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A Brief Survey of a Long Tradition
Even in a very brief survey of these vital questions, we must not fail to mention the highly courageous and impassioned attitude of the ardent, well-known Pandită Ramabai, herself a young brāhmaṇi widow of a highly cultured and orthodox family of Mahārāṣṭra. Pandită Ramābai, who was born in the second half of the last century and lived till 1922, not only crusaded against all forms of injustice and prejudice towards women, causing a considerable stir in her own circle and in Western circles as well, but also founded Śáradă Sadana, a centre for education and friendship for high-caste young widows. We can only quote here briefly from the writings of this remarkable
woman:
Those who diligently and impartially read Sanskrit literature in the original, cannot fail to recognize the law-giver Manu as one of those hundreds who have done their best to make a woman a hateful being in the world's eye. I can say honestly and truthfully, that I have never read any sacred book in Sanskrit literature without meeting hateful sentiments about women. True, they contain here and there a kind word about women, but such words seem to me a heartless mockery after having charged them, as a class, with crime and evil deeds.
89
Widowhood: We now come to the worst and most dreaded period of a high-caste-woman's life. Throughout India, widowhood is regarded as the punishment for a horrible crime or crimes committed by the woman in her former existence upon earth. The period of punishment may be greater or less, according to the nature of the crime. Disobedience to the husband or murdering him in an earlier existence are the chief crimes punished in the present birth by widowhood.54
The Jainas, except in certain places and during certain periods, have never been a dominant majority. To a slight degree everywhere and more so as they started to decline in numbers, they felt the impact of surrounding society and were obliged to conform to a number of its customs. Their attitude towards women has been influenced during the course of succeeding centuries by that of the society in which they
PP.
54 Adhav, 1979, pp. 94-95; cf. also "Liberation of Indian Women", ibid., 22-30; and "On Women in India", pp. 80-102.
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