Talk:Women in Hinduism/Archive 1

message: The sentences in the verse (Taittirya Samhita - VI.5.10.3) preceding the alleged line are: 
gárbʰeṇā́vijñātena brahmahā́ \
 
avabʰr̥tʰám áva yanti 
párā stʰālī́r ásyanty úd vāyavyā̀ni haranti 
followed by- 
tásmāt stríyaṃ jātā́m párāsyanty út púmāṁsaṁ haranti 
In sanskrit, the meaning of the verse doesn't always follow the order of the words. Poetic license is usually taken with the order of words to fit the meter/rules/style of the poem. This particular verse is to be read the following way (per an experienced pundit with a Phd in Vedic studies)- 
Meaning (by order to be used) - Striyaha - woman; aavignatena - dual meaning of deliberate knowledge/innocent knowledge (in lust) ; brahmaha - Brahma's form (Jivatma - soul) ; garbhe - in pregnancy/womb ; avabrtam - bath (can be used to mean the bath that is done as part of ceremony (srimantam) performed during pregnancy, conceive; avayanti - accepts;  para stalir - 
nutritious food; asyanti - eats (aswadana); ud - good ; vayavyani - environments (for the feotus); haranti - accepts with joy; tasmat - therefore; jatam - the resultant (labour pains); parasyanti - ignore, push away; ut pumamsam - good jivatma/jiva (live foetus) (jivatma is male gender); haranti - accepts;
Literal translation: The woman conceives (in lust) the foetus (jivatma - soul) and accepts it during the ceremonial bath performed during pregnancy. She eats nutritious food and accepts with joy good environments. Therefore, she pushes away the pains she has to bear, seeking a good jivatma (soul) for the world/seeking to continue creation. 
I have had to be creative to translate the gist of some words into English, please excuse any approximations.
 
The order of words and interpretation has caused the confusion. Here the Striya is the expecting mother and the pumamsa is the to-be-born jivatma (soul).  
I am removing the subsection --Pranathi 01:24, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing content - female foeticide 

message: The Pancatantra stories are fables like aesops fables and involve animal characters for the most part. They are not all part of Hindu texts. Removing the content on story.
To retain the portion from [EB 8:986 'ordeal'], please provide complete name of hindu text or historical reference that it was derived from. Meanwhile removing content. --Pranathi 04:44, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing content 

message: I am trying to understand how this section is relevant to the page. * First parah shows the woman as well as the man being punished severely. * The last parah is about a man that commits adultery. * The second parah condemns adultery, a stance taken, even though much milder, in today's world also. * The story about sage Gautama does not reflect the condition of all mortals. Having acquired powers from penance he has the unique potential to place a curse on his wife with whom he is understandably (though incorrectly per story) angry, especially given the sanctity given to marraige.
Let me know if someone agrees/does not agree with me. If I don't hear back I will remove the section soon. --Pranathi 01:06, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discuss adultery section 

message: I am reorganizing the page. The positive/negative reference presentation is very blunt. I plan to make different sections like - study of scriptues (both pos & neg)-, sati, marraige (include child marraige, equality of gender in marraige etc), property rights, women (characters) in hinduism etc. Any thoughts, suggestions, discussions are invited. 
Also, please clarify what book 'Hindu law and custom' refers to (in restrictions section). I will remove until clarification is given.--Pranathi 22:31, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reorganize 

message: ?--Dangerous-Boy 11:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No mention about Hindu Nuns? 

message: Please make this more encyclopedic. This now sounds like a lecture given by a Hindu reformer. Babub→Talk 15:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tone 

message: "The Vedas prescribe, as do most ancient cultures, that a dowry be given by the bride's family to the groom. The Rig Veda states that cows and gifts given by the father of the bride to the daughter accompanied the bride's procession [Rg Ved. X.85].
I didn't find anything as such in the sukta, even in the translations by Griffith. Can anyone provide clarification upon this? I've instead read the opposite - that the groom gives money or the like to the bride's father. Leafy 14:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dowry? 

