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From Vice Chancellor's Desk

What is it about women that induced the ancient Greeks, Romans and Indians to deify wisdom not as a god but as a goddess? Just as we worship Saraswati as the goddess of learning, the Romans venerated Minerva – and the Greeks, Athena – as the goddess of wisdom. Yet, though learning or wisdom was deified as a goddess, education and scholarship were virtually a male monopoly. But the lack of formal education could not impede the flowering of remarkable women, celebrated in history and literature. The witty, enterprising heroines of Shakespeare’s comedies like Rosalind in As You Like or Portia in The Merchant of Venice and the heroines of Tagore like the charming Charulata interested in arts and literature could not be mere figments of imagination. Writers draw their material from life.

What is it about women that induced the ancient Greeks, Romans and Indians to deify wisdom not as a god but as a goddess? Just as we worship Saraswati as the goddess of learning, the Romans venerated Minerva – and the Greeks, Athena – as the goddess of wisdom. Yet, though learning or wisdom was deified as a goddess, education and scholarship were virtually a male monopoly. But the lack of formal education could not impede the flowering of remarkable women, celebrated in history and literature.

The witty, enterprising heroines of Shakespeare’s comedies like Rosalind in As You Like or Portia in The Merchant of Venice and the heroines of Tagore like the charming Charulata interested in arts and literature could not be mere figments of imagination. Writers draw their material from life.