This is what is written about Santan Dharma

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1) Kripal,Jaffrey J, in his book Kali's Child: The Mystical and the

Erotic in the Life and teachings of Ramakrishna . A summary of his

book in his own words reads as follows:

 

" Ramakrishna was a conflicted, unwilling, homoerotic

Tantrika……Tantra's heterosexual assumptions seriously violated the

structure of his own homosexual desires. ………He remained a lover not of

sexually aggressive women or even of older men but of young, beautiful

boys " Among the boys Swamy Vivekananda is identified as one .

 

The book is based on PhD dissertation of the author and won the First

prize award from the American Academy of Religion (AAR).He is the head

of Hindu studies in Rice University. Encyclopedia Britannica has

listed the book as a top choice for learning about Ramakrishna .

 

2) Paul B. Courtright's book –Ganesha: Lord of Obstacles, Lord of

Beginnings. The book is based on PhD thesis of author. The author is

professor in the Department of Religion at Emory University in Atlanta

Georgia USA . The book received a national award in 1985 by the

committee on History of Religions of the American Council of Learned

Societies based in Chicago .The book was reprinted by Oxford

University Press in 2003 . A reprint of the book in India was made by

the leading Indology publisher Motilal Banarasidass in 2003 . An

excerpt from the book:

 

" Ganeshas' trunk is the displaced phallus, a caricature of Siva's

linga. It poses no threat because it is too large, flaccid and in the

wrong place to be used for sexual purpose

 

" He (Ganesha) remains celibate so as not to compete erotically with

his father ,a notorious womanizer, either incestuously for his mother

or for any other woman for that matter. "

 

" Both in his behavior and iconographic form Ganesha resembles in some

aspects the figure of a eunuch…….Ganesha is like a eunuch guarding the

women of the harem. "

 

" Feeding Ganesha copious quantities of modaka satisfying his

oral/erotic desires ,also keeps him from becoming genetically erotic

like his father "

 

" Ganesha's broken tusk ,his guardian staff ,and displaced head can be

interpreted as symbols of castration "

 

3) Professor David Gordon White' book: Kiss of the Yogin: tantric Sex

in its South Asian Context .

Excerpts from the book :

 

Tantra is a ritual in which body fluids –sexual or menstrual discharge

are swallowed as transformative " power substance " to achieve magical

powers …… Abhinav Gupta of Kashmir in the eleventh century made an

attempt to transform kaula sexual practice into a simple by- product

of a higher goal: the cultivation of a divine state of higher

consciousness ……. The visarga sound of ha ( used as a mantra )is the

sound a woman makes while enjoying the sexual intercourse ……. " In

other words the `ha' sound of the visarga is the semnticization of sex

in Abhinav Gupta's system " ……..Bindu on forehead is a physical drop of

menstrual blood .

 

4) Doniger Wendy Professor of Hinduism at Chicago University , a

leading indologist and widely respected in USA ,who has authored

several books on Hinduism . Her views about Bhagwad gita, published in

Philadelphia Inquirer :

 

" The Bhagwad Gita is not a nice book ……….Throughout the Mahabharata

…….Krishna goads human beings into all sorts of murderous and

self-destructive behaviors such as war ….The Gita is a dishonest book

; It justifies war "

 

These are some of the broad observations about interpretation of

Hinduism in the academic circles in the USA . There are other research

papers which describe Hinduism in the same way as shown above. Since

these books have been authored by academic scholars they have been

accepted as reference books in schools and colleges and also in some

museums where idols of Hindu gods are displayed .Even Microsoft

encyclopedia – Encarta used these books for describing Hinduism . One

may wonder what is the source of information for these writers and

with what objectivity in mind have they written these books. Let us

examine it.

 

Material Resources

 

a) These authors have spent several years studying Hindu literature in

India and for some of them this forms dissertation for their PHD.

Hindu literature is vast and oldest. It developed over vast period of

time perhaps five thousand years. Different people did write

differently in the early stages of the development of a religious

philosophy .After all Hinduism is known as Sanatana Dharma –path of

righteousness. It welcomes all thoughts .The centrality of Hindu

thought is: Ekam Sat Vipraha Bahuda Vadanti (Truth is one but the

learned ones' call it by different names). Our Puranic literature is

full of intellectual wars over the supremacy of their chosen gods over

others who are downgraded by various accusations. This is not uncommon

in other religions as well.

