I am enclosing a correspondence I have had with Dr Terence Kealey, Vice
Chancellor of Buckingham University. He had written an article with the
title "Why is a Hindu temple like a Soho phone box? Must I draw you a
picture?" and was published in The Times, and is available at:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,...22,00.html
The subject line of the correspondence was: "RE: A BIGOTED PIECE OF
WRITING....... BY TIMES,UK". This was the line used by the person who
forwarded the article to me and other Hindutvavadis. I decided to keep
it as it was.
The article is enclosed at the end of the correspondence, which ends
with a 'request' that there be no further correspondence on the subject.
I have not responded to that message.
The reason for sending the correspondence is to give another example of
what the Hindus are confronted with in academic circles. Obviously, I
think that the fault lies with people like Dr Kealey.
The blurb on Dr Kealey from the university website is enclosed after the
article.
Namaste.
Ashok Chowgule
-------------------
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>One</b>
To: Dr Terence Kealey
Email: terence.kealey@buckingham.ac.uk
cc: Colleen Carter (PA to the Vice-Chancellor)
Tel: (01280) 820207
Fax: (01280) 820373
Email: colleen.carter@buckingham.ac.uk
Dear Dr Kealey,
With reference to your article enclosed. Could you tell your readers
how many Hindu temples exist in central and southern India which are
what you call startingly erotic? And how many of them did you visit
before writing your piece?
Furthermore, you say : "...we scientists are materialists and we
distrust spiritual accounts."
Have you applied this principle generally and have written your views
about the virgin birth of Jesus Christ and the journey to heaven by
Mohammed on a winged horse?
I eagerly await your reply. I have cced this message to a friend of
mine who resides in the UK.
Namaste.
Ashok Chowgule, Goa, India.
================
<b>Two</b>
Thank you for your e mail. My article made it clear that I was startled
by the eroticism of the Indian temples I saw, that I believe in material
explanations for natural and human events, and that India is only
representative of many pre-free-market societies, many of which engaged
in temple prostitution. Why do you call this bigoted?
Yrs
Terence Kealey
==================
<b>Three</b>
Dear Dr Kelly,
It is bigoted because you have given an impression that in ALL the Hindu
tempes in South and Central India are 'startlingly erotic'. And in your
response you are giving an impression that temple prostitution is a rule
and not an exception. Is it a requirement of being a vice-chancellor
not to understand such basic things?
Furhtermore, in your response you have not provided me with information
about your writings on Christianity and Islam on the issues that I had
posed. Your rsponse also talks about 'many pre-free-market societies',
and that of these 'many' are engaged in temple prostitution. Can you
please list out the other such societies?
Namaste.
Ashok Chowgule
=====================
<b>Four</b>
Dear Ashok Chowgule,
Thank you for your e mail. The first sentence of my article read:- "The
Hindu temples of central and southern India can be startlingly erotic"
which is not compatible with the first sentence of your e mail:- "...you
have given an impression that in ALL the Hindu tempes in South and
Central India are 'startlingly erotic'". Moreover, I have explained that
I believe in material
explanations for natural and human events, which encompases all
religions, and I have explained that I used India only as a
representative of many pre-free-market societies (basically because its
temples' erotic statues survive and they are so remarkable). As for the
evidence of widespread temple prostitution in many cultures, that is the
stuff of schools textbooks, it is so well known. Look it up on
Wikipedia.
I am puzzled by your e mail. Are you denying the existence of erotic
statues on Indian temples? Are you denying the existence of temple
prostitution in India? Are you suggesting I'm targeting Hinduism
because, in a short article where I describe my responses to erotic
sculptures in India, I do not engage in a description of Jesus or
Mohammed?
So, you please answer my questions. And let me add one more to them. How
do YOU explain the erotic statues on Hindu temples in India? And if you
haven't seen them, look up the reference on Khajuraho on Wikipedia.
yrs
Terence Kealey
PS I do not invoke Wikipedia because I think it's perfect but because
it's an on-line encyclopedia that anyone can reference and that is
common to you and me in terms of access.
