118 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
man. Whatsoever families... do last long, all of them do so because of these four reasons or one or other of them.”
In describing to the Bhikkhus what happens when a Monarch “who rolls the wheel, i.e., who is destined to be a Chakravarti (world monarch) appears in the world, the Buddha is reported to have told the monks that [1] —
“Whenever such a monarch appears there is the appearance of the seven treasures: the treasure of the Wheel, the Elephant, the Horse, the Jewel, the Woman, the House-father, and the treasure of the Heir Apparent.”
On another occasion the Buddha, speaking of the value of a woman to the world, said, [2]
“Woman is the commodity Supreme because (as the commentator adds) she is of indispensable utility, or because through her Bodhisattvas and world rulers take birth.”
How can a person in whose view the birth of a daughter was not an occasion for sorrow and might well be an occasion of joy, who held the view that those families are saved from a downfall which place a woman in authority over their affairs, who had no hesitation in describing woman as one of the seven Treasures and a thing of supreme value, be described as a hater or despiser of woman ? These statements are typical of the general sentiments entertained by the Buddha towards womankind. Can anybody say that they are calculated to bring the woman into ridicule and contempt ?
III
Those who see a social wrong in the Buddha placing the Bhikklumis under the authority of the Bhikkhus do not realize what a revolutionary act it was on the part of the Buddha to have allowed women to take Sannyas or Parivraja (Monkhood). Under the Brahamanic theory women had already been denied the right to acquire knowledge. When the question of Sannyas
1 : Anguttara Nikaya : Vol. V. P. 83.
2 : Samyutta Nikaya : Vol. I. P. 62.