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| Celebrating Daughters From Ashoksundari to Rudrama Devi |
But don’t know how our talk got in Amitabh Bachchan tweet about daughters and then back to Shiva family. Kamal said even gods don’t want daughter, so why would their people. But this time he was wrong, I told him about Mansa, the daughter of Shiva. But after discussing about Mansa, we did not have anything to talk. And then, we realised, we actually don’t celebrate daughters as much as sons.
After doing my research I found Shiva and Parvati have three daughters, Ashokasundari, Mansa and Jyoti. And according to some traditions, Lakshmi and Saraswati are also their daughters. Even Narayana and Lakshmi have daughters. And one of most celebrated avatars of Narayana, Rama has elder sister. The king of gods, Indra too has a daughter. So does other gods. But we rarely talk about them.
Not talking about mythology, we had Rudrama Devi, a female king, who ruled in 13th century Southern India. Queen Didda, who played a major role in Kashmiri Politics and later, she ruled Kashmir, first as proxy ruler and gained complete sovereignty after his son death in early 11th century. Nayanika, who ruled as a proxy ruler after his husband death for nearly two decades on behalf of his son around 200 BC. And there is Rani Durgawati (1524–1554), Chand Bibi (1550–1599), Devi Ahilya Bai Holkar (1725–1795) and many more like them.
In the end, I learned we as society don’t celebrate our daughters. We modified our gods, according to our needs. We have replaced our so called divine texts, according to what suits to us. We interpret them to what we like to hear. Even when a daughter does act of honour, or something to pride, we don’t celebrate them, we label their acts as foolery and so on. I believe this is time to change. I believe this is time to celebrate our daughter.
Happy Daughter’s Week.
Photo Credit: Dr Tr