Indian Women Writers :: Literature Writing Middle Eastern Papers

Indian women writersA world of words, lost and found a brief overview of womens literature in India from the 6th century BC onwardsThe Vedas cry aloud, the Puranas shoutNo good may come to a woman.I was born with a womans bodyHow am I to attain truth?They are foolish, seductive, tawdry -Any connection with a woman is disastrous.Bahina says, If a womans body is so harmful,How in the world will I reach truth? a great deal of the worlds literature has been dominated by a canon that nearly disregard womens writing more than two centuries ago. The counter-canons that have emerged as the result of this elimination have helped to establish womens writing in mainstream culture, but still in some ways fail to acknowledge womens literature coming from non-white countries. This try is an attempt to highlight some of the works produced by women in India over the ages.Although India has a history of ancient civilisations such as the Harappa and Mohenjodaro, and of matrilineal societies in th e south, no written records of womens literary prowess exists predating the 6th century BC. The issue of the first body of metrical composition by women in India could be attributed to the approach of Buddhism. Perhaps it was the freedom offered by the religion, the way of life sentence it offered to women, and the principle of par that it propagated which allowed women to pen their thoughts for the first time.Buddhism offered women the opportunity to break away from the restrictions of home life, a major factor in the rise of Indian womens literature in the early 6th century BC. The earliest known anthology of womens literature in India has been identified as those belonging to the Therigatha nuns, the poets being contemporaries of the Buddha. One of these, Mutta, writes, So free am I, so gloriously free, free from three subaltern things - from mortar, from pestle and from my twisted lord. Tharu and Lalita p.68Muttas works, translated from Pali, offer an explanation through th eir interpretation. Religious relief valve was the only way out for many women who were frustrated with a life inside the home. They chose to join the Buddhist sangha (religious communities) in their attempts to break away from the affectionate world of tradition and marriage. Thus emerged poems and songs about what it meant to be free from folk chores and sexual slavery.Although the early forms of writing addressed the issue of personal freedom, the poetry that followed later was a celebration of womanhood and sexuality.