Women's role and intelligence

[Guest guest]

Somehow I didn't get any of the responses to my text. This one was forwarded

to me by someone else.

 

 

If this is a response to what I wrote I find that it is completely unrelated

and irrelevant. Not one part of your text refers to what I wrote and rather

just rambles on in a maze of confusion, disconnected from the text (mine)

that it supposedly is in reference to.

 

I am a very busy person and I have no time for non-sequiturs.

 

Shyamasundara Dasa

 

www.ShyamasundaraDasa.com

 

 

 

 

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TX - USA)" <pandava (AT) ev1 (DOT) net>

Cc: "Brahmacarya" <Brahmacarya (AT) pamho (DOT) net>; "Madhusudani Radha (dd) JPS (Mill

Valley, CA - USA)" <Madhusudani.Radha.JPS (AT) pamho (DOT) net>; "Shyam"

<shyama (AT) shyamasundaradasa (DOT) com>; "Shyamasundara Dasa"

<shyama-d1 (AT) radha-webdesign (DOT) com>

Saturday, May 18, 2002 9:58 AM

Women's role and intelligence

 

 

> 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.

 

 

 

Interesting you are arguing that there is no equality on any level. However

the feminists say that they are equal with men. So it looks like you have

defeated them. (-:

 

 

 

 

>

> "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.