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Re: [sv-rituals] Re: Abhivadanam

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sumithra varadarajan • April 22, 2002 


Sri Parthasarathi thunai
Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha

Pranams,
  I would like to put forward some points which adiyen
heard in a lecture by Sri Ranga Priya Swami on this
topic.
 In the early days(Vedic Period) Women were of 2
types.
First type, Satyavadhu(who after marriage help their
husbands in the various rituals and get palan for the
same even without learning the vedas)
 The second category was BrahmaVadhini(who as
Brahmacharini's learned the vedas).There are so many
Brahmavadhini's cited in the upanishads. Swami even
told some names sorry i am unable to recollect them
now. He also gave reference to one Upanishad which is
in the form of question by the wife(Brahmavadini) and
answered by her husband.
Since women were not allowed to go out for gurukula
vasam they were supposed to learn the vedas from their
father,elder brother or maternal uncle.
But since the first category was easy and the palan
was obtained without any difficulty many of the women
choose that. By the time of the mahabharat there was
almost no Brahmavadinis so Bhagavan by his Krupai
delivered the Bhagavat Geetha so that the essence of
the vedas can reach all.
Swami also cited a verse from the Aranyaka of Yajur
and Rig veda "sriyapathi: Sri: thou may..." (sorry
that i am unable to reproduce correctly due to my lack
of knowledge and poor memory), with which he proved
that all the Jeevatmas being sri prayam in front of
bhagavan are considered as purushas when they are
spirutual minded and have a great interest to know
about the Kalyana Gunas of the Bhagavan. So
irrespective of men or women who ever have the sole
interest of knowing paramatma wholeheartedly they are
elligible to know the vedas.  And those (including
men) who are not interested and are not spiritual
minded Satvikas they are not elligible to know the
vedas.
In my humble opinion, in those days men were sincere
in learning the vedas and doing the rituals in it and
so it was essential for the women to help them out to
succeed in this great task. So if women also start
learning the vedas it would be difficult. so they
insisted that men learn the vedas and women assist
them since women had some problems which provoked them
to recite and do rituals on all days.  But in this
present juncture when men are more interested in other
things than the vedic knowledge it is no wrong for the
interested women to learn them and also create the
interest in their men. Women can thus learn and recite
vedic verses on all days othere than the forbidded
days. But surely vedas should be learned from a guru
properly since if the vedic verses are recited without
proper sound and knowing the place and time to recite
them they will cause ill effects. So if women are in a
position to allot proper time to learn the vedas in a
proper manner from a guru they will be elligible to
know them. But in the present juncture we can not cite
any guru who can really teach women the vedas due to
the misconception which is widely prevelent among the
vedic scholars.
If there is any wrong in the above it is purely do to
the lack of understanding on adiyen's part and if
there is any valid points all credits go the above
Swami who has given a different approach to this topic
which many learned scholars have failed to do till
today.

Adiyen Ramanuja Dasyai
sumithra varadarajan


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