Bhagavad Gita · Chapter 9: The Royal Knowledge and Royal Secret

Bhagavad Gita 9.32

māṃ hi pārtha vyapāśritya ye'pi syuḥ pāpayonayaḥ | striyo vaiśyāstathā śūdrāste'pi yānti parāṃ gatim ||

For those who take refuge in me, Arjuna, even those whom society counts as low-born, and women, vaishyas, and shudras as well, reach the supreme goal.

Modern context

The verse names groups that the society of its time often kept from the highest religious learning: those counted low by birth, women, merchants, labourers. And it says plainly that all of them reach the supreme goal through devotion. Some of its wording reflects the prejudices of its age, and modern readers rightly notice that. But the force of the verse ran against those prejudices. It opened the highest path to everyone, without exception of birth or gender.