Voices of Women in India: Vedic Times and Now

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Using Lopamudra, women today can see how strong a women in a Vedic family could be and how society needed stronger women in a time when women were suppressed by a lack of property and were held to a high standard of honor. The hymn is found is found in the first Appendix of the RigVeda and includes Lopamudra, Agastya, and a poet who wrote it all down.
Lopamudra: For many autumns I have toiled, night and day, and each dawn has brought old age closer, age that distorts the glory of bodies. Virile Men should go to their wives.
For even men of past, who acted according to the Law and talked about the Law with the gods, broke off when they did not find end. Women should unite with virile men.
Agastya: Not in vain is all this toil, which the gods encourage. We two must always strive against each other, and by this we will win the race that is won by a hundred means, when we merge together as couple.
Lopamudra: Desire has come upon me for the bull who roars and is held back, desire engulfing me from this side, that side, all sides.
Poet: Lopamudra draws out the virile bull: the foolish woman sucks dry the panting wise man.
Agastya: By this Some which I have drunk, in my innermost heart I say: Let him forgive us if we have sinned, for a mortal is full of many desires.
Poet: Agastya, diggind with spades, wishing for children, progeny, and strength, nourished both ways, for he was a powerful sage. He found fulfillment of his real hope among the gods.

She was able to tell her husband that she was not being supported by him and that she needed more from their relationship. Her character breaks the stereotypes of the “typical” Indian woman. “Lopamudra’s attitude expresses a clear desire to de-stereotype the passivity of women.” The woman ...

... middle of paper ...

... Anita. "Is Arranged Marriage Really Any Worse Than Craigslist?." New York Magazine, . http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/11621/ (accessed March 18, 2014).

Jha, Ganganatha. Manu-smrti; the laws of Manu with the bhāsya of Mēdhātithi.. Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 192026.

Jowett, Benjamin. Aristotle's Politics,. New York: Modern library, 1943.

Leslie, Julia. Myth and Mythmaking: Continuous Evolution in Indian Tradition. Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996.

RigVeda App. 1:179
"Rig Veda, The.” Rig Veda: 1200-900 BC. http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/india/ rigveda.html (accessed April 24, 2014).

Trautmann, Thomas R. India: Brief History of a Civilization. Oxford University Press, 2010.

van Buitenen, J.A.B. The Mahabharata. United States of American: The University of Chicago, 1975. http://books.google.com/books?id=bIWyuCFdCiQC&printsec=frontcover

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