(Note I've corrected the syntax of your link so it appears)
[quote name='Meluhhan' date='16 February 2016 - 07:52 AM' timestamp='1455588856' post='117923']
Srila Prabhupada mentions pardA in pre-Islamic India in a commentary to a [url="http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/1/10/16"]Srimad Bhagavatam verse[/url]:
[/quote]
Parda/Purdah, let alone a universal social construct seen affecting all Hindu wo/men, is an unnecessary assumption. In any case, there's no comparison with islamania's segregation (purdah). That's unless we're also expected to pretend that Iranians, Chinese, Japanese and Greeks also had purdah.
To stick to what's known or has been documented:
1. From the quoted paragraph of ISKCON's commentary/spin on Shrimad Bhagavatam (SB) above,
- the women go up to shower flowers on Krishna. Easier done from somewhere high up like balconies. The Devas are often shown (in the Hindu epic cinema of yore) showering flowers on earth-dwelling divinities and on Hindu heroes for having acted righteously from up in the sky too.
- it speaks only of "the ladies of the palace" and admits to no more.
Something that is universally seen among royalty and high aristocracy in Asia to Europe is that royal women have their own chambers in a palace, their own wing in a castle, etc. Ladies in waiting/chambermaids also tend to be found in (end up restricted to) these areas. (Whereas other staff - male and female - are not restricted to these parts and some are not allowed there.)
It ain't purdah.
In China, royal and aristocratic women had their own area in the royal palace/aristocratic household too. There were huge numbers of women there, usually men didn't venture there.
From the context of the Odyssey you can see Penelope and the maids of her interior household are all in the female part of the house, which ends up having more of a feeling of a jail/enforced limited space when the suitors invade during the daytime. Telemachus tells his mother several times to go back to her chambers and not show herself to the belligerent suitors, as befits her station (as married woman and aristocrat).
(Moreover, when Penelope does show herself officially in public/to the suitors, she is usually veiled. IIRC she still appears veiled when she finally shows herself for the penultimate competition.
Christianity didn't invent the veil, neither did islam: it was already used by Persian Zoroastrians at least, and certainly by the Greeks. However, among the Greeks and Persians it seems more often women of aristocratic rank rather than the average household maid let alone female slave that had the "privilege" of covering her face in the presence of unknown men. The Persian ritualist males were moreover to have been veiled to keep their fire pure.)
In other words, it need come as no surprise that royal or other high aristocratic (i.e. kShatriya) Hindu women at the time the SB was written (or even - at least conceptually - at the time of the MBH context) could afford their own wing at the palace and were regarded so special as to not have to deign to show themselves to everyone.
It's like etiquette. It would be for privileged people, notably royalty. Not likely for the rest of the masses like Vaishyas, Shudras and Brahmanas.
Besides, the SB shows many instances of day-to-day women who did *not* live in their own wing, but worked outdoors. Such as the hunchbacked lady who gave a young Krishna fruits IIRC(?) She did not segregate herself from Krishna and Balarama.
Nor the Gopis.
This is *very* different from islamania which orders a segregation of all men and women because of a fundamental inequality.
In islam it isn't specialised behaviour restricted to the cream of the nation (kShatriya royal women, and by extension their female staff).
It remains a fact that royal women or high aristocracy (like nth degree princes who were not successors to the throne) were *not* usually universally accessible or meant to be universally accessible, anywhere in the world: they are *not* private people, they are public persons (same as their male counterparts). That is, they were usually meant to marry royalty/other high aristocracy and thereby seal unions of political importance and to strengthen bonds between neighbouring kingdoms.
Royal households generally can't afford their royal daughters to run off with the chimney sweep, shepherd, gardener, jester or shoemaker. (I inserted that line as a throwback to the fewer number of fairy tales that show a cute exception.) Royal chambermaids are collateral: their living space and thus behaviour conforms to that of their mistress. Not all nations' chambermaids got married or even had the chance thereof - though there's several indications that Indian royal handmaids got married (at least arranged marriages, just like their mistress).
Only very rich people like royalty and high aristocracy can afford to set aside separate wings anyway - besides, they're usually the only ones that can afford a castle or palace or more.
2. The shloka is from the Srimad Bhagavatam (SB), not from the Mahabharatam (MBH) or its appendix Harivamsha.
SB is dated much later than MBH by Hindu scholars. The majority of the text is estimated to have been finally concretised in the first part of the 6th century CE, though an earlier version is known to have existed in the 4th century CE.
