[Advaita-l] True scholarship

[Bhaskar YR]

"He was a man with liberal and rational outlook. He held women in high esteem and taught them vedic mantras and performances of rituals".

Could this be taken as a precedent/pramANa for today's times w.r.t women studying the Vedas given your Guruji's orthodoxy and scholarship?


praNAms
Hare Krishna

IMHO, if someone is scholar and analytical in his approach towards traditional practices, he cannot be a strict orthodox.  And someone else  though is a master (scholar) of shAstra and vidhi (injunction) he wants to be within the boundaries of tradition without asking about its applicability in modern day world  in the fear of being called as asaMpradAyavAdi.  So, scholars like this donot want to be critical about the traditional practices though they think some are outdated or need some amendments depending on desha, kAla and deha dharma.  Some religious / spiritual institutions like Chinmaya mission, Arsha vidya gurukulam, rAmakrishna order etc. come under first category,  hardly care about some of the traditional injunctions / practices though,  they give lot of respect to bonafide traditional Amnaya mutts and their practices.  Women / non-dvija-s  chanting / learning veda mantra-s, initiating other varNa-s and women to  sannyasa, the vedic rituals by non-dvija-s / avarNi-s etc. are some of the bold contribution by these organizations against the tradition.  And for that matter even Amnaya mutts, though being aware of these unorthodox practices by these institutions do not openly ask / put questions when the 'heads' meet the Amnaya peetAdhipati-s and these heads being honored in orthodox Amnaya mutts for their contributions to vedAnta  when their approach to dharma shAstra vidhi-s (karma kAnda) is quite questionable.  

In the books like antyeshti / shrAddha Sri Srikanta Kumaraswamy openly questions the traditional beliefs based on purANa-s like garuda and says shrAddha ritual observed by sons has nothing to do with departed souls it is only for the chitta shuddhi of the kartru and it is the ruNa (liability) that has to be cleared by the kids of deceased parents.  And as above, he freely allows the stree-s to do vedAdhyayana and allow them to perform vedic rituals by chanting the vedic mantra-s.  No need to mention these are all quite against the traditional stand but quite acceptable when it is viewed from the scholarly analytical person who has no obligation to tie himself within the orthodox tradition.  

Just few of my thoughts. 

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar