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and/or www.mantra.com/jai
Nov 24, 2011, 3:48:08 PM11/24/11
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Ram's denigration is a political project
By Chandan Mitra
The Pioneer
http://www.dailypioneer.com
Sunday, November 20, 2011
The Great Tradition is always more influential than the Little
Tradition. But Leftists still malign mainstream Ramayan to weaken
Indian civilisation
Ever since Ramayan was serialised on TV in 1986-87 leading to an
unprecedented revival of religiosity among Hindus in post-
independence India, Marxist ideologues have been disoriented by the
threat to their intellectual hegemony. To their further dismay, the
surge of devotion for Ram was quickly capitalised by LK Advani. His
epic Rath Yatra from Somnath in 1989, although aborted in Samastipur
before it could reach its intended destination, generated near-
hysteric fervour across the country culminating in the demolition of
the Babri Masjid which stood at the spot widely believed to have been
the exact place of god-king Ramachandra's birth. That the mosque
erected by Mir Baqi, a general in first Mughal Emperor Babar's army,
was built by demolishing a Hindu temple marking Ram Janmasthan, added
fuel to the ever-latent communal discord.
Left-wing scholars and activists had tried hard to mobilise opinion
against the BJP's campaign prior to the demolition. Following several
failed attempts by Hindu groups to storm the shrine's precincts
between 1990 and early 1992, Marxists mounted a feisty campaign to
demolish the divinity of Ram among the faithful. The most
controversial of these attempts was the staging of an exhibition at
Ayodhya titled "Hum sab Ajuddha" (We can't be vanquished). Funded by
the then Congress stalwart and HRD Minister Arjun Singh, the
exhibition depicted various versions of the Ramayan story, drawing
upon tribal and other folklore. The most offensive ingredient on
display was the depiction of Ram and Sita as brother and sister
according to an obscure tribal interpretation. Agitated Hindu groups
stormed the venue and ransacked the exhibits. Although the organisers
raised a hue and cry, the fact that such an "obscene" display aimed
at denigrating Ram and the entire Ramayan tradition was paid for by
the Government put the Congress on the defensive.
It is important to keep this in mind while understanding the Leftist
intelligentsia's agenda. In their zeal to promote a perverted variant
of secularism, they evolved an incendiary mix of minority appeasement
and Hindu denigration. Their mistaken belief that concerted bids to
demolish Ram's divinity would lead to Hindu masses turning away from
religion backfired grievously. Suggestions that the disputed site at
Ayodhya should be used to build structures ranging from a Government
hospital to a public lavatory actually culminated in strengthening
the idea of Ram as the central deity in the Hindu pantheon.
For some years now, Left intellectuals, especially hardline Marxist
historians, have been on the retreat. But the successful campaign to
remove a controversial essay by AK Ramanujan from Delhi University's
II year BA History syllabus has suddenly infused them with a new
sense of purpose. In the name of academic freedom they are busy
trying to rebuild the fraying coalition of discredited Stalinists and
assorted woolly-headed liberals thereby recreating an atmosphere of
confrontation in Delhi University aimed primarily at isolating the
BJP.
What is the issue with Ramanujan's essay? Derived from Paula Richmond
(edited) "Many Ramayans: The Diversity of Narrative Tradition in
South Asia" (University of California Press, 1991), the essay
compares a few select episodes from the great epic as narrated in the
僧ainstream' Valmiki Ramayan with other versions, particularly
Kamban's Tamil work and some Jain tellings. The main example chosen
by Ramanujan is the Ahalya episode in which the wife of sage Gautama
has a sexual encounter with a lustful Lord Indra who, assuming the
form of her husband slept with her while Gautama had gone to a nearby
river to take a bath.
Whether Ahalya was lured unsuspectingly into having sex or willingly
participated in the act is a matter of debate and the two versions
differ in their respective interpretations. But the theme of the
episode in both versions is the same. Gautama had cursed his
unfaithful wife and her lover, making her into a stone statue.