The SB reflects some of the traditions extant at the times and the localities it was set down in.
A similar case already came up: the earlier instance IIRC had to do with Tulsidas in his Ramacharitamanas. Apparently he had Sita "cover up" in his retelling of the Ramayanam. This was discussed long ago on IF.
Islamics wanted to use the instance to accuse Hindus of having the "veil" and "purdah" before islamania too, except 1. no definite reference to veil, IIRC "cover up" didn't necessarily mean the head; or 2. it could again just be Tulsidas' own time and familiarity with his own context influencing this detail; and/or 3. the *fashionable* royal veil having been borrowed from the Persians before islam came to India and hence sticking around to influence Tulsidas. Or any other such simple reason which has nothing to do with restricting women; and/or 4. No evidence this was a universal Hindu thing across all of Indic geography and community either.
3. Like the "Jai Swami Narayan" movement, ISKCON and some other (northern) Indian movements* also has certain views of women and men-women interactions that it likes to justify as universal Hindu "tradition" with recourse to what seem rather like tenuous references. I find one can argue most positions. Better to argue for what is known to be true though, or has very high likelihood for being true.
* The fact that usually northern Indian movements tend to hold this view seems to me to be argument for a prolonged islamic influence** that led to them thinking and reasoning in this manner: that this was natural, the norm or a universal Hindu social behaviour. In any case, it factually isn't a universal Hindu social behaviour.
** The way many are influenced by the monotheisms and colonialism to contort Hinduism into a monotheism and saying that this was the "true/original" Hinduism. [<- That last is my own phrase by the way. I recently notice others used something similar; from what I could make out, they are influenced by Malhotra in this. But I have used that style of phrase for over a decade and evolved it entirely independently. Mentioning this, since RM tends to copyright his general phrasings like "u-turn" and "digestion", when I think a lot of Hindus used these and similar phrases before and independent of him for similar phenomena.]
[quote name='Meluhhan' date='16 February 2016 - 07:52 AM' timestamp='1455588856' post='117923']
Srila Prabhupada mentions pardA in pre-Islamic India in a commentary to a [url="http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/1/10/16"]Srimad Bhagavatam verse[/url]:
Quote:It is only the less intelligent persons not well versed in the history of the world who say that observance of separation of female from male is an introduction of the Mohammedan period in India. This incident from the MahÃÂbhÃÂrata period proves definitely that the ladies of the palace observed strict pardà(restricted association with men), and instead of coming down in the open air where Lord Ká¹âºÃ¡Â¹Â£Ã¡Â¹â¡a and others were assembled, the ladies of the palace went up on the top of the palace and from there paid their respects to Lord Ká¹âºÃ¡Â¹Â£Ã¡Â¹â¡a by showers of flowers.
[/quote]
Parda/Purdah, let alone a universal social construct seen affecting all Hindu wo/men, is an unnecessary assumption. In any case, there's no comparison with islamania's segregation (purdah). That's unless we're also expected to pretend that Iranians, Chinese, Japanese and Greeks also had purdah.
To stick to what's known or has been documented:
1. From the quoted paragraph of ISKCON's commentary/spin on Shrimad Bhagavatam (SB) above,
- the women go up to shower flowers on Krishna. Easier done from somewhere high up like balconies. The Devas are often shown (in the Hindu epic cinema of yore) showering flowers on earth-dwelling divinities and on Hindu heroes for having acted righteously from up in the sky too.
- it speaks only of "the ladies of the palace" and admits to no more.
Something that is universally seen among royalty and high aristocracy in Asia to Europe is that royal women have their own chambers in a palace, their own wing in a castle, etc. Ladies in waiting/chambermaids also tend to be found in (end up restricted to) these areas. (Whereas other staff - male and female - are not restricted to these parts and some are not allowed there.)
It ain't purdah.
In China, royal and aristocratic women had their own area in the royal palace/aristocratic household too. There were huge numbers of women there, usually men didn't venture there.
From the context of the Odyssey you can see Penelope and the maids of her interior household are all in the female part of the house, which ends up having more of a feeling of a jail/enforced limited space when the suitors invade during the daytime. Telemachus tells his mother several times to go back to her chambers and not show herself to the belligerent suitors, as befits her station (as married woman and aristocrat).
(Moreover, when Penelope does show herself officially in public/to the suitors, she is usually veiled. IIRC she still appears veiled when she finally shows herself for the penultimate competition.
