Was society really lenient in ramanaya times? thank you note pg2

first of all <font color="#ff0000">happy newyearfriends,have a great new year ahead...</font>

Now coming to the topic,A few days back I was having a chat with few friends
regarding ramanaya, a friend said that society in those days was more lenient
and understanding. I did't really understand what she meant by lenient and
understanding'. But after watching siya ke ram I think the society was indeed very
different from what I thought it would be... want to highlight a few things like
sita meeting lakshman alone(I know he was her devar but not related to ber
before marriage),then sita stopping the ashmavedh horse(what I know from
history books I that stopping ashmavedh horse would be considered an act of
defiance and would lead to war),the clothing style of sita's sisters(one or two
episode back mandavi was wearing resembled a modern day anarkali suit) and the
girls staying away from home without an guardian ... Even I like to write fiction
storied on ramanaya but that I claim to be fiction only based on ramanaya, not
ramanaya from another perspective as there I add scenes which really resemble
modern times... I m not blaming anybody as they are working really hard for what
they are doing, maybe they too think that that society in those days was more
lenient and understanding. and i like SKR too because what they show is like a visual treat with great VFX,acting etc... A little deviation from the epic is what i already expected as in tv they new to show new things to attract audience, but this much change is unexpected...

I am bit confused with these things... I have not read the
original ramanaya but still have some knowledge abt it coz of my interest in mythology
but these things are messing my mind... just want to know was society really this
lenient those days in treta yugh?? I would be glad if my confusion gets clear
as I have seen people in the forum who have much knowledge abt the original
epic...

PS: these are totally my views and are not intended to hurt
any sentiments. I expect a healthy discussion and interaction.

@tuna first and foremost let me tell you couple of things I have understood about Sanathana Dharma. We will come to Ramayana later. If we look we had 4 yugas Sathya yug, Tetra yug, Dwapar Yug, Kaliyug.

Wow shruti it was a very nice explaination... I m glad i got to know so many new na different things... Thank u so much for clearing the confusions... Lets see what views others have on this... :)
waise i have seen some women in these days woh don't respect guys but expect to be respected... Let me tell u an incident,A few days back a dreadful incident took place near my place near kolkata, a guy got into the ladies compartment of a train by mistake in hurry,he apologised to the ladies and said he will get down in the nxt station as the train already started moving. But he was pushed down from the moving train by a girl who was later saved from the police and media by other girls in a train... The guy was injured, I don't know he is alive or not...
All i want to say is i feel in kali yugh not only guys but girls have become very indisciplined as well...woman should be compassionate and respectful along with being brave... That's what i feel... What say?

yes tuna, in order to prevail over men, now the women is losing her core identity, that of the nurturer, protector and teacher.

Originally posted by: shruthiravi

@tuna first and foremost let me tell you couple of things I have understood about Sanathana Dharma. We will come to Ramayana later. If we look we had 4 yugas Sathya yug, Tetra yug, Dwapar Yug, Kaliyug.

Sathya yug is regarded as the yug of knowledge where Dharma was paramount and Purush and Prakriti were in balance. To explain it in a better fashion it was accepted that each and everything in the universe was there for a purpose. Nothing was superior, nothing was inferior. If anything or anyone tries to be become superior, making others inferior the avatars happened to balance it out. Even devas has suffered curses. In Satyayug we can see the greatest devotee of Lord Vishnu in Prahalad who was born in Asura Kul.

Now as the Yugas progressed you can see Purush trying to prevail over Prakriti. In Ramayana times that is Tetra yug, already rules had come on the behavior of ladies. What they can do, cannot do etc. We can see Ahalya curse as an foremost example of this change. She was punished for the crime of a man. I mean the purity of woman lies in the body etc.started coming in that age. Still the age was much progressive in treating its woman. A woman can approach a man. But you need to see the way Lakshman and Sita talk. There is a very respectable distance between them. They fold hand in front of each other. And Lakshman addresses her Devi which was supposed to be used for any woman who is not related to you and approaches you as mark of respect. And coming to Aswamedha horse, yes stopping it means war, but it was a lady who stopped it. In Tetra yug the rules were very clear on speaking to ladies even when provoked. She is to be attacked only for self defense and nothing else. That's why we see the soldiers arguing with her and once they understand she has come from a friendly rajya they follow her. Even Ram questions vishwamitra on killing Tadaka( Hope the SKR shows it) as she is a woman.

Ram avatar actually happened to ensure the balance of Prakriti and Purush as some rules of dharma were getting distorted in this yuga. So Sita born from Prakriti walks with him so that he accomplishes his mission on bringing balance between Prakriti and Purush.

Now if you take Dwapar Yug. Dharma is much detoriated. Purush is reigning supreme doing many atrociites on Prakriti. If you take incidents like Kamsa trying to kill devaki the minute he hears the warning of her 8th son, then killing her 6 new born babies mercilessly in front of her, Bhishma abducting the 3 kasi princess from swayamvar using the power of hastinapur, again forcing king of Gandhar to give away his daughter for his blind step son using the might of hastinapur all points to the mistreating of Prakriti. Hence a woman has to be born out of fire and when atrocities reaches the low point against her, she rages helping Krishna to destroy a system and once again bring balance between Prakriti and Purush.

