"Vishnu Strategy": Bigotry on JESUS scale

[Guest]

This guy has seems to be having an absolutely convoluted understanding of Lord Vishnu or the Bhagavadgeeta. He has taken the Robert
Oppenheimer comment from the Gita I am death, the mighty destroyer of the world, out to destroy, completely out of context and making it seem seem as if Lord Vishnu encouraged the killing of innocents in Iraq, Israel as is happening now

<b>Please go to the website and add your protests/comments
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3958
</b> (heavy moderation going on, please help)

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Vishnu Strategy
Conn Hallinan | February 1, 2007
Editor: John Feffer, IRC

Foreign Policy In Focus

The Supreme Lord said: I am death, the mighty destroyer of the world, out to destroy." According to the great Hindu text Bhagavad-Gita, Vishnu delivered that speech to Prince Arjuna before a great battle almost eight millennia ago. Physicist Robert Oppenheimer paraphrased it in 1945 to describe the explosion of the atomic bomb. The latest channeling of the Hindu god can be found in an Israeli commander's evaluation of last summer's war with Lebanon: "What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs."
The commander was decrying the way Israel, the United States, and Great Britain wage war these days, which has increasingly become an exercise in mass destruction. In the last five years, Vishnu has visited Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon. The result has been death and ruin on a biblical—or more aptly, a Bhagavad-Gita— scale.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<b>Conn Hallinan</b> is a Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) columnist.
<img src='http://www.irc-online.org/images/irc/489.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

Please go to the website and add your protests/comments
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3958

[Guest]

<!--emo&tupid--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pakee.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pakee.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[ramana]

This is what I sent;
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Conn Hallinan's article "Vishnu Strategy" which tries to rationalize the destruction unleashed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon is based on incorrect understanding of the Bhagvad Gita where his initial quote is taken from. The context is the Lord describing the pre-ordained nature of the course of things and that He is the Creator and Destroyer. Robert Oppenheimer quoted the verse at the Trinity test in 1945 to compare the destructive power of atomic weapons. Hallinan's usage of the quotation to compare the destruction in Middle East using Hindu iconic imagery is ironic for this destruction was unleashed by neo-con administration which is firmly rooted in its biblical moorings. It appears that Hallinan is confused or obfuscating the issues.  The bringing in of Hindu icons into the neo-con adventure in the Middle east is a definite case of being misguided or obfuscation. To add to the previous reader Robicheau's comments about Hallinan, it looks like he is also ignorant of areas further East like India. He should stick to using icons that he is familiar with and not confuse the issues and civilizations.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Conn Hallinan has clearly never read the Gita. His only acquaintance with the names of Vishnu and Gita, and with a purposefully chosen statement from the latter, probably comes from Wendy Doniger's celebrated remark (in psecular circles) on the scripture. Something to the extent of "Gita encourages war. <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> I am a pacifist" - thus spake Doniger.

More and more, I realise how western journalists are rather 'intellectually' matched with our own bunch of incompetents: journalists working in the psecular Indian English-language media. Nor are bigoted western scholars of Indology, including the likes of Doniger et al, any more able than their psecular counterparts in India (our 'eminent' historians come to mind).

Scholarship and journalism seem to be big jokes to these people. The only reason they have any standing at all must be because they are given a voice: western newspapers need to have some output so they give them a column or assign them an article to write.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"The Supreme Lord said: I am death, the mighty destroyer of the world, out to destroy."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Don't know the accuracy of this translation, but in the verse of the Gita that this statement appears to be referring to, Krishna describes the aspect of himself that represents Time. Time, which annihilates all things.

This is of course 180 degrees opposed to the images of the petty, jealous and vengeful demonic babblegod that Conn Hallinan apparently wants to conjure up in the minds of his readers with his selective citing: the babblegawd that goes after communities tolerating the existence of polytheists in their midst or people who forget to observe the sabbath, and the like. In the babble, gawd actively genocides large parts of mankind (and animal kind as collateral damage) for such violations of biblical law.

