Mahashivratri

Top 2. Apr 25, 2004 8:32 PM

» Harsh Nevatia - Re: I really liked this

In response to message posted by LadyKelien:

first of all i thank you for taking the time to comment on the subject. the hindu religion as is practiced today has taken a battering from islamic and christian sexual prudence. all ancient sexual overtones are suppressed. fortunately ancient hinduism flourishes as a culture through art, literature, music and theatre.

i was late in responding to your message because i am engaged in creating a course on hindu mythology for suite university and hence was not able to keep up with the messages i received.

-- posted by Harsh Nevatia

Top 3. Apr 26, 2004 9:18 AM

» LadyKelien - Re: Re: I really liked this

In response to message posted by hkyyin:

I understand about the posting delay. Im working on a Major Arcana Tarot course that is taking me forever. My concentration has been so shot lately I cant even do my daily meditations. Ive worked for years getting rid of that problem and now its back in full force. Mercury in retro at its best.

I understand what your saying about it taking a battering. But, so much does survive in the mythos. Because ancient Greek faiths are no longer practiced outside of the few Pagans and Wiccans who call upon ancient Gods, The orignional myths have been changed a lot in recent years.

One TV station here locally, use to play a cartoon that was suppose to teach Ancient Greek Mythos to children. Usually only 30 percent of the story they told was accurate to the origional myth. Simply the idea that Hinduism can hang on to its myths in at least an extreamly close proximity to the origional form is amazing to me.

I want to study it througly unfortunatly I have been able to locate very few books where the comminators notes dont distract from what is being said. I do have a few, but, I struggle to make sense of what is being said around what the commentators feel they need to say. Why they cant just translate the stories and let us decide the meanings of them on our own is beyond me.

-- posted by LadyKelien

Top 4. May 6, 2004 7:18 PM

» Harsh Nevatia - Re: Re: Re: I really liked this

In response to message posted by LadyKelien:

in respose to some of the issues raised in your posting i give below a peep from the course i am preparing.

3. Different versions of the Ramayana

The Ramayana was first written by Valmiki the robber-turned-sage. The story of Rama was narrated to him by Narada. Once he witnessed a bird being killed by a hunter and heard the heart-rending cry of the bird’s mate. He felt the pain and out of this pain he was inspired to write the Ramayana. The date of Valmiki’s Ramayana has bee stated by various sources as between 1500 BC and 500 BC.

Since then the Ramayana has been written in practically each Indian language and several foreign languages. Then there are numerous stage, film and television productions of the Ramayana. Tulsidas writes, “God is limitless and there is no limit to his stories.” In this section we shall be concerned with Valmiki Ramayana and two others. One is Kamban Ramayana written in Tamil in the eleventh century by Kamban. The prescribed text is based on this Ramayana. The other is Rama Charita Manas written by Tulsidas in the 16th century. This has been written in an early form of Hindi. We shall consider two episodes from the Ramayana, Ahalya and Vali, which have moral and social repercussions and try to draw conclusions about the changing values in society.

Ahalya was created by Brahma as the most beautiful woman. One meaning of ‘hal’ is deformity and Ahalya therefore means one who has no deformity or one of perfect beauty. She was married to Sage Gautama. For many years Gautama was practicing abstinence in order to increase his powers and hence Ahalya too was forced to live a life of abstinence. Once, when the sage had gone for his morning bath, Indra came to Ahalya disguised as the sage and made love to her. Gautama discovered them and punished Indra and turned Ahalya to stone. When Rama’s feet touched the stone, the curse was broken and Ahalya regained her human form. Valmiki and Kamban describe this episode in some detail, whereas Tulsidas makes a brief mention. Though the essence remains the same there are differences in detail between Valmiki’s and Kamban’s narrations. We are concerned with what was Ahalya’s involvement in this affair.

According to Valmiki when Indra approached Ahalya disguised as her husband she immediately saw through the disguise, but consented to the affair with Indra. According to Kamban she realised that the man she was with was not her husband only midway through the liaison, but was unable to protest and continued. Tulsidas gives no details about the incident. He simply says that Ahalya was turned to stone because of Gautama’s curse.

In Valmiki’s time it was acceptable to acknowledge adultery though not to condone it. Sex was not consigned to the closet but healthily discussed. In Valmiki Ramayana one can feel an underlying sympathy, though again no justification, for Ahalya’s act. In Kamban’s time it was not possible to accept that the wife of a sage could descend to the level of wilful adultery. Hence Kamban projects the incident as one of seduction. In Tulsidas’s time it would not be possible to discuss sex nor accept that Ahalya was at any time aware that it was Indra who was with her and not Gautama. This sequence shows two trends. One trend is of an increasingly puritan society and the other of typecasting people as either good or evil. There was no grey area in between.

There is another very interesting interpretation of this incident. Another meaning of ‘hal’ is plough. ‘Halya’ is ploughable and ‘ahalya’ is unploughable. The interpretation is that Ahalya refers to a barren tract of land which though the effort of Rama (divine or otherwise) was converted to a fertile paradise.

-- posted by Harsh Nevatia