<!--QuoteBegin-rhytha+Jun 30 2009, 12:27 PM-->QUOTE(rhytha @ Jun 30 2009, 12:27 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Did Homosexuality exist in ancient India?
First Published in Debonair, Annual issue, 2000
[...]
The question that remains now is: how does attitudes towards homosexuals in ancient India affect modern-day attitudes? Is our approval or disapproval of same-sex affection and intercourse dependent on ancient values? And while we ponder over the questions, we must remind ourselves that the ancient sources that censure homosexual conduct, also institutionalised the caste system and approved the subservience of women.
http://devdutt.com/did-homosexuality-exi...ient-india
[right][snapback]99292[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Good grief. Are these psecular writers lecturing Hindus? <i>Amazing.</i> *We* are not the ones they need to worry about, since in general Hindu society has no intention of impinging on the rights of others where these do not void or minimise our own. It is christoislamoronism that they need to be concerned about.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Aravan refused to die a virgin. As no woman was willing to marry a man doomed to die in a day, Krishnaâs help was sought. Krishna turned into a woman, married Aravan, spent a night with him and when he was finally beheaded, mourned for him like a widow. These stories allow women to have sex with women and men to have sex with men on heterosexual terms. One may interpret these tales as repressed homosexual fantasies of a culture.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Interpret away. That's what modernist Indians do.
(Also, they need to <i>give references</i> - how else are we to know they're not making stuff up.)
But I read them as given: the characters changed gender and had heterosexual relationships. (Krishna also married a bear, Jambavan's daughter. God can easily change gender or form such as human or other animal or whatever. Mahavishnu also became the beautiful divine female Mohini. At one point she and Shiva produced Ayyappa.
I know such things <i>do not compute</i> to christoconditioned people. They *must* have it that this is either a 'gay thing', a 'transvestite thing' or some thing that they can recognise in human life, or at least what they've seen on western TV or somewhere.
Far be it for Gods to be able to - gulp - <i>actually change gender</i>. Even though Vishnu can just as easily take on animal avataras like Kurma and human ones like Rama and Krishna. But for Hindu Gods <i>to become female</i> - well the biblical gawd can't do that, therefore, it 'must' be an impossibility and must 'therefore' imply what is not straightforwardly written.)
And that still does not mean I oppose homosexuality in any way.
My point is that there's simply no need to turn narratives of gender-change into implying "repressed homosexuality." People don't feel repression in the East as they do in the christoislamism-terrorised west and middle-east, because Dharmic and (S)E Asian traditionalist societies don't persecute/murder/maim gay people for being homosexual. Whereas christoislamism does.
<b>ADDED:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->One wonders why Vishnu himself transforms into a woman when he could have appointed a nymph or goddess to do the needful.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Vishnu himself incarnated as the female Mohini (such as for destroying Bhasmasura) for the same reason as why he himself manifests repeatedly in his other forms to protect the world. Our Gods are Gods of action, Gods who set the example: when action (their intervention) is required to save the world, they will come to fulfill the hard work themselves, thereby also teaching humanity the importance to always act. Hard to understand, isn't it?
And this:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->But if a (mature) woman does it to a girl, her head should be shaved immediately or two of her fingers should be cut off, and she should be made to ride on a donkey.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Yeah, well paedophilia should be punished. This instruction in the manusmriti has nothing to do with being anti-gay.
While - in the absence of further context - this could be construed as discouraging underage sex:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->If a girl does it (has sex) to another girl, she should be fined two hundred (pennies), be made to pay double (the girlâs) bride-price<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I still don't see why the pseculars need to lecture Hindu society on homosexuality <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
First Published in Debonair, Annual issue, 2000
[...]
The question that remains now is: how does attitudes towards homosexuals in ancient India affect modern-day attitudes? Is our approval or disapproval of same-sex affection and intercourse dependent on ancient values? And while we ponder over the questions, we must remind ourselves that the ancient sources that censure homosexual conduct, also institutionalised the caste system and approved the subservience of women.
http://devdutt.com/did-homosexuality-exi...ient-india
[right][snapback]99292[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Good grief. Are these psecular writers lecturing Hindus? <i>Amazing.</i> *We* are not the ones they need to worry about, since in general Hindu society has no intention of impinging on the rights of others where these do not void or minimise our own. It is christoislamoronism that they need to be concerned about.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Aravan refused to die a virgin. As no woman was willing to marry a man doomed to die in a day, Krishnaâs help was sought. Krishna turned into a woman, married Aravan, spent a night with him and when he was finally beheaded, mourned for him like a widow. These stories allow women to have sex with women and men to have sex with men on heterosexual terms. One may interpret these tales as repressed homosexual fantasies of a culture.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Interpret away. That's what modernist Indians do.
(Also, they need to <i>give references</i> - how else are we to know they're not making stuff up.)
But I read them as given: the characters changed gender and had heterosexual relationships. (Krishna also married a bear, Jambavan's daughter. God can easily change gender or form such as human or other animal or whatever. Mahavishnu also became the beautiful divine female Mohini. At one point she and Shiva produced Ayyappa.
I know such things <i>do not compute</i> to christoconditioned people. They *must* have it that this is either a 'gay thing', a 'transvestite thing' or some thing that they can recognise in human life, or at least what they've seen on western TV or somewhere.
Far be it for Gods to be able to - gulp - <i>actually change gender</i>. Even though Vishnu can just as easily take on animal avataras like Kurma and human ones like Rama and Krishna. But for Hindu Gods <i>to become female</i> - well the biblical gawd can't do that, therefore, it 'must' be an impossibility and must 'therefore' imply what is not straightforwardly written.)
And that still does not mean I oppose homosexuality in any way.
My point is that there's simply no need to turn narratives of gender-change into implying "repressed homosexuality." People don't feel repression in the East as they do in the christoislamism-terrorised west and middle-east, because Dharmic and (S)E Asian traditionalist societies don't persecute/murder/maim gay people for being homosexual. Whereas christoislamism does.
<b>ADDED:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->One wonders why Vishnu himself transforms into a woman when he could have appointed a nymph or goddess to do the needful.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Vishnu himself incarnated as the female Mohini (such as for destroying Bhasmasura) for the same reason as why he himself manifests repeatedly in his other forms to protect the world. Our Gods are Gods of action, Gods who set the example: when action (their intervention) is required to save the world, they will come to fulfill the hard work themselves, thereby also teaching humanity the importance to always act. Hard to understand, isn't it?
And this:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->But if a (mature) woman does it to a girl, her head should be shaved immediately or two of her fingers should be cut off, and she should be made to ride on a donkey.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Yeah, well paedophilia should be punished. This instruction in the manusmriti has nothing to do with being anti-gay.
While - in the absence of further context - this could be construed as discouraging underage sex:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->If a girl does it (has sex) to another girl, she should be fined two hundred (pennies), be made to pay double (the girlâs) bride-price<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I still don't see why the pseculars need to lecture Hindu society on homosexuality <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->