Mahavishnu, as per the Gita, in his form as Time, merely brings to an end all that is created in the Cosmos. Every material element or mortal creature (that is, the body, as the soul is immortal) will eventually die/be destroyed. Death of the material is the inevitability that any and every human is aware of. So yes, as Time, Brahman does destroy all. And Krishna is merely reminding Arjuna of this indiscriminate aspect of the Divine.
And it is in this context that Arjuna learns that he ought not to be so attached to familial relations as to lose sight of his duty to uphold Dharma. All creatures and things meet their end eventually (in Time), and therefore no amount of attachment to them is going to prevent the destruction of their physical form. Krishna tells Arjuna that come what may, Bhishma and the others will be destroyed in this war (in order for Dharma to triumph). Arjuna might as well face that he will lose his relatives - the wheels are already in motion in the Cosmic design - and he is given the choice to become the instrument of Brahman in accomplishing this.
(This is my understanding from memory. Bad explanation, so read the Gita instead, which is quite clear.)

[Guest]

IIRC Kala mistranslated/misapplied as death, instead of time. Apte's dictionary has kAla and one of the meanings as "God of death" as well, but it is the context that matters, as husky pointed out. Read the entire 11th chapter, and in this context, it is kalyati ganayati ithi kAlah, and the dissolution/destruction ( and in the war, with arjuna being a mere operative)

[Sunder]

<!--QuoteBegin-aruni+Feb 4 2007, 06:08 PM-->QUOTE(aruni @ Feb 4 2007, 06:08 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->This guy has seems to be having an absolutely convoluted understanding of Lord Vishnu or the Bhagavadgeeta. He has taken the Robert
Oppenheimer comment from the Gita I am death, the mighty destroyer of the world, out to destroy, completely out of context and making it seem seem as if Lord Vishnu encouraged the killing of innocents in Iraq, Israel as is happening now

<b>Please go to the website and add your protests/comments
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3958
</b> (heavy moderation going on, please help)

[right][snapback]64001[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

When protesting, mention what is happening in Israel, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and everywhere else is Biblical.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?searc...0:34&version=9;

<b>"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." - Matthew (10:34)</b>

Bhagavad Geetha focuses on :

adveshhTaa sarvabhuutaanaaM maitraH karuNa eva cha .
nirmamo nirahaN^kaaraH samaduHkhasukhaH kShamii .. 12\-13..

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bhagavad Geetha focuses on :

adveshhTaa sarvabhuutaanaaM maitraH karuNa eva cha .
nirmamo nirahaN^kaaraH samaduHkhasukhaH kShamii .. 12\-13..<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dear Sundareshwara,
Can I request a translation of the above for the Samskritam-challenged like myself. Though I understand some of the individual words and conglomerated words in the above, I can't piece all of them together to complete the puzzle of its meaning. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> It's the sad state of not having done all my growing up in the presence of my Grandparents. My dad didn't teach me, because my parents thought that any more languages would have been too much for me. My sister's been teaching herself Samskritam, but then, she inherited all the brains; myself barely half of one <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> (Not complaining. Had I an ounce of her intelligence I'd probably have been a Moriarty anyways <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo--> )


<b>ADDED:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Conn-artist Hallinan: 'In the last five years, Vishnu has visited Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon'<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Umm, no. American christos took their non-existent terrorist idea Jehovah to make war on the followers of the non-existent terrorist idea Allah. The followers of the terrorist religions of christianity and islam are the ones who have made a mess of these three countries. No followers of Vishnu are involved in what's happened there.
Using Conn's logic: the demonic christoislamic gawd (wholly invented by man though he is) is responsible for the misery of these countries and their peoples.

Mahavishnu pervades all of the Cosmos and is therefore there in the tiniest speck of dust and in the mightiest nebula. But he has nothing to do nor in common with that artificial construct, the petty evil gawd, described by the christoislamic scriptures (which only a spiteful man's limited intelligence and finite imagination could have given rise to).

Conn Hallinan and his christo editors have brought in Hinduism on purpose. Just like they desperately try to link Buddhism and Hinduism with nazism because they want to deflect the indeflectible blame from christianity for the Holocaust, they are now once again trying to abstractly bring in Hinduism into places where only the terrorist religion of christoislamism has been active. Christoislamism is full of lies and hence it creates characters like Conn-artist who apparently can't open their mouth or set pen to paper without spewing christo lies. What is it about christoislamism that it can make only compulsive liars or terrorists or self-righteous snobs? The blame rests squarely on their intolerant ideology and their non-existent gawd (a picture of all that is low and vindictive in man's subconscious) - notions that visit their minds and leave in their wake only perversity.