message: Am sorry, Hinduism don't advocate Sati, Purdah or Dowry. As far as I know Sati Pratha took roots in Rajput communities when Muslims attacked Rajputs and invaded Rajput domains. Rajput women who lost their husband in war preferred to die than go in the hands of Muslims. There is no system of Purdah in Hindus. Regarding dowry, it is not religious dictate, howsoever gifting a woman at her marriage by her parents and relatives is a Hindu custom from ages. Dowry is a social evil of Hindu society but a large section of Hindus do not get involved in dowry demands. Swadhyayee 04:07, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I read some comments on DaGizza talk page and I wished to state.. 

message: GourangaUK, you have misread my insert. I inserted the name of Sri Bangaru Adigalar, not just the honorific title "Sri" as this Swami also claims to be an avatar of Sri Narayani. 
Furthermore, the "Sri" communicates to readers that these religious Hindu figures are greatly admired by their followers and other Hindus. 
::ENVI —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ENVI1 (talk • contribs) 20:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Both 'Narayani Peedam' and 'Bangaru Adigalar' are currently mentioned in article. However, we really need a citation to back this comment up, especially as it concerns living persons. Regards, Gouranga(UK) 10:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: GourangaUK misreading

message: Please! The current description of Indira Gandhi etc is laughable. "Loved by many Indians"? How is this even remotely NPOV? Please help rephrase everything and put it in the context of this article. -- 74.132.201.173 01:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indira Gandhi etc 

message: I moved this from the article text.
Suggestion for editing: This part of the article, although informative, includes a slightly illogical comparison. One cannot contrast a 'modern Hindu wife' with the types of women that you list afterward, which would not in most cases have been wives at all!  Rather, a comparison and contrast between both the reality and the conceptual image of a modern Hindu wife and an ancient Hindu wife should be done.  
Benandorsqueaks 08:51, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion for editing 

message: It seems to be working too hard to stress that Hindu women are not looked upon as "property" by men. It only lightly touches on the injustices these women face and instead chooses to pretend these are trivial in comparison with the great honor they receive as mothers.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.201.166.233 (talk) 06:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality of this article 

message: The article needs to address some of the apparently negative texts in the Manu smriti towards women. The status of the likes of the Manu smriti also needs to be questioned in a contemporary sense. What value does it hold for hindus today? There should be reference to the current Hindu Personal Law that applies (at least legally) to ove 90% of the worlds Hindus. Hindu Personal Law is not the same as the Manu Smrti which suggests the smriti is not held as an authority by many hindus.--147.89.224.69 (talk) 09:38, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  More balance and explanation 

message: It may also help to consider movements to ban discriminatory practices against women that were thought to have originated from Hinduism, but were man created rituals.Ensquared (talk) 22:12, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed changes

message: Overall, I think you had a great preliminary contribution to your article. There are still a few grammatical/structural spots that if changed, could improve the article further. Additionally, there are just a few claims within the additions that would be good to add further citations to. The structure and format overall I think is done pretty well, and is relatively easy to read and follow. Further illustrations would also add to the article further as well as the addition of more diverse number of sources and perspectives.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lnicholson14 (talk • contribs) 01:26, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Additions 

message: The quality and depth of the contributions to the article were noted and appreciated.  Adding more dimensions aka subsections may keep you from being limited in terms of information that may discussed as it would be unfortunate to be restricted to the categories that already exist.  Linking to other articles for information that is a bit more esoteric or expounding upon them would also be helpful.Vnguyen518 (talk) 15:01, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ensquare's Initial Contribution Review 

message: Your historical context contribution is a summary about India, not Hinduism. The source title is "The Female Element in Indian Culture", and Indian culture includes ancient Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Animist and 2nd millennium Islam, Christian and Sikh aspects. What you added, even for India is from a bit old source and now disputed among scholars. We need an WP:NPOV summary of various scholarly sides. Please see more recent papers and books published by Brian Pennington, Gavin Flood, Andrew Nicholson, Arvind Sharma, Ronald Inden, Michel Witzel, and others. There you will find more diverse presentation and content for 'women in Hinduism'. A balanced summary from these sources in this article would be welcome. Are you part of a school/course-for-credit editing project? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:20, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your recommendation, I will definitely address the issues you have mentioned. I am working as part of a school project Ensquared (talk) 14:40, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Women in Hinduism and Women in India 

