prasad1
Active member
Suhag A. Shukla, Esq.: International Women's Day: Arise! Awake! My Hindu Sisters
To my Hindu mothers and sisters in India and around the world (and my fathers and brothers too): For too many centuries, sometimes under the guise of culture and tradition, sometimes with the excuse of blaming foreign cultures, we have allowed the essence of the Vedas and the essence of womanhood to be muddied by society's bullies. We need to not only remember, but bring back to life what Swami Vivekananda reminded us not so long ago:
"In what scriptures do you find statements that women are not competent for knowledge and devotion? In the period of degeneration, when the priests made the other castes incompetent for the study of the Vedas, they deprived the women also of all their rights. Otherwise you will find that in the Vedic or Upanishadic age Maitreyi, Gargi, and other ladies of revered memory have taken places of Rishis through their skill in discussing about Brahman ... All nations have attained greatness by paying proper respect to women. That country and that nation which we do not respect women have never become great, nor will ever be in future..."
To my Hindu mothers and sisters in India and around the world (and my fathers and brothers too): For too many centuries, sometimes under the guise of culture and tradition, sometimes with the excuse of blaming foreign cultures, we have allowed the essence of the Vedas and the essence of womanhood to be muddied by society's bullies. We need to not only remember, but bring back to life what Swami Vivekananda reminded us not so long ago:
"In what scriptures do you find statements that women are not competent for knowledge and devotion? In the period of degeneration, when the priests made the other castes incompetent for the study of the Vedas, they deprived the women also of all their rights. Otherwise you will find that in the Vedic or Upanishadic age Maitreyi, Gargi, and other ladies of revered memory have taken places of Rishis through their skill in discussing about Brahman ... All nations have attained greatness by paying proper respect to women. That country and that nation which we do not respect women have never become great, nor will ever be in future..."