[Guest]

<b>The Hail Mary Strategy: Foreign Policy, as Taught By the Faculty of Bigotry</b>
<i>By Ari Saja</i>

Tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/2k763a

[Guest]

Once again excellent punch by Ari. <!--emo&:cool--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Sunder]

<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Feb 5 2007, 11:26 AM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Feb 5 2007, 11:26 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bhagavad Geetha focuses on :

adveshhTaa sarvabhuutaanaaM maitraH karuNa eva cha .
nirmamo nirahaN^kaaraH samaduHkhasukhaH kShamii .. 12\-13..<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dear Sundareshwara,
Can I request a translation of the above for the Samskritam-challenged like myself. Though I understand some of the individual words and conglomerated words in the above, I can't piece all of them together to complete the puzzle of its meaning. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
[right][snapback]64034[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Thanks for asking Husky. This shloka is not an exception but the rule as a central running theme in Bhakthi Yoga (and an undercurrent throughout the Bhagavad Geetha and other Itihasa/Puranas.)

Adveshtaa = lack of hatred. "Dvesha" comes from 'dvishathi' to hate. Perhaps the root is in 'dvi' (two), where one looks upon another as separate from oneself and hence hates. Hatred vanishes when the 'dvi' bhava is gone. i.e. when one looks upon 'others' as one's own Self.

Here, Sri Krishna is saying "Adveshta Sarva Bhoothaanaam"... Have Love towards all beings (not just humans, and not just living beings, but for all beings. Love all, hate none is the message here.)

Maithra Karuna eva cha: Be friendly (not mere lip service, but friendship in the true sense), and have compassion towards all beings.

So Arjuna may ask, "When can this compassion, friendship and love take place?", to this the Lord answers...

"Nirmamo nirahankaara:", when one is devoid of ego, as to 'I am great, or this is mine etc', then and only then will love for others automatically arise. As long as one is full of themselves (as in ego), true compassion can never happen. Compassion or pity for selfish reasons may be possible, but it will never be everlasting as long as one has ego.

SamaduHkhasukhaH kShamii: One who maintains equanimity and equipoise whether in pain or pleasure. (Like Sri Rama who was equally composed and calm when He was about to be made king, or when He was stripped of the position and exiled for 14 years.) Kshami is a person who is forgiving... now, who is eligible to forgive? One who has the power to crush his opponent(s) and yet has compassion for them is truly eligible to forgive. This is the kind of forgiveness the Bhagavad Geetha talks about.

Can the professor be forgiven? Absolutely!! the person can be forgiven, but not his ignorance. One has to be harshly critical of the professor's ignorance for his own good, thus helping him realize Dharma.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Feb 5 2007, 01:56 AM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Feb 5 2007, 01:56 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->But he has nothing to do nor in common with that artificial construct, the petty evil gawd, described by the christoislamic scriptures (which only a spiteful man's limited intelligence and finite imagination could have given rise to).
[right][snapback]64034[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

After reading the old testament, this is what Maharshi Dayananda observed about the Christian concept of God - Jehovah:

kshane tuSTam kshane ruSTam, ruSTam tuSTam kshane kshane
avyavasthitah chittasya prasIdanapi bhayAvayah

(This moment pleased, the next moment angry, alternating from anger to joy, moment to moment! Whose mind is in such unstable imbalance, even His merciful grace would be worth dreading.)

Sunderji, great explanation! Thank you.

[Guest]

Post 10 (Sundareshwara):
Thank you very much for the wonderfully detailed translation. There's another verse in the Gita related to it that I often think of. Krishna says something to the effect of how when one realises that Krishna (the Divine, Brahman), pervading all, is in all creatures and things, such a person does not hurt himself by hurting others.
Once again this stresses the fundamental unity of all.

