gender equality
ABSTRACT: This paper demonstrate notion of gender equality, and its nature as well as status of women in ancient Indian culture. Gender equality between men and women means that different behaviour; aspirations and needs of women and men are considered, valued and favoured equally. But in ancient India specially, in Indus valley civilization, women had a respectable position in society. In early Vedic period, there was plethora of Goddesses to respect for women. In Vedic society women participated in religious ceremony and tribal assemblies. Widows could remarry and child marriages were unknown in society. But, in the later Vedic period, the position of women gradually deteriorated. The period clearly sees the growing tendency to stratify society along gender lines. Women lost their political rights. Child marriage, the system of Sati emerged in the shape of a formal custom during later Vedic period. But in Buddhist and Jain culture women were accorded respect and their rightful place in society.