment will arise only when one has a wife, otherwise one would be free from it. If a man renounces the wife, he renounces the world ; if he renounces the world, he would surely be happy¹.’ One can hardly think of a more fallacions argument. The Mahābhārata observes that prosperity and women would never be steady and faithful, howsoever assiduously one may work for them, simply because it desires its readers to turn to Dharma in preference to Artha and Kamā². We learn from I-tsing that there was a monk at Nālandā, named Rāhulamitra, who would never see any women except his mother and sister. He told I-tsing, ‘I am naturally full of worldly attachment.. Without doing this, I cannot stop its source.' A person somewhat weaker than Reverend Rāhulamitra would have agreed with Manu and declared that one should be careful about oneself even when one is in the company of one's own mother, sister or daughter¹. Persons brought up with such notions will naturally regard women merely as snares for the temptation of men². They have not the fairness to recognise that women so appear to men, not because they are really 'the seed of the tree of existence', or 'the living torch illuminating the way to Hell³' (as the Jain saint Hemachandra describes them to be), but because men themselves are unable to control their passions. Men are as a matter of fact a greater snare to weak women than women are to weak men. To attribute one's weakness to the wickedness of the other sex is hardly fair. It is interesting to note that this fallacy has not been committed by Jain and Buddhist nuns. Several psalms of the latter have come down to us ; nowhere therein do we find them accusing man for being a snare to woman. Women have in this respect undoubtedly shown a greater fairness, chivalry and balanced judgment than men.