Post 11 (Bodhi):
Maharshi Dayananda is very perceptive. Very grateful that such a great mind allowed himself to read through the horrid babble in order to explain the truth concerning it to Hindus.

<b>Added:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->[babblegawd is] This moment pleased, the next moment angry, alternatining from anger to joy, moment to moment! Whose mind is in such unstable imbalance, even His merciful grace would be worth dreading.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Yes, reminds me of an excitable toddler, the nasty kind portrayed only in movies: the one that beheads its own toys when it's angry or doesn't get its way.
What I've always wondered about is why christians aren't afraid that when they finally do obtain salvation they can still lose it if they anger their easily-angered deity. I mean, according to The Word of Gawd, the holy babble, their gawd is so fickle when dealing with his minions during life; so why should he be benign all of a sudden when some of them eventually get to his heaven?
If they were, for instance, to accidentally yawn when singing Excelsior! with the heavenly choir, or if they were to protest against their good atheistic grandson being damned for his unbelief - down they'd go to hell. What makes christos so sure their salvation would be for eternity, when their gawd suffers from such extreme mood swings of gawdly proportions?


<!--QuoteBegin-Admin+Feb 5 2007, 08:53 PM-->QUOTE(Admin @ Feb 5 2007, 08:53 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The Hail Mary Strategy: Foreign Policy, as Taught By the Faculty of Bigotry</b>
<i>By Ari Saja</i>[right][snapback]64039[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Nice. Especially loved "President Bush’s Urge to Surge in Eyerak" <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Personally, I had no problem with Israel taking action against Lebanon. Unlike America - which does not neighbour Afghanistan or Iraq (or Terroristan) and has yet to show the world those dratted WMDs it went after in Iraq - Israel has to survive amidst genocidal enemies all around. Nor do I recall the Israeli political leadership claiming that their God told them to bomb Lebanon, unlike the case of George Dubya Bush who, feeling specially chosen by his imaginary gawd, proclaimed: "gawd told me to invade Eyerak". Most people who've had imaginary friends, stop seeing/hearing them when they hit 10. Guess this merely proves how christianity has stunted Dubya's mental growth.

[Guest]

I wrote to one site, the well read Asia Times ONLINE (www.atimes.com). They published my letter, & also statement that lots of complaints were recieved, & they REMOVED the article from their website.

See my Sulekha blog A Vishnu Strategy No Hindu Knew About! !

I also wrote to the FPIF site.

Thanks for starting this thread...

-http://Karigar.sulekha.com

<!--QuoteBegin-aruni+Feb 4 2007, 08:38 AM-->QUOTE(aruni @ Feb 4 2007, 08:38 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->This guy has seems to be having an absolutely convoluted understanding of Lord Vishnu or the Bhagavadgeeta. He has taken the Robert
Oppenheimer comment from the Gita I am death, the mighty destroyer of the world, out to destroy, completely out of context and making it seem seem as if Lord Vishnu encouraged the killing of innocents in Iraq, Israel as is happening now

<b>Please go to the website and add your protests/comments
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3958
</b> (heavy moderation going on, please help)


Please go to the website and add your protests/comments
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3958
[right][snapback]64001[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Getting traffic at my blog on Sulekha on this A Vishnu Strategy No Hindu Knew About! , some are getting prompted to action.

Here the letter I wrote to FPIF (unpublished as yet..:-) waiting for godot..
[ANYBODY PUT UP A petitiononline TYPE THING YET ?]

===BEGIN LETTER=====

Editors are requested to take action & get this piece re-written, since the "Vishnu" analogy is egergious & faulty.

This article was also re-published by Asia Times Online (www.atimes.com) & retracted after many objected to the mis-characterization.

I was among those wrote a letter to the editor there.

Today they published my letter, with a written statement below it saying they took the article off the website.

So here it is, as published today in Asia Times Online
at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Letters.html
[After today, it will be in archives]

THE LETTER
_____________________________________________________________

Re Conn Hallinan's preposterously titled The Vishnu strategy meets its match [Feb 7]:

Words fail me to see such an egregious example of crass and out-of-context analogy between "what we did was insane and monstrous: we covered entire towns in cluster bombs" and the Bhagavad Gita, a text revered even by non-Hindus as explaining Hindu philosophy, in the context of Prince Arjuna compelled to decide, on the battlefield, whether he should fight or flee.

