Indian Women In Mahabharata

In traditional India, women were looked upon as a member of the family or a group and not as an individual with identity and right of her own. Basic to the Indian thinking and the Hindu religious philosophy is the principle of equality between men and women. The story of Indian women has been best conceptualized in India’s history and ancient mythology which goes back to about 4000 years.

Historically, Indian women are equal to men. The concept of women as ‘Shakti’, the primal energy force, finds expression in the famous epic – Mahabharata. In this epic, women are glorified as “light of the house, mother of the universe, and supporter of the earth and all its forests”. It further emphasizes on a mother being the best guru. Manu, the first to

Some groups of old women had an elitist bias. To them, privileged women do some philanthropic, social work activities for common, poor, miserable women. They do not believe in transcending the existing social order. In their personal lives, they abide by the rules of the caste system and firmly believe in maintaining the status-quo.

With time women have mobilized and fought against all forms of sexual oppression, religious chauvinism and sexism.

In modern era, women have developed a changed outlook, they now believe that the minimum necessary condition for women’s liberation – economic independence of women is not enough. To achieve total liberation, they have to fight all socio-cultural, educational, and political factors which come their way. They strongly feel that women’s demands have to be fought on a day to day basis. Then only new ethos, new ideologies, new morality and new egalitarian relations between men and women can be

Various periods of social history has metamorphosed the “Traditional Indian Women” into a “Modified Global Indian Women”, who is in a position to question the system of values that still designates gender-specific qualities, although these have been redefined and regenerated, with the good old hierarchical implications embedded in them. There is no doubt that we are in the middle of a great revolution in the history of women. Women’s voice, can now be heard everywhere, from the Parliament to the streets. It was not all easy to claim for her basic rights, but the fight that continued for centuries ultimately formed the nucleus which might perhaps lead to the ultimate revolution.

Our Indian sub-continent is now emerging as a powerful land since women have started playing a significant role towards development of the nation. Their multi-role in the present era is worth mentioning. The women, who previously, mastered only the art of home making, are now considered to be the forces behind shaping our country.

Evolution is an ever-dynamic force. So, on that basis we can say that Indian women haven’t completed all the stages of evolution and she is still under immense pressure from the male-dominant society. There, still exists a fight for transition to where true equality exists. So, ending on a very positive note, we can compare her, very hypothetically, as carbon