message: I removed the long para you added that started with, "Hinduism is often described a lifestyle, rather than rigid religion....." with some inappropriate language from the lead. This is not an article on Hinduism, and including it in this article's lead is offtopic soap, it is also not appropriate per lead and style guidelines. If you wish to include it, please explain. I suggest we work on the main article first, and we can return to the lead summary later. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:38, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for reviewing the lead. I will look at the resource you linked to and brainstorm a more appropriate lead. The reason why I additionally included it was due to feedback that suggested I provide a context of the religion before going into specifics of women in Hinduism, however the historical context section should address that. I agree with your suggestion of ramping up the main article before the lead. Ensquared (talk) 21:27, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. I don't think we need to provide a context of Hinduism in the lead, just like articles such as Women in Buddhism, Women in Christianity etc don't provide a context of Buddhism, Christianity, etc. in the lead. Let us revisit this after the main article is in better shape. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:45, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Offtopic, generic comments

message: You added the following to Hindu Education of Women section, "However, another section of the Upanishads overrides such a desire by explaining that women could not involve in Vedic studies." You also added a 1956 book by Altekar as source at the end of the paragraph, without page numbers. Please identify the page number of the source, where this statement is, for WP:Verifiability, because I have the Altekar book and it states something very different. BTW, Altekar book was first published in 1938 (1956 edition was a reprint with some updates), it is an old source, not WP:HISTRS, and it must be cross checked with more recent sources. But for now, I wait for a page number. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:36, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I will update the page numbers later today. Thank you again for your feedback. Just as a personal reference, here is the link to the book version I have been getting the information from. I will definitely incorporate your thoughts, however. For now I have deleted the initial statement you identified as problematic, but will look into the page number and update. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=VYG4K0yYHQgC&oi=fnd&pg=PR12&dq=The+position+of+women+in+Hindu+civilization,+from+prehistoric+times+to+the+present+day&ots=HuZAlwF-jz&sig=woihOgz1Sl2O3GLt3Y_oc03aKfA#v=onepage&q=The%20position%20of%20women%20in%20Hindu%20civilization%2C%20from%20prehistoric%20times%20to%20the%20present%20day&f=false Ensquared (talk) 15:06, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

text: I am also working on adding a section on Hindu women clothing and dress, do you have any suggestions on where in the article that would be most useful and relevant? Ensquared (talk) 15:23, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I will wait for page numbers for the rest of the section. A dress section would be an excellent addition. You can find a good historical coverage about the diversity yet common elements of dress of women in Hindudism, across ancient, medieval and modern times, in the old but respected source GS Ghurye (1967), Indian Costumes, , pages 65-100, 105-125, 150-180 respectively. A more recent source is Emma Tarlo (1996), Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India, University of Chicago Press, , (Chapter 2 discusses dressing history among Hindu women, which is what this article should focus on; other chapters discuss the dress as identity issue in Hindu-Muslim conflict first, later anti-colonialism). Google for 'dress, women, hinduism' literature by Bernard Cohn, Christopher Bayly. That should get you started on a good foundation. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:18, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Great, I will look into all of those sources. I'll probably updating in the next fews days or so. I see you also added a fine arts section which I can also contribute to. The last section I am hoping to add is a Notable Women in Hinduism section. Ensquared (talk) 21:24, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: @Ensquared: Excellent. I will leave those three sections empty, in your good hands. If you need Hindu text sources for women and fine arts, see this section. Of those listed there, the three books by Baumer, Khokar and Nijenhuis would give you a good foundation, as they are fine reviews of relevant scholarship on "arts, women and Hinduism". Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:52, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Education section 

message: Great job providing diverse and competing viewpoints on women in Hinduism! This article is very informative; it highlights the complexities of gender in Hinduism through a multidimensional job. Impressive work remaining neutral and supporting different claims. The images also help capture the diversity in thought and provide a visual representation of some of the ideas you discuss. If anything, I would suggest simply going back through the article a couple more times and maybe simplifying some of the sentences to make them a little more concise and understandable for all audiences. Good job!! Efoxman42 (talk) 02:09, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Review