Christianity didn't invent the veil, neither did islam: it was already used by Persian Zoroastrians at least, and certainly by the Greeks. However, among the Greeks and Persians it seems more often women of aristocratic rank rather than the average household maid let alone female slave that had the "privilege" of covering her face in the presence of unknown men. The Persian ritualist males were moreover to have been veiled to keep their fire pure.)
In other words, it need come as no surprise that royal or other high aristocratic (i.e. kShatriya) Hindu women at the time the SB was written (or even - at least conceptually - at the time of the MBH context) could afford their own wing at the palace and were regarded so special as to not have to deign to show themselves to everyone.
It's like etiquette. It would be for privileged people, notably royalty. Not likely for the rest of the masses like Vaishyas, Shudras and Brahmanas.
Besides, the SB shows many instances of day-to-day women who did *not* live in their own wing, but worked outdoors. Such as the hunchbacked lady who gave a young Krishna fruits IIRC(?) She did not segregate herself from Krishna and Balarama.
Nor the Gopis.
This is *very* different from islamania which orders a segregation of all men and women because of a fundamental inequality.
In islam it isn't specialised behaviour restricted to the cream of the nation (kShatriya royal women, and by extension their female staff).
It remains a fact that royal women or high aristocracy (like nth degree princes who were not successors to the throne) were *not* usually universally accessible or meant to be universally accessible, anywhere in the world: they are *not* private people, they are public persons (same as their male counterparts). That is, they were usually meant to marry royalty/other high aristocracy and thereby seal unions of political importance and to strengthen bonds between neighbouring kingdoms.
Royal households generally can't afford their royal daughters to run off with the chimney sweep, shepherd, gardener, jester or shoemaker. (I inserted that line as a throwback to the fewer number of fairy tales that show a cute exception.) Royal chambermaids are collateral: their living space and thus behaviour conforms to that of their mistress. Not all nations' chambermaids got married or even had the chance thereof - though there's several indications that Indian royal handmaids got married (at least arranged marriages, just like their mistress).
Only very rich people like royalty and high aristocracy can afford to set aside separate wings anyway - besides, they're usually the only ones that can afford a castle or palace or more.
2. The shloka is from the Srimad Bhagavatam (SB), not from the Mahabharatam (MBH) or its appendix Harivamsha.
SB is dated much later than MBH by Hindu scholars. The majority of the text is estimated to have been finally concretised in the first part of the 6th century CE, though an earlier version is known to have existed in the 4th century CE.
The SB reflects some of the traditions extant at the times and the localities it was set down in.
A similar case already came up: the earlier instance IIRC had to do with Tulsidas in his Ramacharitamanas. Apparently he had Sita "cover up" in his retelling of the Ramayanam. This was discussed long ago on IF.
Islamics wanted to use the instance to accuse Hindus of having the "veil" and "purdah" before islamania too, except 1. no definite reference to veil, IIRC "cover up" didn't necessarily mean the head; or 2. it could again just be Tulsidas' own time and familiarity with his own context influencing this detail; and/or 3. the *fashionable* royal veil having been borrowed from the Persians before islam came to India and hence sticking around to influence Tulsidas. Or any other such simple reason which has nothing to do with restricting women; and/or 4. No evidence this was a universal Hindu thing across all of Indic geography and community either.
3. Like the "Jai Swami Narayan" movement, ISKCON and some other (northern) Indian movements* also has certain views of women and men-women interactions that it likes to justify as universal Hindu "tradition" with recourse to what seem rather like tenuous references. I find one can argue most positions. Better to argue for what is known to be true though, or has very high likelihood for being true.
* The fact that usually northern Indian movements tend to hold this view seems to me to be argument for a prolonged islamic influence** that led to them thinking and reasoning in this manner: that this was natural, the norm or a universal Hindu social behaviour. In any case, it factually isn't a universal Hindu social behaviour.
** The way many are influenced by the monotheisms and colonialism to contort Hinduism into a monotheism and saying that this was the "true/original" Hinduism. [<- That last is my own phrase by the way. I recently notice others used something similar; from what I could make out, they are influenced by Malhotra in this. But I have used that style of phrase for over a decade and evolved it entirely independently. Mentioning this, since RM tends to copyright his general phrasings like "u-turn" and "digestion", when I think a lot of Hindus used these and similar phrases before and independent of him for similar phenomena.]