 

b) Sanskrit is an archaic language which has its own history of

development .Same words are interpreted differently ,which makes their

translation difficult. One has to translate a passage in the context

of the centrality of the thought , which otherwise will lead into

erroneous conclusions .

 

c) The authors have made use of psychoanalysis as used by Freud in the

study of arts, culture and religion .

 

d) Using interviews with Hindus who do not have through knowledge

about the facts .

 

Predisposition

 

Hinduism has been the subject of study by a number of Western scholars

who have praised it abundantly .Even some of the authors under study

have written books in praise of Hinduism. Description of Hindu gods

and tantra is not the way any we describe it. But if one has

predisposition in his mind it is not difficult to find material for

that. One can easily notice this predisposition in these writings.

Various reasons for this could be:

 

i) Emergence of Hindus as a well to do community in the West including

USA, which may be cause of jealousy

 

ii) Secret challenge from Christian missionaries who use this type of

literature for conversion of tribals in India into their faith.AAR

,which has a huge presence of Christians mainly catholics.

 

iii) The authors have taken advantage of the fact that study of

religion in India is not taught at the university level and hence any

challenge from religious bodies such as ashrams ,matts etc. could be

met with easily as non scholar criticism.

 

Critiques challenge and Response

 

Despite the shortcomings as stated above, Hindu scholars, Indian as

well non Indians and activists, all over the world reacted strongly to

these writings:

 

a) Rajiv Malhotra ,president of Infinity Foundation Princeton New

Jersery USA ( www.infinityfoundation.com ) raised the banner against

these and other similar writings in 2002 by writing an article

entitled " RISA Lila-I Windy's Child Syndrome " (WCS) which was put on

sulekha.com. This generated a hu ge dialogue between the writers and

critiques. Mr. Malhotra wrote another article RISA -II which was a

challenge to the arguments presented by the RISA lobby( WCS).

 

b) RamaKrishna Mission, after initial hesitation, presented their

rebuttal through a 130 page, point by point, of the conclusions drawn

by the author, by a scholar monk Swami Tyagananda. He pointed out the

mistranslations of Bengali language done by the author of book Kali's

Child by Kripal . The author has not replied to this ,nor has he

agreed to include a summary of Tyaganands rebuttal at the end of new

edition of his book .

 

c) Hindu Students Council (HSC) at the University of Louisiana,

Lafayette started an on line petition criticizing the writings about

Lord Ganesha and Shiva by Courtright in his book about Ganesha .About

7000 signatures were collected within a few days . The campaign failed

because some anonymous signatories took advantage of the privacy that

internet offered them and posted death threats to author on the

petition.The HSC members took it off the website before situation got

out of control.

 

d) Two US based Hindus Vishal Agarwal and Kalavani Venkat wrote down a

detailed review of Courtrites book on Ganesha challenging

misrepresentation of his sources and wrong translations .This was

taken up by other writers. This has put the controversial book on hot

spot . In India Motolal Banarasidass withdrew the publication of this

book from the market with an apology.

 

e) Professor Somnath Bhattachatyya former head of the Psychology

Department at Calcutta University wrote a 12000 word article " Kali's

Child : Psychological and Hermeneutical Problems (Published on

sulekha.com). He thoroughly exposed the irrelevance of psychological

interpretations of Freud as applied to religious studies .

 

f) Sankrant sanu- An independent scholar who working with Microsoft

wrote a rejoinder about Hindu Studies as given in Microsoft's Encarta

(widely used reference by school children). This resulted in

withdrawing the references about Hinduism based on RISA Scholars

interpretation which were substituted by the one written by Professor

Arvind Sharma from McGill University in Montreal in 2004

 

g) A comprehensive description of the writings and counter defence

made by RISA scholars is given in a book: Invading The Sacred written

by KrishnanRamaswamy, Antonio de Nicolas and Aditi Banerjee Published

by Rupa and Co in India