Author Archives: Chaitanya Charan das

Isn’t the Gita’s comparing women with vaishyas and shudras derogatory?
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Transcription :

Transcribed by: Bhaktin Raji Nachiappan

Question: Isn’t the Gita’s comparing women with vaishyas and shudras derogatory?

Answer: This can be explained at three levels:

Firstly, is it that Lord Krishna is endorsing the comparison of women with vaishyas and shudras or is he simply stating that? Let us examine verse 9.32 of Bhagavad-gita where the reference comes:
maam hi partha vyapashritya, ye ’pi syuh papa-yonayah
striyo vaishyas tatha shudras, te ’pi yanti param gatim
Here, what is the thrust of the verse? That even those who are vaishyas, shudras, women and the lowborn can also attain perfection. The thrust of the verse is not to show how women are, rather to show how potent bhakti is. The potency of bhakti is such that whoever you are, bhakti can elevate to the supreme perfection.
Equating women with a particular social grouping is not a teaching of the Bhagavad-gita. That is just a statement where Lord Krishna is just echoing the conceptions of society at that time. Earlier in the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna says sa kalenaha mahata yogo nashtah parantapa (BG 4.2) which means that by the power of time, that primeval knowledge which he had given was lost. That means that the culture that Lord Krishna appeared in, is not the ideal culture. The culture that the Mahabharata describes is the deviated culture. That is why Lord Krishna had to come to correct the situation, dharma samsthapnarthaya (BG 4.8). Therefore, were the cultural conceptions at that time necessarily right? We do not know which one is right and which is not. However, one thing is that, it is clearly not the teaching of the Gita. Everything that is in the scripture is not necessarily the teaching of the scripture. Sometimes scripture may just be describing the socio-cultural reality at that time.

Secondly, even if we consider the social situation at that time, the whole Bhagavad-gita is a description about attaining transcendence or spiritual reality. For gaining spiritual knowledge and attaining spiritual reality, in the broad human society, there are certain dispositions which are more suitable. The brahmanas are more analytical and intellectual and they are best suited for spiritual understanding. Kshatriyas also have some amount of sattva which regulates their rajas and hence they are also suitable for understanding the spiritual reality. Then, there are the vaishyas and the shudras. We need to understand that at times, there are certain people who would be very money minded, not necessarily in a sinful materialistic way. For such people, it is very difficult to think about the other world. In the same way, it was acknowledged that vaishyas and shudras may never be able to take sannyas and they may not even take vanaprastha. Usually brahmanas take sannyas and kshatriyas take vanaprastha.

For the shudras, it is said that the only reformatory ceremony is vivaha or marriage. What does this mean? This means that in the Vedic culture, it was acknowledged that certain people may not be at a level to embrace renunciation or the path of […]

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