Similarly, he decreed that a thousand vagina cover Indra's body as a
reminder of his illicit lust (Kampan) while in Valmiki, the god loses
his testicles. While Valmiki says on Indra's fervent pleas a council
of Gods got the enraged Gautama to relent and the ever-benevolent
Ram's testicles were grafted onto Indra, Kampan claims the Gods
transformed the vaginas into a thousand eyes.
This tale of sexual deviation has little to do with Ram since in both
versions, Ram the munificent brings a penitent Ahalya back to life.
According to Ramanujan, Valmiki does not attribute godly qualities to
Ram, placing him in the category of god-man whereas in the Kampan
version Ram is clearly a god. I totally fail to understand what then
is the issue about? There is nothing to suggest that Ram is not a
divine personality. In a Jaina tale, Ravana is described as noble,
learned and one of 63 Jain salakapurusas, who attained his powers
through tapas (meditation), was genuinely in love with Sita but had
to die in battle while pursuing his passion. In certain South Indian
lores, Sita is said to have been born of Ravana, who got pregnant and
eventually ejected his "daughter" through his nose"!
The question is: Why should 19 year old IInd year BA History students
be compelled to study these bizarre, obscure versions of one of the
world's greatest epics? While such comparative texts can be dissected
by mature post-graduate or doctoral students of ancient or
Comparative Literature, why are young, impressionable minds being
poisoned by tales of overt sexuality among Gods revered by Hindus?
The salacious, if improbable story of Ahalya has little bearing on
Ram; teaching students Indra's transgressions, therefore, forms part
of the Leftists' political project to denigrate Hinduism and Hindu
epics.
Ramanujan does not narrate, for example, the Pabuji cult, which I
came across in William Dalrymple's "Nine Lives". Worshipped in a
small area of Rajasthan near Bikaner, Pabuji's tale is narrated in a
600-year-old poem, which revolves around the "semi-divine warrior and
incarnate god, Pabu, who died protecting a goddess's magnificent
herds against demonic rustlers". These include the wicked villain
Jindrav Khinchi while Pabuji also protects his women from a
"barbaric, cow-mudering Muslim marauder Mirza Khan Pathan." Then
Pabuji proceeds to Lanka and scores a splendid victory over "Ravana,
the ten-headed Demon-King of Lanka, from whom he steals a herd of
camels as a wedding gift for his favourite niece." Dalrymple refers
to sociologist Komal Kothari who was fascinated by the fusion of a
local hero's tale with the epic Ramayan and concluded that the
distinction between classic epics and folk epics often gets blurred.
Left-wing scholars know well that over time, the Great Tradition
tends to subsume the Little Tradition. In the case of Ramayan,
Valmiki's version, taken forward by Tulsidas's Ram Charit Manas has
emerged as the dominant interpretation of the Great Epic. Fishing out
odd texts from local variations or taking recourse to folk and tribal
versions to indoctrinate undergraduate students is a deliberate ploy
to create confusion. At no stage can Valmiki Ramayan or Tulsidas's
Ramcharitmanas be compared in influence or importance to examples
from the Little Tradition.
Ramanujan's essay was introduced in the Delhi University BA History
syllabus with the sole purpose of turning young Hindus into agnostics
or atheists so that they grow up to be cannon fodder for Marxist
"warriors" against the robust civilisational values of India. Unless
we recognise the hidden agenda of the diabolic Leftist
intelligentsia, the fight to purge Indian academia of their bigoted
objectives will not succeed.
http://dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/50517-rams-denigration-is-a-political-project.html
More at:
http://www.dailypioneer.com
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.
Since newsgroup posts are being removed
by forgery by one or more net terrorists,
this post may be reposted several times.
By Chandan Mitra
The Pioneer
http://www.dailypioneer.com
Sunday, November 20, 2011
The Great Tradition is always more influential than the Little
Tradition. But Leftists still malign mainstream Ramayan to weaken
Indian civilisation
Ever since Ramayan was serialised on TV in 1986-87 leading to an
unprecedented revival of religiosity among Hindus in post-
independence India, Marxist ideologues have been disoriented by the
threat to their intellectual hegemony. To their further dismay, the
surge of devotion for Ram was quickly capitalised by LK Advani. His
epic Rath Yatra from Somnath in 1989, although aborted in Samastipur
before it could reach its intended destination, generated near-
hysteric fervour across the country culminating in the demolition of
the Babri Masjid which stood at the spot widely believed to have been
the exact place of god-king Ramachandra's birth. That the mosque
erected by Mir Baqi, a general in first Mughal Emperor Babar's army,
was built by demolishing a Hindu temple marking Ram Janmasthan, added
fuel to the ever-latent communal discord.
