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आउज्जिअ पिच्चिअए जह कुक्कुलि णाम मज्झ भत्ताले । पेच्छंक्खंतह लाउलकंणिआह का कस्स कंदेमि ॥
(Śṛngaraprakāśa, IX.163, part I, p. 491)
[My husband is grabbed and being thrashed or beaten like a bitch, and the royal servants are just seeing. For whom should I raise an alarm?] Bhoja has quoted this verse as an example of Apadadōșa, a blemish in Simile. A man ought not to have been compared to a bitch. This is a bookish objection. There is a difference between a dog being beaten and a bitch being beaten. It is a lady who is using the smile is aware of the difference, and she is speaking from her experience.
On the other hand, the women in many of the Prakrit Gāthās also present a picture of noble suffering and endurance.
You may ask what is the universal message in such passages? To me they are really universal and they also deliver a universal message - because they raise the suppressed voices they bring out the female discourse that has remained too much neglected in the male dominated society of great thinkers, philosophers whose texts, ideologies and postulations are mostly discussed in the seminars like this. The ladies who speak out of their woos and sufferings and the poets who give expressions to their voices, both are implicitly conveying a universal message to consider the other discourses and other voices that have remained on the periphery. Besides bringing out the sublimity and greatness of the religious and philosophical literature in Prakrit, I hope that this seminar will also view the the other voices that call our attention through Prakrit poetry and the universal values emerging through them.
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