Ugh no. Not that dude.
[quote name='rhytha' date='18 February 2010 - 07:16 PM' timestamp='1266500298' post='104335']
devdutt.com/decoding-the-hindu-trinity
[/quote]Nonsense. Sounds like some new age Indian who doesn't know the first thing about (or is so far alienated from Hindu tradition that he is unable to understand) the Hindu Dharmic religion and so has to re-interpret things in a way that makes sense to him.
"LSD"? He sounds like he's *on* LSD - the actual thing - and trying to sell it.
As any Hindu knows, it is Durga Lakshmi Saraswati - in that order - for a purpose: Durga evolves from Yoga into Lakshmi and Saraswati. (E.g. Adyantarahite devi Adishakti maheshvari yogaje yogasambhUte mahAlakShmi namo.astu te) Emotional component my foot, it's energy. And what's with the "my brahmaanda expands, yours expands, zzzzz". Brahmanda means Kosmos - as in macrocosmos. Pindaanda means the inner/microcosmos that is in everyone: the Kundalini Yoga chakras again. Once more: that's as any Hindu knows. The Devis are expressly described as both: e.g. "...sthoola-sookshma..." again from the stotram on Lakshmi. Or see the Lalita.
What's with Devdutt randomly connecting different magic "3s" and spinning meaningless random stories from it? While there is meaning to the various 3s, he doesn't seem to know what those are.
And Shiva "demands" Bilva leaves??? <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':blink:' /> If he wanted it, he could have all of them. That's not the point at all. And oh yes, the wording does matter, because the term "demands" was clearly consciously chosen.
Bilvam is divine because Mahalakshmi resides in it. Hence even a single Bilva leaf is equated to the worth of a 1000 golden leaves offered to Shiva, which is why even a single Bilva leaf offered in pooja to Shiva pleases the easily-pleased one immensely. That snake of ~4 posts up - being a professional, like Nagapambus in several Tamizh Kovils (or so my father tells me of his childhood) - knows it very well. Devdutt could get some pointers from the animal on the *actual* meaning of the Bilvam leaf (well, that's if the snake doesn't nip at him first for his peddling fiction/adharma as Hindu religion). And even I manage to know some extremely basic things about the Bilvam because it's Hindu Dharma 101. So why is Devdutt so dense and ignorant about such basics and yet still bleating from a soapbox as if he's an expert that others should regard? More importantly: why does he have an audience at all?
One could go on till the cows come mooing home, listing the obvious and numerous faults in Devdutt's output (actually: it's harder to find things that he *didn't* subvert one way or another, subtly or distinctly). Suffice it to say that it's all just some touchy-feely nonsense he cooked up: just his own random interpretations that have NOTHING to do with Hindu Dharma. Why would any conscious Hindu choose to listen to this Devdutt who doesn't know the first thing about the Hindu Gods (=Hindu religion)? His is a version for modern Hindus, who don't know their actual religion and are incapable of understanding that anymore. No Hindu from the past (the dead) or those of older generations still living could even recognise any of that as their religion. Because it's NOT Hindu religion. It's just de-Hinduised, de-Hinduising manufactured-before-your-eyes ideology cocktail.
People either know this and see the errors littering Devdutt's writing for themselves or they don't. If they don't, it's not my problem, naturally. What does bother me is that no one at IF can ever be bothered to correct - let alone ever takes exception to - these things when posted here. It's one thing to let lies flourish in someone else's garden. It's another thing to let the weeds grow in your own, watching it, knowing full well you ought to nip the nonsense in the bud.
Actually, this spiel of Devdutt must have been what a blogpost at Rajeev2004 was referring to. IIRC there was a comment there that actually complained. Guess now I have to find it again.
It's this - Esteppan's comment to the post where Rajeev initially endorsed Devdutt. Am highlighting the bits I think are relevant in blue (note that the comment at the actual link extensively uses emphases not reproduced here):
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2010/01/s...ty-by.html
Offstumped? Hmmm. Indian nationalists blog wasn't it? To most of today's nationalists whose words I've read on the web, "Hinduism" = nationalism (+ some Lite fluff) and no more. Explains everything really.