Left-wing scholars and activists had tried hard to mobilise opinion
against the BJP's campaign prior to the demolition. Following several
failed attempts by Hindu groups to storm the shrine's precincts
between 1990 and early 1992, Marxists mounted a feisty campaign to
demolish the divinity of Ram among the faithful. The most
controversial of these attempts was the staging of an exhibition at
Ayodhya titled "Hum sab Ajuddha" (We can't be vanquished). Funded by
the then Congress stalwart and HRD Minister Arjun Singh, the
exhibition depicted various versions of the Ramayan story, drawing
upon tribal and other folklore. The most offensive ingredient on
display was the depiction of Ram and Sita as brother and sister
according to an obscure tribal interpretation. Agitated Hindu groups
stormed the venue and ransacked the exhibits. Although the organisers
raised a hue and cry, the fact that such an "obscene" display aimed
at denigrating Ram and the entire Ramayan tradition was paid for by
the Government put the Congress on the defensive.
It is important to keep this in mind while understanding the Leftist
intelligentsia's agenda. In their zeal to promote a perverted variant
of secularism, they evolved an incendiary mix of minority appeasement
and Hindu denigration. Their mistaken belief that concerted bids to
demolish Ram's divinity would lead to Hindu masses turning away from
religion backfired grievously. Suggestions that the disputed site at
Ayodhya should be used to build structures ranging from a Government
hospital to a public lavatory actually culminated in strengthening
the idea of Ram as the central deity in the Hindu pantheon.
For some years now, Left intellectuals, especially hardline Marxist
historians, have been on the retreat. But the successful campaign to
remove a controversial essay by AK Ramanujan from Delhi University's
II year BA History syllabus has suddenly infused them with a new
sense of purpose. In the name of academic freedom they are busy
trying to rebuild the fraying coalition of discredited Stalinists and
assorted woolly-headed liberals thereby recreating an atmosphere of
confrontation in Delhi University aimed primarily at isolating the
BJP.
What is the issue with Ramanujan's essay? Derived from Paula Richmond
(edited) "Many Ramayans: The Diversity of Narrative Tradition in
South Asia" (University of California Press, 1991), the essay
compares a few select episodes from the great epic as narrated in the
僧ainstream' Valmiki Ramayan with other versions, particularly
Kamban's Tamil work and some Jain tellings. The main example chosen
by Ramanujan is the Ahalya episode in which the wife of sage Gautama
has a sexual encounter with a lustful Lord Indra who, assuming the
form of her husband slept with her while Gautama had gone to a nearby
river to take a bath.
Whether Ahalya was lured unsuspectingly into having sex or willingly
participated in the act is a matter of debate and the two versions
differ in their respective interpretations. But the theme of the
episode in both versions is the same. Gautama had cursed his
unfaithful wife and her lover, making her into a stone statue.
Similarly, he decreed that a thousand vagina cover Indra's body as a
reminder of his illicit lust (Kampan) while in Valmiki, the god loses
his testicles. While Valmiki says on Indra's fervent pleas a council
of Gods got the enraged Gautama to relent and the ever-benevolent
Ram's testicles were grafted onto Indra, Kampan claims the Gods
transformed the vaginas into a thousand eyes.
This tale of sexual deviation has little to do with Ram since in both
versions, Ram the munificent brings a penitent Ahalya back to life.
According to Ramanujan, Valmiki does not attribute godly qualities to
Ram, placing him in the category of god-man whereas in the Kampan
version Ram is clearly a god. I totally fail to understand what then
is the issue about? There is nothing to suggest that Ram is not a
divine personality. In a Jaina tale, Ravana is described as noble,
learned and one of 63 Jain salakapurusas, who attained his powers
through tapas (meditation), was genuinely in love with Sita but had
to die in battle while pursuing his passion. In certain South Indian
lores, Sita is said to have been born of Ravana, who got pregnant and
eventually ejected his "daughter" through his nose"!
