Increasing Femininity: Ancient Women’s Arts, Part 1

One of the most ancient ways to increase femininity is women’s arts that are thousands of years old. These arts come to us from ancient Vedic knowledge that as we already know has plenty of wisdom for us.

Back in the days, a harmonious woman was the one who could accumulate her energy and then apply it to fulfill her feminine talents and skills, to follow her woman’s path, and to be able to follow the laws of female representations of God – Goddesses Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Parvati.

Vedic Upbringing for Girls

In Vedic times it was considered the main duty of each woman to perfectly know all 108 woman’s arts. Her mothers and grandmothers were teaching her these since she was a little girl. Without this knowledge, she wouldn’t be able to find her inner balance. Nor she could have harmony and peace in her own family. Her tutoring was going on since early childhood until the rest of her life under the direction of adults first, then husband, or just her family if she was not married. So, her main mission was to bring herself to a harmonious state.

Among those 108 there were not only woman’s arts that had to do with home, such as the ability to house clean, cook and decorate the house, take care of children, and so on. There was also much more deep philosophical knowledge, abstract sciences, various fine arts. All of these things are governed by Goddess Saraswati that always protects those who bring harmony to this world one way or another. But her especially strong protection goes to those women who truly follow their main dharma, or life mission – harmonizing internal and external space. This is the main duty, the main mission of every woman. The more woman is in harmony and full of energy, the better she can maintain and nourish her family.

Now, let’s just take a moment here. I won’t describe all 108 woman’s arts her, at least not this time. I will only mention a few, and then a few more in my next article.

As we can see, the ancient culture of Vedic times is very traditional, by thinking that woman is responsible for her home and family. However, it also sees a woman as a source of other knowledge, more deep and philosophical. And even when we look at those more “traditional” parts of a woman’s education, we will see how they are also very important and how a woman is much better for that than, let’s say, a man. Once we understand what magic we can create by knowing all these things, we never want to let anyone else do it for us.

So I don’t see any limitations of woman’s rights here. If anything, I see an amazing opportunity to become a very wise, feminine woman who knows who she is and who can do many beautiful things.

Ancient Women’s Arts from Vedas

I have separated them by categories to give it a better look and for easier understanding. Here are the first 16 of them.

Women’s Arts in Health

1. Asana-Vidya, or simply yoga. “Asana” means position and “vidya” means knowledge. This is the art of knowing how to keep your body healthy and fit, not only physically but energetically too. Since early childhood girls have been studying it, and it was not only limited to yoga but to any body-oriented techniques and exercises that help maintain health and the right energy flow. They were doing it until they a very old age.

2. Pranayama-Vidya, the knowledge of proper breathing. Without this art, Asana-Vidya was impossible to do. Because proper asana is a result of proper breathing (and not vice versa how many Western teachers teach now). Proper breathing does so many things, it will require a whole separate article. In brief, it helps with energy flow and with a prana increase in the body.

3. Rasayana-Vidya, the knowledge of cultivating and maintaining youthfulness and longevity. It includes a whole complex of practices, techniques, and life philosophy that aims to slow down the destruction of DNA and to elongate life. The most powerful way to do it is to love someone strongly, but especially – to love your partner or spouse.

4. Abhyanga, the art of massage. This is an Ayurvedic oil massage that can be performed on someone else or yourself. This method is a rather simple procedure but still very effective as it affects many areas of the body. Usually, the sesame oil is used, which penetrates deeper into tissues and takes away all the toxins. This massage is usually a part of Dinacharya, of the daily regimen.

5. The art of basic medical needs and medical knowledge. Women needed to know to perform basic medical procedures in case of injuries or traumas. So they studied the basics of medicine to be able to know the type of diseases they see or to prevent them. A woman knew how to prepare healing medicinal concoctions for her family and herself. And she also knew how to maintain her health and her natural beauty, her balance of mind. Of course, for more severe cases doctors were needed, but a woman always knew how to help those around her in other situations.