What a chasm does separate today's angelsk-enabled Hindus from where the general mass of educated (and all other classes of) Hellenes were mentally when they were about to be wiped out. Educated Hellenes were consciously arguing for the viewpoint of traditional Hellenismos, and *all* classes of Hellenic society fought for their right to continue the traditional Hellenismos.
In contrast, modern Hindus are (subconsciously) arguing for the concocted christian projection/version of their heathenism and will insist that This Is "Hinduism".
The difference is this: Hellenes died as Hellenes, their religion was still Hellenismos when they were destroyed. Their minds were not conquered.
Hindus will simply cease to be Hindu. Their minds conquered before they are physically routed or rounded up.
Today's Hindus can be made to believe anything once alienated - anything except find their religion again. (That's christianism by the way: the (irreversible) alienation of the heathen from heathenism, even as the alienated one imagines that it still deserves the label "heathen" when it has swallowed so much of christianism's Credo On Heathenism already.)
The transformation trend is clearly visible. It is today's Hindus* who will say that their "gods" are "myths". And it is also today's Hindus who so easily fall for christianism's reverse psychology such that they choose to declare - and in court! (and hence for the christoarchive which will use it against Hindus in future - BIG trouble) that they are "mono(poly)theists". (*Angelsk-speaking Hindus only, of course, the other kind doesn't know what myths, mono/polytheism, "idols", apotheosis are.)
^ All those were originally *christian* claims about Hindu Dharma which today's Hindus are parroting, having successfully internalised it. It is what christianism always intended. The interesting thing is that affected Hindus always think that it was a voluntary mental evolution/realisation/conclusion blabla. That it is in fact not so, you can tell when you compare the mutated Hindus with their Hindu ancestors or with the general state of ancient Hellenes before they went down (or with today's Hellenes), or when you just revise how christianism's stated intention was always to de-Hinduise Hindus precisely by getting them to accept and repeat "of their own volition" the christian view of their religion.
[quote name='rhytha' date='18 February 2010 - 07:16 PM' timestamp='1266500298' post='104335']
devdutt.com/decoding-the-hindu-trinity
[/quote]Nonsense. Sounds like some new age Indian who doesn't know the first thing about (or is so far alienated from Hindu tradition that he is unable to understand) the Hindu Dharmic religion and so has to re-interpret things in a way that makes sense to him.
"LSD"? He sounds like he's *on* LSD - the actual thing - and trying to sell it.
As any Hindu knows, it is Durga Lakshmi Saraswati - in that order - for a purpose: Durga evolves from Yoga into Lakshmi and Saraswati. (E.g. Adyantarahite devi Adishakti maheshvari yogaje yogasambhUte mahAlakShmi namo.astu te) Emotional component my foot, it's energy. And what's with the "my brahmaanda expands, yours expands, zzzzz". Brahmanda means Kosmos - as in macrocosmos. Pindaanda means the inner/microcosmos that is in everyone: the Kundalini Yoga chakras again. Once more: that's as any Hindu knows. The Devis are expressly described as both: e.g. "...sthoola-sookshma..." again from the stotram on Lakshmi. Or see the Lalita.
What's with Devdutt randomly connecting different magic "3s" and spinning meaningless random stories from it? While there is meaning to the various 3s, he doesn't seem to know what those are.
And Shiva "demands" Bilva leaves??? <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':blink:' /> If he wanted it, he could have all of them. That's not the point at all. And oh yes, the wording does matter, because the term "demands" was clearly consciously chosen.
Bilvam is divine because Mahalakshmi resides in it. Hence even a single Bilva leaf is equated to the worth of a 1000 golden leaves offered to Shiva, which is why even a single Bilva leaf offered in pooja to Shiva pleases the easily-pleased one immensely. That snake of ~4 posts up - being a professional, like Nagapambus in several Tamizh Kovils (or so my father tells me of his childhood) - knows it very well. Devdutt could get some pointers from the animal on the *actual* meaning of the Bilvam leaf (well, that's if the snake doesn't nip at him first for his peddling fiction/adharma as Hindu religion). And even I manage to know some extremely basic things about the Bilvam because it's Hindu Dharma 101. So why is Devdutt so dense and ignorant about such basics and yet still bleating from a soapbox as if he's an expert that others should regard? More importantly: why does he have an audience at all?
