Two myths
1) Females were never educated in ancient India
2) Best farming is natural farming – no ploughing, no soil preparation
There is often common rhetoric in armchair intellectuals that condition of females in ancient India were not good. There was male-dominated society. Bla bla bla….
Here is one example from Bengal to break the myth.
Khana (Bengali: খনা, pron. khawnaa) was an Indian poet and legendary astrologer, who composed in the medieval Bengali language between the ninth and 12th centuries AD. She is associated with the village Deuli, in Barasat district, West Bengal.
Her poetry, known as khanAr bachan (or vachan) (খনার বচন) (meaning “khana’s words”), among the earliest compositions in Bengali literature, is known for its agricultural themes.
One of her aphorism says:
” For the successful cultivation of cotton one has to plough the land 16 times, for radish 8 times, for paddy 4 times and for betel nil.”
Cotton plant has an elaborate root-system, radish is a herb, paddy is a surface feeder, and betel is a climber that produces numerous adventitious aerial roots.
So, a female agricultural scientist teaches many generations to come agriculture in effortless, shareable, copyright-free form of wisdom i.e. aphorisms and songs.
First myth is wrong.
Second is not agriculture but lethargy driven by deluded sentiments towards mother nature.
