Kanya Vandan Mahotsva

NEED OF KANYA VANDAN

After a long harassments of feminine power in medieval and colonial period, girls and women have given all constitutional rights of property, liberty, freedom, education, respect, protection, and everything what they wanted. So today’s status of women is again just like as it was in Vedic era!  You can find them everywhere, from ambassadors, CEOs of multinational companies, sports and fashion icons to even military battle field of countries. Such women are an inspiration to all girls who aspires to follow the same path in the future. Once again, just like ancient Vedic era, women, have made a place for themselves and reached the top in every field that they have trailed. Nothing can stop them. We believe that the India’s future lies in daughters futures.

But its matter of great sorrow and grieve that even today in this technological era when whole world look like a global village, girls still faces a lot after coming in the world in the form of foeticide, dowry deaths, gangue rape, violence, illiteracy, bride burning, sexual harassment, child abuse, women trafficking, exploitation, discrimination, and so many!. Cases of such incidents

Many people still expect from their daughter-in-laws to give birth to a baby boy instead of girl baby.  Sometimes, new couples are in pressure from their family members to give birth to a baby boy. Sex determination is criminal offense in India but due to such foolish thoughts, a shameful incidents of sex determination and girl child foeticide can be easily found in society. The increased number of female foeticide has disturbed the sex ratio in India. Our country had 912 girls/1000 boys in 2011 and it is expecting to be only 900/1000 by 2021, and  sex ratio particularly in women worshiper’s Hindu society may be less than only 700 only per 1000 male! The situation of Durga worshiper’s society is getting worsen day by day and it is running fast in suicidal mode. millions of boys remain unmarried! Skewed sex ration again a very dangerous sign for a happy society because there are concerns it lead to more violence against females, as well as human-trafficking. In some villages in Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab where there is poor sex ratios the men illegally “import” brides from other States. This is often accompanied by the exploitation of these girls.

Therefore this Kanya Vandan Mahotsava is program in which the girls do raise all their debilitating issues and the people speared awareness and importance of girls and welcome, respect & honour them.

दुनियाँ में भ्रूणहत्या से अधिक बुरा कोई पाप नहीं है। जिसने कन्या की भ्रूणहत्या की हो, कालान्तर में उसका वंश सर्वथा नष्ट हो जाता है।

GREATEST HONOUR FOR GIRLS & WOMEN IS OUR TRADITION

Kanya Vandan or Kanya Pujan literary means girl’s respect.  The Kanya Vandan Mahotsava is a grand function which is being organize for welcome and honour of girls children in society. Kanya Vandan is actually an ancient  Hindu holy ritual, generally carried out on eighth and ninth day (Ashtami and Navami) of the Navaratri festival. This festival is celebrated in month of Chaitra  and Ashvini of Hindu calendar. The Hindus celebrates this festival of goddess Durga everywhere in the world. The ceremony primarily involves the worship of nine girls, representing the nine forms of Goddess  Durga  called Navadurga. but here in our Mahotsava we worship all Kanyas, who come. Its also called as Kumari Pujan in many states of India. In Kanya Vandan, it is a custom to wash and clean the feet of these nine young girls as a mark of respect for the whole feminine power, the Goddess Durga. Kanya Puja as a part of Devi worship, is to recognise the feminine power vested in the girl child.  As per Hindu philosophy, these  9  girls are considered as the manifestation of the natural force of creation. It is said that it was on the ninth day of Navaratri that Shakti had taken the form of Goddess Durga, on the request of the devas to kill the demon Mahisasura.

Indian scritures say that in kanya,  the great feminine potential is at its peak. Having developed into a girl of a certain age and before attaining puberty, a female child is considered the most auspicious, most awaken and the most clear minded & pure souled individual. Therefore the girl child of the age before puberty is indeed a Devi.

Actually, the highest respect is given for women (whole feminine power) in Indian civilization from time immemorial. People do prayer to goddess Durga, that-

विद्या: समस्तास्तव देवि भेदा: स्त्रिय: समस्ता: सकला जगत्सु।

त्वयैकया पूरितमम्बयैतत् का ते स्तुति: स्तव्यपरा परोक्ति :॥

अर्थ :- देवि! सम्पूर्ण विद्याएँ तुम्हारे ही भिन्न–भिन्न स्वरूप हैं। जगत् में जितनी स्त्रियाँ हैं, वे सब तुम्हारी ही मूर्तियाँ हैं। जगदम्ब! एकमात्र तुमने ही इस विश्व को व्याप्त कर रखा है। तुम्हारी स्तुति क्या हो सकती है? तुम तो स्तवन करने योग्य पदार्थो से परे एवं परा वाणी हो।