=====================
<b>Five</b>
Dear Dr Kealey,
Let a person from the Third World, and a Hindu to boot, give his
understanding of English. You are correct that I interpreted your
statement ("The Hindu temples of central and southern India can be
startlingly erotic") to mean that you contend that ALL temples are of
this type. Now, for a simple person like me, if you had said "SOME
Hindu temples", I would not have interpreted the staement as I did. I
think, not being brought up in a culture of the Queen's English, the
lack of the appropriate adjective would most probably make many others
interpret your statement as I did. Just as if I had said that the
Christian churches in England are very ugly, I would willingly accept
that a person reading my statement would have a poor opinion of my
aesthetic values.
Re your use of "India only as a representative of many pre-free-market
societies (basically because its temples' erotic statues survive and
they are so remarkable)."Â Being born in a third world country, and a
Hindu to boot, I am not as well versed in academic standards as you
appear to be, at least based on your bio-data that has been posted on
your university website. I would have thought that an academic would
use a subject as a representative of the argument that he is making only
when he is well versed in that subject. And the same academic would
surely not use one aspect (in this case the fascination for erotic
statues in temples) of the society to make a judgement of the whole
society. But then we in the third world may well be wrong, and I would
like you to educate us all in the high standards of academics, so that
we can improve ourselves.
Re your statement: "As for the evidence of widespread temple
prostitution in many cultures, that is the stuff of schools textbooks,
it is so well known."Â Obviously you think that temple prostitution is
the rule in the Hindu culture. Could you please let us Hindus know
which other cutlures is this practice 'widespread'? In the third world
textbooks this is not 'the stuff' that is taught to us.
Re your statement: "I do not invoke Wikipedia because I think it's
perfect but because it's an on-line encyclopedia that anyone can
reference and that is common to you and me in terms of access."
Does this mean that you have based your arguments on information gleaned
from Wikipedia, or on the basis of a more thorough investigation? For
example, did you yourself see the erotic statues in the temple of
Khajurao or saw some pictures in Wikipedia?
You have asked me to answer three questions that you pose. But you have
not answered the questions that I had posed earlier. Of course, if it
is your contention that a Hindu belonging to the third world has no
right to ask questions of a high level academic in the first world, then
I will stand corrected, and answer your questions without expecting that
I will receive answers to my questions.
Namaste.
Ashok Chowgule, Goa, India.
=====================
<b>Six</b>
From: "Terence Kealey" <terence.kealey@buckingham.ac.uk>
To: "Ashok Chowgule" <ashokvc@chowgulegoa.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 5:09 PM
Subject: RE: A BIGOTED PIECE OF WRITING....... BY TIMES,UK
Dear Ashok Chowgule,
Thank you for your e mail. If you had written:- "the Christian churches
in England can be very ugly" (echoing my words) you would find that most
of us would agree. I certainly think most modern and Victorian Christian
churches in England are ugly. But you didn't. You wrote:- "the Christian
Churches in England are very ugly" (as if echoing my words, but choosing
a form of words that is inaccurate and, in the context of this
correspondence, misleading).
Now you are making the point that you are "a person from the Third
World." So?
And now you seem to be suggesting that I haven't visited India or seen
the temples and their erotic statues! And when I invoke Wikipedia as a
frame of reference we can both access and therefore jointly discuss, you
ask about other sources of reference!
This correspondence is not working. I've tried to answer your points
courteously, but you're not addressing me with the same spirit.
Let us agree to correspond no more,
yrs
Terence Kealey
============
Why is a Hindu temple like a Soho phone box? Must I draw you a picture?
Science Notebook by Terence Kealey
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,...22,00.html
THE HINDU temples of central and southern India can be startlingly
erotic. The temples of Khajuraho are the most explicit, being encrusted
with statues of naked females â?" big-breasted and narrow waisted â?"
doing naughty things with rampant men (see them on Google images). How
can a religion be so pornographic?
The standard explanation is that Hinduism harnessed sex in the service
of mysticism, but we scientists are materialists and we distrust
spiritual accounts. How would anthropologists explain pornographic
temples?
The first clue was provided by Robert Carneiro in his paper A Theory of
the Origin of the State. There, Carneiro noted that the first states
were created by despots, who exploited the introduction of agriculture
some 10,000 years ago. Human tribes, Carneiro observes, have fought each
other for millennia, but when human beings were still hunter-gatherers a
battle led only to the dispersal of the defeated, who melted away.
