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Śramana, Vol. 59, No. 4 October-December 2008
Women Working Class as Reflected in Buddhist Literature : An Analytical View
Dr. Anita Singh*
The objective of writing of this paper is to restore the economic position of early women workers and their contribution to the early economies. The ancient Brahmanical texts were upholding an ideal model of 'womanhood' which only carries out her religious and domestic duties as a daughter, wife and a widow. It was presumed that because of lack of education and training, early marriage, pardā system women stayed away from economic activities. This could not have been the general feature of the early society as these restrictions were imposed on the upper caste women of northern Gangetic plains. There was still a large section of women labour force actively engaged in various economic activities which has not got due recognition in 21" century history writing.
Progressive Buddhism had addressed this issue in early India and on an analytical study of Buddhist literature we discover that women were engaged in different economic activities. Buddhism offered a more honorable carrier to women as a result of it large number of them became nuns and some became famous preachers'. Pali text furnishes enough information about economic freedom of women and her independent means of livelihood. Pāli literature focuses on the commerce oriented urban milieu which provides scope for it, but in Dharmashastric literature focus is on agriculture dominated rural milieu, in which land figured as a chief guiding factor controlling all socio-economic developments. Buddhism provides a space to early Indian women to come out of the burden of pestle and mortar in times of distress or if they are genuinely drawn * Asst. Teacher, C. H.S. Boys School, B.H.U., Varanasi.
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