I am beginning to realize why our sages insisted on sticking to oral traditions as compared to writing it down. If not mistaken there was prohibition on Vedas being written. Anyways.
It is disheartening to see old timers who are well versed with scriptures getting themselves entangled into what will be acceptable and what is not acceptable to site visitors , HSE community etc. Moreover the notion that answers straight from scriptures may incite bad behaviour is stretching it a bit too much.
Let's take the example of hitting women with grass being permissible with scriptures that is being discussed in comments.
Is it illegal today ? Yes.
Does it mean that our ancients were incorrect to follow it ? Ofcourse not. And not because times were different. They were not wrong because correcting wives in this manner was sanctioned in the dharmashastras.
Does it mean scriptures were promoting bad behaviour?Not at all. Husband , assuming that he has not lost right to hit because of his other transgressions, is carrying out his duty. And failure to do so means he will incur bad karma. Moreover wife will incur bad karma for not correcting her behaviour.
So should I hit wife with grass if I want to abide by scriptures?No. It is illegal act.
But I don't want to incur bad karma . What to do ?If state has enacted laws that are against dharmashastras then karma doctrine says that bad karma will be borne by state ( in a democracy this would be - those who have been voted to power and those who have voted such people to power).
Now what's the issue when we try to nuke such questions. The biggest problem is that genuine seekers of knowledge will end up gobbling information from not so reputed sites , and they usually are of two forms
- Hinduism promotes violence towards women
- Scriptures contain information that belonged to a different era, and require updation
Both are absolutely wrong. But I guess some in here feel they are doing Hinduism a great service by nuking such questions from this site.