All this a part of the story of the millennia-old epic The Mahabharata. It is a text to aid human decision-making, and not for some boasting about who's destroying what, or about some ridiculous "Vishnu strategy".

"The latest channeling of the Hindu god" by this author is a pure figment of his overheated imagination, that of a writer groping for a gripping analogy, and coming upon a gross distortion of this kind. He also needs to understand the context in which the well-read [Robert] Oppenheimer made his original remark. I certainly can't accuse this author of having the faintest idea of the Gita, Lord Krishna, his message, or Hindu philosophy.

Liberally spraying the incorrect "Krishna = destroyer" reference, and a silly notion of a "Vishnu strategy", did it ever occur to the author to do some research? The analogy adds nothing to his points, anyway.

He could have found better analogies closer to home, in the Christian concepts of Armageddon, and evangelical beliefs of Jesus coming back to massacre the "evil ones".

Also, I'm appalled that ATimes editors let this past. This kind of blunder is perhaps innocent, but could attract the label of hate speech against Hinduism. [I] hope editors understand the false positions they put loyal Hindu readers [in] by letting in this kind of writing.

Karigar
USA (Feb 7, '07)


THE RESPONSE


___________Atimes Editors respond below__________

We received several letters on this, and the "Vishnu" analogy does seem to have been an unfortunate choice that prevented some readers from getting past the first paragraph (or even the headline) and into the meat of the article, which made salient points. We have taken the article off the website. - ATol

==================================


===END LETTER=====



[quote=aruni,Feb 4 2007, 08:38 AM]
This guy has seems to be having an absolutely convoluted understanding of Lord Vishnu or the Bhagavadgeeta. He has taken the Robert
Oppenheimer comment from the Gita I am death, the mighty destroyer of the world, out to destroy, completely out of context and making it seem seem as if Lord Vishnu encouraged the killing of innocents in Iraq, Israel as is happening now

<b>Please go to the website and add your protests/comments
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3958
</b> (heavy moderation going on, please help)

[Guest]

The issue hottens up a bit (both on FPIF & ASIA Times) FPIF also published my letter. Below are Author's responses (published on both sites) & my counters (unpublished so far):


Today's Asia Times Online:
saga coutinues....
[The author comes back charging...and is already falling back to the last avenue of defence....accuse the mag of "<i><b>censorship</b></i>", & the other party of "<b><i>fundamentalism</i></b>" !]

<b>Conn Hallinan responds to readers</b>
I was frankly distressed to learn that Asia Times Online has removed my commentary, The Vishnu strategy meets its match (Feb 7) from its website because you received a number of letters suggesting that I was insulting the Hindu religion.

I assure you that was not my intention. The title of the commentary came from a remark made by Robert Oppenheimer following the detonation of the first atomic bomb at the Trinity test site in New Mexico. His exact quote (from Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb, page 676) was: "I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita: Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him he takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become death, the destroyer of the worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or the other."

In researching the quote I found that Oppenheimer had edited it slightly. The most accepted translation is "The Supreme Lord said: I am death, the mighty destroyer of the world, out to destroy" (chapter 11, verse 32). I also found that the speaker is actually Shiva who takes on the form of Vishnu (the reference to Shiva was dropped in the editing process). The concept of "destroyer" is a powerful one, and one that many religions use.

One letter writer said that I should have used the Christian Armageddon (I assumed the writer thought I was a Christian; I am not), but Armageddon is not about destruction per se, it is about the great battle that is supposed to be fought in present-day Israel between the forces of Zog and the followers of Jesus. It would supposedly bring on the Second Coming.

The suggestion by the letter writer is, I suppose, as casual as my use of the phrase from Oppenheimer. The letter writer is wrong in his use of Armageddon, but I certainly take no offense, and I doubt most Christians would. What I was doing in the commentary was using the words in the context that Oppenheimer used them: What have we done? What have we unleashed upon the world? That is the context that he used it in (he also compared what his team had done to Prometheus).