Women’s Arts in Beauty

6. The art of washing of face and body. It includes not only specifics of the morning, midday, and evening hygienic washing but also the knowledge of water qualities, as well as the ability to charge yourself energetically using proper water, properly.

7.  Healing and decorative cosmetology. This art is about using certain essential oils and natural perfumes. It is also about making healing creams and pastes from medicinal herbs and minerals for hair, nails, and skin. It also includes the art of knowing how to do makeup to stress more attractive features and hide those less attractive ones. Those creams were of course prepared by a woman herself, so her task was to know how and to know different skin types and hair types. She also needed to be able to do learn this art to pass it over to whoever needs it at any time.

8. The art or proper walking, gestures, and movements. Ability to move gracefully and in a feminine way was very valuable and women were studying how to properly sit, stand, and lay in beautiful poses until it becomes second nature. As opposed to the Western world, where proper poses are quite uncomfortable and unnatural to the body, this art was about moving and staying in positions that are connected to Asana-Vidya and Mudra-Vidya (certain position hands and fingers). This helped the body to stay healthy and balanced.

Women’s Arts of Clothing and Jewelry

9.  The art of material knowledge. This one is about knowing various qualities of various materials, like their ability to reflect light or air permeability quality, ability to cool down or to warm up. This way a woman knew which fabric to use when, or she could make a crystal look like a real diamond when needed.

10. The art of sewing and knitting. This art is pretty straight forward: it includes knowing the type of figure of a person, ability to create clothing for that specific person (so designer skills), knowledge of 15 different types of stitches, and ability to know how to operate mechanical tools to create clothes.

11.  The art of finding and wearing proper clothes corresponding specific goals, the circumstances, the time of the year, and the age of a person.

12. The art of making jewelry. This is when a woman can create jewelry for herself and others using various gems, beads, ribbons, lace, and so on.

13. The art of making hair and the art of making headwear. Those are two different arts. The first one is knowing how to wash and brush hair properly. It is also about knowing the type of the hair, and how to use flowers and ribbons and barrettes to make them look beautiful. The second one includes the ability to not only create hats but to use other materials like ribbons and turbans that are always different from everyone else’s. Of course, they would also have the quality of protection against the sun and wind.

Women’s Art of Relationships

14.  Prema-Vidya, the art of love toward a spouse, children and grandchildren, parents, and older relatives. This art is also about general friendships and relationships, as well as love towards nature. It included an understanding of different types of love for different people, as well as different stages of love.

15. The art of using pheromones. This one is not what you think. It is the art of NOT attracting men other than your partner (different from how it is now..). This was considered one of the finest arts. Because it is about the ability to still be a beautiful and attractive woman who everyone loves but not in love with. And only her spouse is in love with her. So it is about the art of not provoking sexual desires in other men other than your own. It requires a lot of psychological work as well as great skills in working with energy. That is when pheromones are being released intentionally only for one man, and no one else.

16. The art of intimacy and making love. It includes not just the physical aspects but also some technical and psychological skills in relationships and marriage.

There is much more that I will share in my next article, so be sure to come back for it next week. Meanwhile, after reading this, let’s briefly describe this woman from ancient times.

She is the one who can heal herself and family, who can maintain her health and beauty. She is someone who knows how to give massages, how to make hats, jewelry, how to design clothes. This woman knows how to love everyone, and give special attention to her partner. Does that sound like a woman with limited rights? Not to me. To me, she sounds like an unbelievable magical amazing expert who can transform her whole life and the life of others. She is a true healer, a witch, a beauty, a muse, a wise and very educated deep woman.

This list can also give you ideas and inspirations on what to study now and where to grow if you still did not know that. We usually choose just one or two nowadays, but imagine if every one of us knew all of these things? We would be INVALUABLE.

Recognize your power and worth, and claim it, my fabulous woman.

To be continued.