Gender Roles In Ancient India

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In the reading Alberuni’s India, it discusses in depth many important aspects of the classic Indian culture. Some aspects of what classic Indian culture include varna (caste systems) and also the different gender roles. When you compare the aspects of India to The Tales of Ancient India, we can pick out several differences between these two texts. With that, in this paper I will talk about what I consider to be realistic when referring to the two texts, how gender roles differ between The Tales of Ancient India and Alberuni’s India, and lastly I will discuss how varnas (caste systems) differentiate between the two texts. First, once reading “The Man Who Impersonated God Visnu,” and Alberuni’s India, many differences are presented to us in the reading. For instance, for me a big thing that was how Lohajangha lied and pretended to be the God Visnu. Personally I find this to be quite contrary to what Alberuni’s India has to say about people who lie. A passage I found in Alberuni’s India states, “They call them mleccha, i.e. impure, and forbid having any connection with them, be it by intermarriage or any other kind of relationship, or by sitting, eating, and drinking with them, because thereby, they think, they will …show more content…
In the text, “The Red Lotus of Chastity” from the passage The Tales of Ancient India, there is an excerpt that I would like to focus on. This excerpt is talking about a rich merchant named Dhanadatta, whom had no sons with any of his wives. He wanted a son so he did something to try and change that, the Brahmans said, “long ago there was a king who had no son’s…He caused a special sacrifice for a son to be preformed, and a son was born to him (pg. 103, “The Red Lotus of Chastity”, The Tales of Ancient India).” Dhanadatta wanted to go through this sacrifice so that he could have a son. He received a son and he named him

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