One could go on till the cows come mooing home, listing the obvious and numerous faults in Devdutt's output (actually: it's harder to find things that he *didn't* subvert one way or another, subtly or distinctly). Suffice it to say that it's all just some touchy-feely nonsense he cooked up: just his own random interpretations that have NOTHING to do with Hindu Dharma. Why would any conscious Hindu choose to listen to this Devdutt who doesn't know the first thing about the Hindu Gods (=Hindu religion)? His is a version for modern Hindus, who don't know their actual religion and are incapable of understanding that anymore. No Hindu from the past (the dead) or those of older generations still living could even recognise any of that as their religion. Because it's NOT Hindu religion. It's just de-Hinduised, de-Hinduising manufactured-before-your-eyes ideology cocktail.
People either know this and see the errors littering Devdutt's writing for themselves or they don't. If they don't, it's not my problem, naturally. What does bother me is that no one at IF can ever be bothered to correct - let alone ever takes exception to - these things when posted here. It's one thing to let lies flourish in someone else's garden. It's another thing to let the weeds grow in your own, watching it, knowing full well you ought to nip the nonsense in the bud.
Actually, this spiel of Devdutt must have been what a blogpost at Rajeev2004 was referring to. IIRC there was a comment there that actually complained. Guess now I have to find it again.
It's this - Esteppan's comment to the post where Rajeev initially endorsed Devdutt. Am highlighting the bits I think are relevant in blue (note that the comment at the actual link extensively uses emphases not reproduced here):
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2010/01/s...ty-by.html
Quote:estheppan said...
Nizhal,
Recommend you go through Shri Pattanaik's article here about his interview of Wendy Doniger- http://devdutt.com/my-interview-with-wendy-doniger
Had posted the following comment on that article. However, the fellow didn't publish it.
-----comment posted on 21 Nov 09 but never appeared---
>>> "Anyone who is serious about studying Hinduism needs to study the works of Wendy Doniger ..... ââ¬Â¦it is good scholarship"
[color="#800080"](Of course Devdutt thinks Wendy's an expert: people who don't know Hindu Gods (and never will) are all equally "expert" on the matter. As in: NOT. It's a mutual admiration society, especially when their speculative interpretations - entirely independent of actual Hindu Dharma - align qua methodology and/or class of conclusions.)[/color]
Shri Rajiv Malhotra uses chakra hermeneutics to analyse it thus-
"....... one may safely say that Wendy's children mentioned above reside at the lowest two chakras, at least in their scholarship. Kripal is seeing Hinduism from the anal perspective (in keeping with his own homophobia, and insecurity about his Roma heritage), which is a [color="#0000FF"]valid view[/color], but by no means the truth. It is just one perspective, and not the highest vantage point, and nor is it the place where one should remain stuck forever. Likewise, Doniger and Caldwell seem to oscillate between the anal chakra and the genital chakra. This is why their interest and depiction of Hinduism is what it is." - http://rajivmalhotra.com/index.php?optio...&Itemid=26
[color="#800080"](Actually, Malhotra is also subverting here: Mooladhara and Swadisthana don't have anything to do with any "anal perspective" or 'genital perspective'. No Hindus practising at the Mooladhara or Svadisthaana chakras think of Hindu Dharma in the way Kripal, Doniger and Caldwell describe the religion.
And No: wrong opinions - false statements - don't become "valid views". They're views certainly. But invalid.)[/color]
Harvard Professor Michael Witzel described wendy's translations of rig veda, jaiminiya brahmana and manusmriti in these stark terms-
" 'lacking common senseââ¬â¢, ââ¬Ëunreliableââ¬â¢, ââ¬Ëidiosyncraticââ¬â¢ ,and ââ¬Åa stream of unconnected George-Bush-like anacoluths ââ¬Å.