We can easily understand how the Hindu society give respect to the girls and women. In ancient Indian culture, women were treated as equal to men and there was no gender based discrimination in the society. Women were honored by society and society at the time considered women as Janani i.e  mother. In Hindu scripture women are considered as Devi.  It is written  that-

यत्र नार्यस्तु पूज्यन्ते रमन्ते तत्र देवताः ।
यत्रैतास्तु न पूज्यन्ते सर्वास्तत्राफलाः क्रियाः ।।

जहाँ स्त्रियों की पूजा होती है वहाँ देवता निवास करते हैं और जहाँ स्त्रियों की पूजा नही होती है, उनका सम्मान नही होता है वहाँ किये गये समस्त अच्छे कर्म निष्फल हो जाते हैं।   Means, where women are worshiped, there lives the Gods. Wherever they are not worshiped, all actions result in failure.

शोचन्ति जामयो यत्र विनश्यत्याशु तत्कुलम् ।
न शोचन्ति तु यत्रैता वर्धते तद्धि सर्वदा ।।

जिस कुल में स्त्रियाँ कष्ट भोगती हैं ,वह कुल शीघ्र ही नष्ट हो जाता है और जहाँ स्त्रियाँ प्रसन्न रहती है वह कुल सदैव फलता फूलता और समृद्ध रहता है ।
Means,  the family in which women (such as mother, wife, sister, daughter etc.) are full of sorrow that family meets its destruction very soon; while the family in which they do not grieve is always prosperous.

HOW THE STATUS OF WOMEN DECLINED ?

At Vedic time, women used to enjoy their full basic rights where they were free to receive education. Wives of the Rishis could take part in Yajna and other spiritual activities with their husbands. They were also known as the Ardhangini (better half) too. Women got to live equal life just like men used to live. But with the passage of time, their positions might have changed but in the Vedic era, they were a complete symbol of protector and caretaker of mortality and ideals. But somehow in the medieval period there seen a huge decline in the respect, integrity, and equality among them. Historians believe that Islamic conquest is the main reason behind decline of women’s status an respect in India. Due to this foreign conquest, women have to adopt the ‘pardah’ or ‘ghunghat’ a veil that covers the body, that affects their freedom. It further gave birth to many other evils which made girls and women’s life more difficult to live.  Later at time of Mughal’s , no education for girls, van on widow’s re-marriage and child marriage become very common practice in society. It was darkest time for women in India.

STATUS OF GIRLS TOUCHED THE LOWEST LEVEL IN BRITISH RULE

After decline of Mughal empire, the Britishers dominated Indian, and made us slave. the impacts of Mughal period were still continue. The status of women, at the dawn of the British rule in India, reached the lowest level in the society. The wife’s position in the household was in a sorry state. The rate of literacy was so low that hardly one woman in a hundred was able to read or write. However as compared to Mughal’s Islamic empire, Britishers imposed a law based rule over India. It is seen that Britishers by nature are liberal to women, but it is not truth. In the British rule, rights of the women were openly abused and they officially created bothels (prostitution centres). They made prostitution, a legal right for Indian women ! Apparently, only 12-15 Indian women served an entire regiment of 1000 British soldiers! So the status of women in Britisher rule was at lowest in history of India. women’s condition in India become deplorable. In that situations, how could Indian girls and women think of education, equal rights, equality and respect?

But, Due to urbanization and industrialization Britishers thought of women’s power which could be utilized in menial jobs. It was mere a thought based on “more the produce more the loot” ! For this reason, education and training which has been identified as the major instrument for women. A girl’s school was started for the first time in Bombay in 1824. The Hunter commission too emphasized on the need for female education in 1881. and after,1882 girls were allowed to go for higher education.

the Nationalist Movement of the twentieth century helped women much to took up issues like women’s education, abolition of social evils, Hindu law reform, equality of rights and opportunities and women’s suffrage. Many women associations had emerged and started kinds of agitation and awareness campaign about women issues likes the polygamy, child marriage, denial of property rights and illiteracy etc. Not only urban but simple women from rural areas also participated in it. This hundreds of year of agitations and movements opened the door for education for girls.

However, one thing was positive, that the British imposed a law based rule over India. So, the people, under the law, get united and Indians stated the movement against Britishers and also started fight for their rights. The Social Reform Movement of the nineteenth century, was a major movement which affected the position of women. Raja Ram Mohan Roy played an important role in abolition the of Sati system.Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar also made pioneering efforts for the upliftment of the status of women it was due to his efforts that the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 could be passed. Many social reformers and Vedic scholars like Swami Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda, Maharishi Karve and women like Annie Besant played a crucial role in mass awakening.

This gradual effort of social reformers in colonial period help in uplift of women’s status.