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RV is the only scripture among those of all religions in which the
Divine Truths are revealed to women sages also and some of these
hymns describing the revelation find a prominent place in the RV
Samhita like the hymn (10.125) (tenth mandala, 125 sūkta or
hymn) attributed to the woman sage Vāk Ambriņi. There are
more than thirty women sages in RV with specific hymns associated
with them. In all the Semitic religions like Christianity, Islam
etc., there is no mention of any revelation to women and no woman
is listed among the prominent disciples of the founders or
prophets of those religions.
There are numerous hymns in the Rigveda indicating the high status
accorded to women in the vedic society. RV (10.27.12)
explicitly states that the practice of a lady choosing her own
husband was in vogue. The hymn (10.85), the marriage hymn,
explicitly states that the daughter-in-law should be treated as a
queen, sāmrājni, by all the family members especially the
mother-in-law, husband, father-in-law. In RV (10.85.26) the bride
was exhorted to address the assembly; To be asked to address the
assembly was regarded as an honour by most of the sages. Thus the
statement that, “women were oppressed in Hindu society even from
the vedic times'', made orally and in popular writings by
some moderns is nothing but patent falsehood. Some of the
quotations given by these critics are from the period of the
sūtra books which are dated more than two thousand years later
than the Rigveda. Naturally these critics suppress quotations
which speak of the high status of women in the society of Rig
Vedic period and the period of Upanishads.
Even today, some orthodox persons deny the right of chanting the
Veda to women. However, they cannot cite any authoritative
scripture to support their views. Any book in Sanskrit cannot be
accepted as a scripture or divine revelation. When the famous
poet, Sanskrit scholar and spiritual savant, Vāsishta Gaņapati
Muni, the foremost disciple of Sri Ramaņa Maharshi, challenged
these orthodox persons to provide evidence to support their
claims, no evidence was forth coming.
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