Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.s1.t3.1

c8.s1.t3.1

Buddha and his disciples did not and could not fail to come into contact with women: every begging excursion,* every repast at the house of a lay-member, at which the female members of the household appeared with the master of the house and listened after the repast to spiritual instruction, necessarily involved such meetings. The seclusion of women from the outer world, which later custom has enjoined, was quite unheard of in ancient India; women took their share in the intellectual life of the people, and the most delicate and tenderest of the epic poems of the Indians show us how well they could understand and appreciate true womanhood.