Women's role and intelligence

[Guest guest]

Even talking only about prescribed duties in varnasrama, and not bringing in

the topic of prescribed spiritual duties, I would like to add a few points.

 

Case to case intelligence is different between men and men, women and women,

men and women, with in the same asrama, with in the same varna, with in the

same epoch and with in different epoch. This is a very important point to

understand, before brushing off women as less intelligent, in a very

generalised way.

 

"So anyway, now this Bhagavad-gita was written, was spoken to a family man,

Arjuna, military man, and the whole Mahabharata is meant for

stri-sudra-dvijabandhu, less qualified men. Just see. In those days less

qualified men were meant for understanding Bhagavad-gita in half an hour.

Just imagine what class of less intelligent persons were at that time. The

same Bhagavad-gita, now scholars like Dr. Radhakrishnan, and others, so many

big big scholars, they are scrutinizingly studying; still they cannot

understand. But this Bhagavad-gita was meant for the less intelligent class

of men of that time. Just you can imagine what class of less intelligent

class and women were there. It is specially written, you will see,

stri-sudra-dvijabandhunam trayi na sruti-gocara. Because woman class and

less intelligent class, and these unworthy sons of the brahmanas and

ksatriyas, they will not be able to understand the original Vedic

literature, therefore it has been presented in a story form with historical

facts so that they can understand. That was the origin of

Mahabharata." ---Srila Prabhupada.

 

1) In the above quote, Srila Prabhupada is mentioning that Arjuna a

ksatriya, family man as less qualified man, compared to brahmanas of his

epoch, was supposed to understand Bg in half an hour (first half an hour of

the first day of the war at Kurushetra is obvious).

2) During Arjuna's epoch, stri, sudra and dvija bandhu are put in one

bracket of intelligence, that is they are less intelligent. They could not

directly understand sruti (4 Vedas etc,.). So Mahabharatha (smriti) was

written for the understanding of these less intelligent classes.

3) These less intelligent people could easily understand Bg or smriti

shastra during Arjuna's epoch, but could not understand sruti.

4) So here the intelligence of different classes/genders is compared and

said to be high/low during the same epoch of Arjuna. Higher classes,

brahmanas could understand sruti but not other classes so smriti was written

for them. Agreed?

5) That means in vedic society in general women were considered to be less

intelligent than brahmana men, but equal in intelligence with lower classes

of men in general.

6) Stri-sudra-dvijabandu of Arjuna's epoch, are more intelligent than the

most intelligent men of the current day (eg: Dr Radhakrshnan a great scholar

among literary circles of current age and also ex-president of India, and

Srila Prabhupada I heard, (not sure) said his gita is better among the

common 500 gitas available in the market, even though not As It Is, he could

not understand Bg after scrutinisingly studying, where as women of Arjuna's

epoch could easily understand).

7) In general vedic women are more intelligent than the current day top

intellectual men, who can be relatively classified as brahmanas of kali

yuga,that is some sort of crude brahmanas.

8) Now Srila Prabhupada says, in vedic times women in general could

understand atleast smriti if not sruti.

9) Today both men and women cannot understand even smriti. That means they

cannot understand sruti which is even more difficult to understand. If the

top intellectual class men cannot understand Bg after scrutinisingly

studying what to speak of other classes. That is here all are equated. If

high class men cannot understand how other classes understand. Both

stri-sudra-dvijabandhu and kaliyuga brahmanas cannot understand sruti.

10) So in Kali yuga both men and women are considered to be less intelligent

as far as their understanding of smriti (no need to consider sruti which is

even more difficult to understnad) is considered. That way the intelligence

of men and women of the same epoch, this kali yuga is equated.

11) Now where the conflict can start is, please refer to the lower classes

of Arjuna's epoch. Among the stri, sudra, dvija of Arjuna's epoch, if you

compare oranges to oranges, less intelligent to less intelligent, then it

may turn out that some women are more intelligent than some lower class men.

12) Similarly, in the current age where all men and women in general cannot

understand sruti and smriti, if you again compare less intelligent to less

intelligent some women may be more intelligent than some men and vice versa.

13) In Arjuna's epoch brahmana men (apples) compared to women and other

classes (oranges) then apples proved to be more intelligent.

14) That is all speaking generally. Specifically every individual has to be

evaluated on individual merit of guna and karma, every man and every woman,

in all ages.

 

Additional note: Srila Prabhupada knew kaliyuga brains cannot understand

sruti and smriti which is in sanskrit language, so he translated into

mleccha bhasha, English out of his compassion to the fallen souls of

Kaliyuga. In Arjuna's epoch, mleccha bhasha (english language) would be

considered low class, compared to Sanskrit.

 

Hare Krishna,

 

Your humble servant,

Bhadra Govinda Das.