After agriculture was invented, some 10,000 years ago, a defeated tribe
could not afford to disperse: it had become dependent on the food of its
farms. So, if defeated in battle, agricultural tribes would collude with
their victors, producing food in exchange for quarter: â?oYe shall give
the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed
of the field, and for your foodâ? (Genesis 47). The first states,
therefore, were cruel places, which exploited men â?" and women.
In her book Despotism and Differential Reproduction: A Darwinian View of
History, Laura Betzig noted how similarly the early emperors â?" whether
in Africa, Asia or America â?" behaved, suggesting that traditional
empires can best be understood not historically but biologically, having
been moulded by coalitions of dominant males to propagate their genes.
All the emperors had harems, for example, and the Indian Udayamaâ?Ts
16,000 women were used similarly to the thousands owned by the Inca Sun
King or the Chinese Emperor. Consequently, DNA testing has confirmed
that upper- caste females in India are genetically indistinguishable
from lower-caste females, because pretty hoi polloi girls have always
been imported into the palaces. But the upper-caste males of India â?"
who are the descendants of the Aryan conquerors of 5,000 years ago â?"
have never allowed male proles to marry their daughters, and they remain
genetically distinct. They have, therefore, retained the spoils of
conquest for themselves and their sons.
One aspect of imperial despotism is the restriction of trade. It was
Charles Darwin who noted that trade is a human instinct. In Voyage of
the Beagle Darwin described the natives of Tierra del Fuego as
primitive, yet: â?oThey had a fair idea of barter. I gave one man a
large nail (a most valuable present) without making any signs for a
return; but he immediately picked out two fish, and handed them up on
the point of his spear.â?Â
Traditional empires, being despotic, restricted trade to the palaces and
temples, forbidding hoi polloi from trading or travelling. Only priests
and princes and certain privileged merchants (who were closely
regulated) traded and travelled. And one lucrative trade that the
priests and princes often monopolised was the oldest and most despotic
of all, prostitution. Temple prostitution was, therefore, a feature of
Hinduism and other imperial cultures â?" and a profitable one too. There
were, for example, some 400 women on the payroll at the Rajarajesvara
temple in Tanjore in the 11th century. They were procured by priests who
roamed the land in search of pretty young girls.
Doubtless the girls were seduced by a theology of mysticism, just as the
widows who, as suttees, threw themselves on their dead husbandsâ?T
funeral pyres believed they were attaining spiritual purity, but the
sexual economics of female exploitation provide a candid explanation of
what was happening. As do the statues on the temples. Frankly, they are
arousing, even in these jaded times, being more explicit than the photos
in todayâ?Ts telephone booths. In short, a millennium ago the temples of
India were brothels â?" they may have been more than that, but they were
brothels too â?" and they advertised their wares as brothels always
have. The erotic temple statues of India remind us, therefore, that
kings and priests â?" like politicians today â?" have always been
despots.
==================
On Terence Kealey
The Vice-Chancellor
Dr Terence Kealey has been Vice-Chancellor at the University since April
2001. He is a well-known academic specialising in Clinical Biochemistry.
Dr Kealey received his doctorate from Oxford University in 1982 and
worked as the Wellcome Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Science at the
Nuffield Department of Clinical Biochemistry, University of Oxford. He
then moved to Cambridge University to become a lecturer in the
Department of Clinical Biochemistry. He left in 2001 after 13 years to
come to Buckingham.
Dr Kealey is known for his book The Economic Laws of Scientific Research
and for his journalism and scholarship where he has shown that
governments need not fund science or higher education. His argument is
that the independent sector can provide wider access and deeper
scholarship than the state. Dr Kealey wrote a regular column in the
Daily Telegraph until very recently which was thought provoking and
often controversial.
The Vice-Chancellor is a familiar figure to all staff and students and
this adds to the feeling of a close knit community.
Dr Terence Kealey
Email: terence.kealey@buckingham.ac.uk
Colleen Carter (PA to the Vice-Chancellor)
Tel: (01280) 820207
Fax: (01280) 820373
Email: colleen.carter@buckingham.ac.uk<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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