He is omnipresent – but for twenty-five centuries he has not been seen anywhere. He is omnipotent, he can do anything. All the qualities of God are attributed to Mahavira because Jainism does not believe in God.

It makes one thing clear: that there is some inner psychological need – if you remove God, then all the qualities of God are deputed to somebody else. And the reason is that man is born in a family where the father is the master.

Just the other night I was telling a journalist from Sweden that God is man’s creation. All the religions say God created man in his own image. It is a lie! The truth is, man has created God in his own image. Of course, he could not make God a woman.

But there are a few small, primitive societies around the world where God is not he, God is a she. And that seems to be more logical because “she” includes “he,” but “he” does not include “she.” “She” is vaster, bigger; it has a womb.

Those small primitive societies where God is thought of as a woman have not been able to achieve weapons, destructive methods. They have not been fighting; there have been no wars in a matriarchal society. The fact has to be considered. The man-made society has been doing only one thing, continuously fighting.

In those societies where God is a mother, the psychology is the same. It seems the child, because he is brought up by a mother and a father…whoever is more powerful becomes his idea of God. In matriarchal societies the woman is powerful. She works, she creates, she goes to the farm, she goes to the garden. She does everything that you have been told the woman cannot do because she is weak, she is “the fair sex,” she is delicate.

But in matriarchal societies just the opposite is the case. The man looks after the children and for centuries that has been his work, baby-sitting. Naturally he is smaller than the woman, his height is not that of the woman.

You will be surprised, in those matriarchal societies…. I have visited two. In India there are a few, just small tribes living in the deep forest. The woman has muscles, not the man. Muscles are not something natural and the birthright of somebody. Whoever works is bound to create muscles. A man like me, who is bone lazy, cannot have muscles!

And for centuries, if man has been just looking after children, cooking food…The woman has grown taller, stronger, because she is cutting wood, she is sowing the seeds, reaping the crop, doing everything that man is doing in our societies. Naturally, the child creates a mother figure.

One of the ancient scriptures in India Manusmriti has dominated Indians for five thousand years. And by the way, you will be surprised that in the modern world only two men outside India were immensely impressed with Manu’s ideas: one was Friedrich Nietzsche and the other was Adolf Hitler. Both are male chauvinists. They both praised Manu because Manu has given the whole moral code to Hindu society. He is still followed.