Recorded at the Vedanta Society of Western Washington on August 14, 2011.

In this talk, Swami Bhaskarananda traces the position of women in Hinduism from the earliest Vedic period to the present. He begins by outlining how religion arose in human cultures as an attempt to answer questions about life, death, and moral order, and notes that when religious ideals are not lived, societies decline. Turning to early Aryan culture, he describes a “golden age” in which men and women shared religious and educational privileges: both underwent initiation, studied the Vedas, and participated together in Vedic rituals. The Swami highlights women seers, scholars, and even warriors mentioned in the Rig Veda and Upanishads, and stresses the special reverence given to motherhood, with scripture urging that one regard one’s mother as God.

He then explains how, over later centuries, social changes and decadence led to the restriction of women’s education, early marriage, and growing dependence, with some legal texts reflecting this decline even while still praising noble women. Foreign invasions further intensified protective attitudes and seclusion. Swami Bhaskarananda next describes modern reform movements in India—such as those of Raja Rammohan Roy, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, and especially Swami Vivekananda and the Ramakrishna Order—that worked to restore dignity, education, and opportunity to women. He recounts Sri Ramakrishna’s worship of God as the Divine Mother, his reverence for women, and the example of Sri Sarada Devi’s universal motherhood. The talk concludes by noting the wide range of roles Hindu women now occupy in contemporary India and by affirming Vedanta’s vision of harmony among religions for the welfare of all.