The question is: Why should 19 year old IInd year BA History students
be compelled to study these bizarre, obscure versions of one of the
world's greatest epics? While such comparative texts can be dissected
by mature post-graduate or doctoral students of ancient or
Comparative Literature, why are young, impressionable minds being
poisoned by tales of overt sexuality among Gods revered by Hindus?
The salacious, if improbable story of Ahalya has little bearing on
Ram; teaching students Indra's transgressions, therefore, forms part
of the Leftists' political project to denigrate Hinduism and Hindu
epics.
Ramanujan does not narrate, for example, the Pabuji cult, which I
came across in William Dalrymple's "Nine Lives". Worshipped in a
small area of Rajasthan near Bikaner, Pabuji's tale is narrated in a
600-year-old poem, which revolves around the "semi-divine warrior and
incarnate god, Pabu, who died protecting a goddess's magnificent
herds against demonic rustlers". These include the wicked villain
Jindrav Khinchi while Pabuji also protects his women from a
"barbaric, cow-mudering Muslim marauder Mirza Khan Pathan." Then
Pabuji proceeds to Lanka and scores a splendid victory over "Ravana,
the ten-headed Demon-King of Lanka, from whom he steals a herd of
camels as a wedding gift for his favourite niece." Dalrymple refers
to sociologist Komal Kothari who was fascinated by the fusion of a
local hero's tale with the epic Ramayan and concluded that the
distinction between classic epics and folk epics often gets blurred.
Left-wing scholars know well that over time, the Great Tradition
tends to subsume the Little Tradition. In the case of Ramayan,
Valmiki's version, taken forward by Tulsidas's Ram Charit Manas has
emerged as the dominant interpretation of the Great Epic. Fishing out
odd texts from local variations or taking recourse to folk and tribal
versions to indoctrinate undergraduate students is a deliberate ploy
to create confusion. At no stage can Valmiki Ramayan or Tulsidas's
Ramcharitmanas be compared in influence or importance to examples
from the Little Tradition.
Ramanujan's essay was introduced in the Delhi University BA History
syllabus with the sole purpose of turning young Hindus into agnostics
or atheists so that they grow up to be cannon fodder for Marxist
"warriors" against the robust civilisational values of India. Unless
we recognise the hidden agenda of the diabolic Leftist
intelligentsia, the fight to purge Indian academia of their bigoted
objectives will not succeed.
http://dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/50517-rams-denigration-is-a-political-project.html
More at:
http://www.dailypioneer.com
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.
Since newsgroup posts are being removed
by forgery by one or more net terrorists,
this post may be reposted several times.
fanabba
Nov 24, 2011, 4:26:13 PM11/24/11
to
On Nov 24, 3:48 pm, use...@mantra.com and/or www.mantra.com/jai (Dr.
> ‘mainstream' Valmiki Ramayan with other versions, particularly
> http://dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/50517-rams-denigration-is-a-p...
The silence of the leftists in the matter of the arrest of the
Christian Priest for
converting Muslims in Kashmir is deafening !
Jai Maharaj) wrote:
> Ram's denigration is a political project
>
> By Chandan Mitra
> The Pioneerhttp://www.dailypioneer.com
> Ram's denigration is a political project
>
> By Chandan Mitra
Christian Priest for
converting Muslims in Kashmir is deafening !
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
Nov 24, 2011, 11:37:31 PM11/24/11
to
In article <d889f2b3-769e-430b...@h5g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>,
fanabba <fan...@aol.com> posted:
>
> Dr. Jai Maharaj posted:
> > =91mainstream' Valmiki Ramayan with other versions, particularly
fanabba <fan...@aol.com> posted:
>
> Dr. Jai Maharaj posted:
> The silence of the leftists in the matter of the arrest of the
> Christian Priest for converting Muslims in Kashmir is deafening !
Yes it's so loud I can't hear anything else!
> Christian Priest for converting Muslims in Kashmir is deafening !
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