Editing Guru (section)

====Gender and caste====
The Hindu texts offer a conflicting view of whether access to ''guru'' and education was limited to men and to certain ''[[Varna (Hinduism)|varna]]'' (castes).<ref name=murty>[[Kotha Satchidanda Murthy]] (1993), Vedic Hermeneutics, Motilal Banarsidass, {{ISBN|978-8120811058}}, pages 14-17</ref><ref name=asharma/> The Vedas and the Upanishads never mention any restrictions based either on gender or ''varna''.<ref name=murty/> The Yajurveda and Atharvaveda texts state that knowledge is for everyone, and offer examples of women and people from all segments of society who are ''guru'' and participated in vedic studies.<ref name=murty/><ref>D Chand, [https://archive.org/stream/yajurveda029670mbp#page/n279/mode/2up Yajurveda], Verses 26.2-26.3, Osmania University, page 270</ref> The Upanishads assert that one's birth does not determine one's eligibility for spiritual knowledge, only one's effort and sincerity matters.<ref name=asharma/>

The early Dharma-sutras and Dharma-sastras, such as Paraskara Grhyasutra, Gautama Smriti and Yajnavalkya smriti, state all four varnas are eligible to all fields of knowledge while verses of Manusmriti state that Vedic study is available only to men of three varnas, unavailable to Shudra and women.<ref name=murty/><ref name=asharma>[[Arvind Sharma]] (2000), ''Classical Hindu Thought: An Introduction'', Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0195644418}}, pages 147-158</ref>{{refn|[[Patrick Olivelle]] notes the modern doubts about the reliability of Manusmriti manuscripts. He writes, "Manusmriti was the first Indian legal text introduced to the western world through the translation of Sir William Jones in 1794. (...) This was based on the Calcutta manuscript with the commentary of Kulluka. It was Kulluka's version that has been assumed to be the original [vulgate version] and translated repeatedly from Jone (1794) and [[Wendy Doniger|Doniger]] (1991). The belief in the authenticity of Kulluka's text was openly articulated by Burnell. This is far from the truth. Indeed, one of the great surprises of my editorial work has been to discover how few of the over 50 manuscripts that I collated actually follow the vulgate in key readings."<ref>Patrick Olivelle (2004), ''Manu's Code of Law'', Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0195171464}}, pages 353-354, 356-382</ref><br />Sinha writes, in case of Manusmriti, that "certain verses discouraged, but others allowed women to read Vedic scriptures."<ref>J Sinha (2014), Psycho-Social Analysis of the Indian Mindset, Springer Academic, {{ISBN|978-8132218036}}, page 5</ref>|group=Note}} Kramrisch, Scharfe, and Mookerji state that the guru tradition and availability of education extended to all segments of ancient and medieval society.<ref name=stellacrafts/><ref>Hartmut Scharfe (2007), ''Education in Ancient India: Handbook of Oriental Studies'', Brill Academic, {{ISBN|978-9004125568}}, pages 75-79, 102-103, 197-198, 263-276</ref><ref>Radha Mookerji (2011), ''Ancient Indian Education: Brahmanical and Buddhist'', Motilal Banarsidass, {{ISBN|978-8120804234}}, pages 174-175, 270-271</ref> Lise McKean states the ''guru'' concept has been prevalent over the range of class and caste backgrounds, and the disciples a guru attracts come from both genders and a range of classes and castes.<ref>Lise McKean (1996), ''Divine Enterprise: Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist Movement'', University of Chicago Press, {{ISBN|978-0226560106}}, pages 14-22, 57-58</ref> During the [[bhakti movement]] of Hinduism, which started in about mid 1st millennium CE, the ''gurus'' included women and members of all ''varna''.<ref>John Stratton Hawley (2015), ''A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement'', Harvard University Press, {{ISBN|978-0674187467}}, pages 304-310</ref><ref>Richard Kieckhefer and George Bond (1990), ''Sainthood: Its Manifestations in World Religions'', University of California Press, {{ISBN|978-0520071896}}, pages 116-122</ref><ref>Sheldon Pollock (2009), ''The Language of the Gods in the World of Men'', University of California Press, {{ISBN|978-0520260030}}, pages 423-431</ref>