As long as we are considering hypotheses about the possible origins of the phrase “two fingered intelligence” and its use for insulting the intelligence of women, here’s another possibility to consider.
All ancient cultures employed finger techniques for basic arithmetic calculations. Some of these techniques can be quite sophisticated, and knowing them is especially important in a merchant society prior to the use of writing, as we know to be the case of the Buddha’s time. Perhaps the point of the insult, then, was to suggest that women can’t count further than up to 2, can’t do any arithmetic more complicated than adding 1 + 1 or 2 - 1, or something similar.
Then Soma’s response could be seen as saying something like, “How is knowledge of number and multiplicity relevant to a collected and one-pointed mind?”
Back in Sri Lanka we have an idiom which is, I am sure either very intimately connected to the above or one derived from it. It goes like this. “Women have the intelligence of the handle of the spoon”. This is its explanation. Spoon usually a wooden one with a long handle is used to mix the rice when cooking rice and when the rice is just about cooked, the handle of the same spoon is dipped into the rice to grab a few grains of rice from the pot and then the woman takes those few grains of rice in her fingers, squeezes them to ascertain if the rice now well cooked.
In this, the woman is depicted as unintelligent and she can only do that much that is using her two fingers to check if the rice is cooked.
Hope this will add some luster to this thread.
With Metta
Yup, I’m pretty sure I adopted that idea from you, so thank you for the clearer explanation and the visual aids. Love the stock pictures - “Man grips a cup in a manly fashion”
This is essentially the same as the commentarial explanation of this verse. I didn’t realize it was a common idiom in Sri Lanka. I wonder whether it came into Sri Lankan culture from the commentary on this verse?
