APPENDIX—II
“THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM
( A Rejoinder to an Article Published in “ Eve’s Weekly” on January 21, 1950, under the title “ Our New Republic ”)
Lama Govinda
“ In India, women were used to statecraft long before they ever did in Europe. The Ramayana and Mahabharata are full of instances of such women. ” These lines were prominently displayed in an article, published in Eve’s Weekly on January
21,1950, under the title “Our New Republic.
Does the learned author of the article hint at the fact that Draupadi, the chief female character of the Mahabharata was gambled away by her husband, or rather husbands (because she had five) or that Sita, who had heroically rejected all advances of her captor Ravana, was rewarded with distrust and doubts in her purity, put to the fire-ordeal and banished in to the jungle ?
If the position of women in those days had been what the writer of the above-mentioned article would have us believe, then we wonder why Draupadi had never been given a chance to gamble away her five husbands, or Sita an opportunity to send her calumniators and doubters on the pyre or into the woods ?
It certainly would have been more correct in this connection to say that the Women of India in those times were used by statecraft.
As to the women of Europe, I cannot say whether they were lagging behind their sisters in India in this respect, but I am quite sure that when some of them got an opportunity to meddle with statecraft they were quick to make use of it.
If Queen Elizabeth had been in the place of Draupadi she would probably have executed her five husbands as she executed her unfortunate lover Lord Essex. But in my opinion Draupadi without statecraft was more lovable woman than Queen Bessie with all her political power and cunning.