‘All that is’ exists because it’s beautiful and its beautiful because it exists. But what is this elusive quality called beauty? Beauty is anything that pleasures the basic senses of any being.
Beautiful women have always played an important role in early Indian life. King Suddhodana of the Sakyas surrounded his son Siddhartha, the Buddha to be with beautiful dancers and damsels in the palace grounds, so that enamoured of their charms, he might not forsake all to be the Universal Deliverer as foretold. Ravana’s harem of beauties and his life therein, as described in the Ramayana are well known. The dancing apsaras, ever beguiling and seductive, inhabited Indra’s heavenly court.
In ancient Chinese literature, the so-called beautiful woman looks thin and fragile. Her feet are tiny, because they have been bound, and she looks frail, almost sickly. That seems to have been the preference at a certain time. But later, in the T’ang Dynasty, an ideal woman was someone voluptuous and healthy-looking. Even today, many cultures consider plump women to be beautiful, and young women are strongly encouraged to eat well. This may sound incredible to women who live in societies where tall and thin models set the trend for what is considered beautiful.
In Japan too, the definition of beauty seems to vary according to the times. Beautiful women who were portrayed in wood-block prints during the Edo period had long faces, thin eyes and large protruding chins. But, after the Second World War, women who were quite buxom were suddenly considered attractive.
All this makes some question how there can be such different standards in society concerning women’s beauty. Women tend to find themselves in a trap that makes them eager to fit themselves into the mould of ‘the beautiful woman’—a standard set by the social trends of the time.
Every woman is beautiful. It all begins by believing in your own beauty.
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