Tuesday 1 May 2018

Sister Nivedita: The Dedicated - Who gave her all to India – 50

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:


Nivedita as admirer of Indian womanhood - 3

To someone else while talking about Sri Sarada Devi she wrote, 'To me it has always appeared that she is Sri Ramakrishna's final word as to the ideal of Indian womanhood. But is se the last of an old order, or the beginning of a new? In her, one sees realized that wisdom and sweetness to which the simplest women may attain. And yet, to myself, the stateliness of her courtesy and her great open mind are almost as wonderful as her sainthood. I have never known her hesitate, in giving utterance to large and generous judgment, however new or complex might be the question put before her. Her life is one long stillness of prayer'.

Sister Nivedita was so charmed by the womanhood of India among whom she lived in the lanes of Calcutta that her description about them are the best tribute. She called India as the "land of women" and always addressed them as "our women". She praised the purity and faithfulness of the Indian wife and the utter selflessness and loving nature of the Indian mother.

Nivedita said, "But still-where-why-is this humanising process the essential life of India, more than of other countries? What differentiates the Indian training from others? I find one answer, which outweighs all others in my estimate. It is this. The special greatness of Indian life and character depends more than on any other feature, on the place that is given to Woman in the social scheme.

They say that Indian women are ignorant and oppressed. To all who make this statement we may answer that Indian women are certainly not oppressed. The crimes of ill-treating women is at once less common and less brutal in form here than in younger countries. And the happiness, the social importance, and may I say, the lofty character of Indian women are amongst the grandest possessions of the national life'.

Nivedita was invited to speak to women at ….. but she could not go so she wrote a letter to them , "It was his (Swami Vivekananda's)conviction that the future of India depended even more on Indian women than on Indian men. And his faith in us all was immense.

The quiet, silent lives of women, living in their homes like Tapaswinis, proud only to be faithful, ambitious only to be perfect, have done more to preserve the Dharma and cause it to flourish, than, any battles that have been fought outside.
 
To be continued...







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