Saturday, January 7, 2012

Women should always be worshipped and treated with affection

The Mahabharata
Anusasana Parva, Section XLVI


Bhishma said: Respect, kind treatment and everything else that is agreeable, should all be given unto the maiden whose hand is taken in marriage. Her sire and brothers and father-in-law and husband’s brothers should show her every respect and adorn her with ornaments. If they be desirous of reaping benefits, for such conduct on their part always leads to considerable happiness and advantage. Women should always be worshipped and treated with affection. There where women are treated with respect, the very deities are said to be filled with joy.

There where women are not worshipped, all acts become fruitless. If the women of a family, in consequence of the treatment they receive, grieve and shed tears, that family soon becomes extinct. Those houses that are cursed by women meet with destruction and ruin as if scorched by some Atharvan rite. Such houses lose their splendour. Their growth and prosperity cease.
Deities of prosperity are women. The persons that desire prosperity should honour them. By cherishing women, one cherishes the goddess of prosperity herself, and by afflicting her, one is said to afflict the goddess of prosperity

                     If a woman is pure she can save and purify man. She can purify the race. She can make a home a sacred temple. Hindu women have been the custodians of the Hindu race. Hindu religion and civilisation still survive in spite of the many foreign invasions. Other civilisations have come and gone, but only Hindu civilisation has survived on account of the purity of Hindu women. The women are taught to regard chastity as their most priceless possession, and the loss of it equal to the eternal damnation of their soul. From their very childhood religion is ingrained in Hindu women. As such they illumine and enliven the home through the glory of their purity. This is the secret of the endurance of the Hindu religion, civilisation and culture.
That home is a miserable place, a veritable hell on earth wherein the husband moves up in spirituality and the wife pulls him down into sensual grooves, and vice versa. Both should be harmoniously blended or joined by the sacred thread of self-knowledge, each aspiring eagerly for God-consciousness. That home really is heaven where the husband and wife lead an ideal divine life, singing the Lord’s name, repeating His mantra, studying sacred scriptures, controlling the senses and serving devotees and renunciates

Manu Smriti says:
"Where women are honoured, there the gods are pleased, but where they are not honoured, there no sacred rite is fruitful."
Such is the glory of Indian womanhood


     A woman should be moderate in sexual enjoyment.  She can attend religious discourses and Kathas with the permission of her husband. She can go to the place with other women or with her husband. She should never go alone. She should take recourse to spiritual books and philosophical journals. She should not trouble her husband for ornaments or expensive clothes. She should not go out with attractive, fashionable, semi-transparent dress. She should wear simple clothing. She should treat the servant of the house with kindness. She should train her children by giving them moral instructions. A virtuous son brings fame to his parents. A wicked son brings a bad name

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