Shri Sankrant Sanu is more sober while discussing wendy's article on Encarta, which was consequently removed and replaced with one by Prof Arvind Sharma- "While Prof. Doniger is certainly free to pursue her specific areas of interest and scholarship in Hinduism, we do not believe that her article represents the mainstream of Hindu thought in both the selection of content and its interpretation"
further discussed here- http://estheppan.wordpress.com/2009/10/2...-and-apes/
The interview questions seems well thought out.
Commenter a.b. succinctly above observes- " Wendy, having prosistuted herself for wordly gain, cannot ever find any meaning"
That observation may also apply to everybody in this world who prostitutes their efforts and their lives for materialistic gains.
dhanyavaad
---------------------
[color="#0000FF"]The comment by one commenter named a.b. in that page is very striking. In that he mentions 'bilva leaf', which Pattanaik now interprets in his latest article in his own way.
Pattanaik's 'interpretation' of trimurtis is a travesty.
From what is seen in this latest article and his interview of Donkeiger, as well as from other stuff in his website and the talk he gave at TED, Mysore, it appears this fellow is a charlatan. Misinterpreting indian traditions and culture in his own way to suit his interests.[/color]
[color="#800080"](It's Hindu religion that Devdutt's misinterpreting.)[/color]
[color="#0000FF"]Don't be taken in.
Also, by your undeserved appreciation of the fellow, you may have influenced the minds of some 500 people visiting your website daily, who otherwise may have taken a neutral approach to pattanaik.[/color]
2/01/2010 4:14 PM
Quote:nizhal yoddha said...Don't know about highly-educated, but definitely ignorant of Hindu Dharma if they were able to just swallow all this goop, regurgitate and recommend it. But one can guess they would all be "English-educated".
i may have to rethink devdutt. but the sad fact is that hindu education is so non-existent that [color="#0000FF"]even highly-educated people like the folks who read this blog, or atanu day who gushed over this article on twitter, or offstumped et al, really don't know enough to counter errors devdutt may be making.[/color]
but esthappan, you err when you say only 500 people read this blog. i know how many do, and it's a lot more.
2/03/2010 8:19 AM
Offstumped? Hmmm. Indian nationalists blog wasn't it? To most of today's nationalists whose words I've read on the web, "Hinduism" = nationalism (+ some Lite fluff) and no more. Explains everything really.
What a chasm does separate today's angelsk-enabled Hindus from where the general mass of educated (and all other classes of) Hellenes were mentally when they were about to be wiped out. Educated Hellenes were consciously arguing for the viewpoint of traditional Hellenismos, and *all* classes of Hellenic society fought for their right to continue the traditional Hellenismos.
In contrast, modern Hindus are (subconsciously) arguing for the concocted christian projection/version of their heathenism and will insist that This Is "Hinduism".
The difference is this: Hellenes died as Hellenes, their religion was still Hellenismos when they were destroyed. Their minds were not conquered.
Hindus will simply cease to be Hindu. Their minds conquered before they are physically routed or rounded up.
Today's Hindus can be made to believe anything once alienated - anything except find their religion again. (That's christianism by the way: the (irreversible) alienation of the heathen from heathenism, even as the alienated one imagines that it still deserves the label "heathen" when it has swallowed so much of christianism's Credo On Heathenism already.)
The transformation trend is clearly visible. It is today's Hindus* who will say that their "gods" are "myths". And it is also today's Hindus who so easily fall for christianism's reverse psychology such that they choose to declare - and in court! (and hence for the christoarchive which will use it against Hindus in future - BIG trouble) that they are "mono(poly)theists". (*Angelsk-speaking Hindus only, of course, the other kind doesn't know what myths, mono/polytheism, "idols", apotheosis are.)
^ All those were originally *christian* claims about Hindu Dharma which today's Hindus are parroting, having successfully internalised it. It is what christianism always intended. The interesting thing is that affected Hindus always think that it was a voluntary mental evolution/realisation/conclusion blabla. That it is in fact not so, you can tell when you compare the mutated Hindus with their Hindu ancestors or with the general state of ancient Hellenes before they went down (or with today's Hellenes), or when you just revise how christianism's stated intention was always to de-Hinduise Hindus precisely by getting them to accept and repeat "of their own volition" the christian view of their religion.