And Kaliyug. We all know what is happening. Female foeticide, honor killings, denying of basic facilities to women like nutrition and education, dowry, domestic violence, rape. Prakriti is treated like a property. To be traded. To be suffered.

It 's the time of men like Mahishasura who cannot be taken down by neither Ram nor Krishna. Prakriti or Durga herself in her destructive form has to track and take them down. Because only women can show men like Mahishasura their real place who are gloating over the fact that they reign supreme and a woman cannot do anything to them. And she can do it only with the help of men who are like Shankar and Vishnu. As we know Durga is the incarnation of Adi Parashakthi who is Shankar's wife and she is treated as Vishnu's sister also. So what the woman of today need is the knowledge to distinguish between good and bad men. The one who really respect and love her and the one who use her. That's why I am against extreme feminism also which treats all men bad. Because in extreme feminism again the balance is lost. That's why we need to understand men like Ram, Krishna, Mahadev after reading about them, watching shows, understanding perspectives. We need to understand why Sita respected Ram, Rukmini wanted to marry Krishna and Gowri did tapasya for Shanker. This knowledge will help us to understand not only our rights as a woman, but also our duty towards society as a woman.

So we have degraded from a knowledge based society which highly respected its woman, to a society that treats woman as property. Everytime puts blame on her for the mistakes done by men. And yes they do it using the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Where actually if you look both Ram and Krishna avatars happened to teach men , to respect woman and what will happen to them if they don't.

We have to look at what happened to Ravan, Kamsa and the kuru vansh. Instead what are we doing.

Look at what happened to Sita when she crossed Lakshman Rekha. Look at Panchali she caused war.

This is my POV and my understanding of the dharma I follow. So to me Tetra Yug was a much open society and woman had much more freedom in those times than our current times. We have looked at these epics with the eyes of Kaliyug. And that is not the epics fault.

👏

Our culture reveres women as symbols of prosperity, knowledge and strength in the forms Devi Lakshmi, Devi Saraswati and Devi Durga/ Shakti respectively. The balance between the masculine and feminine or the Purush and Prakriti as Shruthi Mam mentioned, is important in maintaining the harmony of the universe. I believe that in the vedic times women were treated with affection, respect and in some cases even reverence. They could study the vedas and shastras and princesses were given basic martial training too. Rishikas like Gargi and Maitreyi were well respected in society. Of course they did have some restrictions but none of them were born from the fact that women inferior.
The idea that woman is somehow inferior to man is not supported in our scriptures at all though there is something mentioned about women being impure while menstruating in the vedas, I guess ( I don't know much about it). The concept that Woman is somehow inferior to Man became prevalent in India only after invaders like the mughals and the british captured our nation, and we think that the western civilization is somehow better than ours.
To treat a Woman as a man's equal is not lenience at all, it is basic humanity and common sense. So to answer your question precisely, the society then was not lenient , it was right!

@Tuna thanks for making this post, it's will surely be a very informative session...
We have very beautiful writers in the forum with profound knowledge about mythology... Would be interesting to read every one's views...

@shrutiravi that was a wonderful description of the different yug.. Very informative indeed...
How beautifully you have expressed the needs of all the different yugs and the purpose of different incarnations of Lord Vishnu...
Goddess Durga was prakriti herself and to put an end to the wrong doings of Mahisasur, she landed on earth... She was an incarnation of Adishakti, she combined the devine powers of all the Lords and used them against the evil powers of the Asur...
A perfect example of how today's women should be... A woman should know how to differentiate between wrong and right, should repose her faith on the right man who would always be with her like a support system and stand up against the wrong with her...

Now a small observation of mine as it is said that God resides within us, and we know that Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the preserver and Shiva is the destroyer... Combining these two facts can we say that we all have the qualities of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshvar within us and we need to manifest these qualities at the right situation? Now question arises how do we do that, by worshiping idols of gods, by reading the epics, watching different shows based on our epics or by understanding the essence of our epics and imbibing those values within us... (purely my thoughts, would love to hear different pov regarding this)

Originally posted by: SweetRogue

Our culture reveres women as symbols of prosperity, knowledge and strength in the forms Devi Lakshmi, Devi Saraswati and Devi Durga/ Shakti respectively. The balance between the masculine and feminine or the Purush and Prakriti as Shruthi Mam mentioned, is important in maintaining the harmony of the universe. I believe that in the vedic times women were treated with affection, respect and in some cases even reverence. They could study the vedas and shastras and princesses were given basic martial training too. Rishikas like Gargi and Maitreyi were well respected in society. Of course they did have some restrictions but none of them were born from the fact that women inferior.
The idea that woman is somehow inferior to man is not supported in our scriptures at all though there is something mentioned about women being impure while menstruating in the vedas, I guess ( I don't know much about it). The concept that Woman is somehow inferior to Man became prevalent in India only after invaders like the mughals and the british captured our nation, and we think that the western civilization is somehow better than ours.
To treat a Woman as a man's equal is not lenience at all, it is basic humanity and common sense. So to answer your question precisely, the society then was not lenient , it was right!

Bold part 👍🏼

@sweet rogue I loved the last line of your post and coming to mensuration I don't know in which thread, I guess it was created by Ramya, another forum member Jayashree had given beautiful explanation. Jayashree if you are visiting this thread please put it once again as though I remember the essence I forgot about the temple you mentioned.