The US, Israel, Britain and some other nations have increasingly resorted to being "mighty destroyers". I also referred to the ability of those nations to unleash mayhem of "biblical proportions." I hope that phrase does not offend Christians, but it is a phrase based on the kinds of destruction the Christian Lord rains down on any number of occasions. I am disturbed that Asia Times Online withdrew my commentary based on the fact that people didn't like it. Isn't the idea of commentaries to provoke discussion? Shouldn't Asia Times Online have printed the letters and let people debate the question?

Granted, the focus of my commentary had nothing to do with religion, but still and all, debate is debate. Maybe there are others out there who happen to have a somewhat different view than most the letter writers. How will we know this? If we censor ideas because we fear they may offend someone, why have different ideas? There are certainly Christians who would take offense at one letter writer's casual suggestion of substituting Armageddon, and maybe me using the Bible to describe what the US does in Iraq and Israel in Lebanon.

Do we not run such a letter or a commentary because those people might be offended? What article will be withdrawn next? Last, the tone of the letters directed at the commentary and myself is revealing. There is whiff of fundamentalism in them that chills me. Debate, disagreement, even correction are what we should be seeking, not attack and denunciation. The last thing this world needs is more sectarianism. It leads to the very kind of policies I was attempting to challenge.

Conn M Hallinan
Foreign Policy In Focus (Feb 9, '07)



Finally.....
FPIF (original publisher) published my letter too. And sure enough, Prof Hallinan published his rejoinder, the same as the one in ATimes, as posted in previous comment.

I've sent in my rejoinder, & here it is: [my highlights only in this comment]
{Hope it gets published too.....}

--------Start my Rejoinder----------
Many thanks for publishing my previous letter. I see the author's rejoinder here, and his insinuation of fundamentalism compels me to respond.

I hope editors will note that I'm attempting a measured reaction to the introduction of religion by the author himself.

I'd be happy if he plays by the rules of good scholarship & debates the merits of his analogy, instead of painting his readers with derisive labels. His article is fine without this analogy, faulty as it is, & certainly deserves attention.

Prof. Hallinan's distress almost has my sympathy, except of course, that he is ignoring the Power Differential between the Accredited Scholar with access to multiple avenues of publication (FPIF, CounterPunch,San Francisco Chronicle, etc) and readers whose distress is limited to letters to FPIF/ATOL editors.

As a responsible scholar, his defense of "not intentional" is disingenuous, to say the least. He seems to believe he is the underdog here, whereas the underdog is the not so well understood hindu thought that is suffering under his heavy handed approach.

Is he deliberately failing to understand that the reasons for readers' distress are not with the points he is making, but with the casual way he has coined a new phrase in the foreign policy lexicon, that of the "Vishnu Strategy".

Being a PHd in anthropology (his credentials from the UCSC website where he is a provost) he should know the power of the words that Western Scholars use, especially regarding words from a different culture. When they set the context, they force a redefinition of these words. One knows what to think, when one hears "Machiavellian Strategy", "Nazi strategy", "Solomon strategy" "Vietnam strategy" etc, since the context is quite well known to the reader.

By connecting "insane and monstrous" with his own fabrication of a "vishnu strategy" he has provided a radical new context, one completely at odds with the way Sri Vishnu, or the Gita is understood by a billion people. Soon the chatterati will be abuzz with "vishnu strategy" in the meaning that he has singlehandedly provided.

I fail to understand why the ideas of Gita, Krishna, & Vishnu sacred to millions of hindus, should suffer as a "collateral damage" by being dragged into what essentially a US foreign policy debate.

How difficult is it, especially to a PHd scholar, to do some basic checking before latching onto an analogy just because "Oppenheimer said it" so it makes good press? Any scholar on Gita would know that a governing interpretation of those Gita lines would be "Time am I, destroyer of worlds".

[See Philosophy Professor's REFERENCE at end of this letter]

Is it that difficult to grasp the concept of Time as Destroyer? It has been part of Hindu thought for millennia. One can see his nuanced understanding of judeo christian concepts in his comments here. why not the same treatment to hindu thought, if he chooses to use it?

And the question of his "not taking offence" at the Armageddon analogy doesn't arise. I didn't use it to write a major article, I just pointed out that it was less far fetched than his "vishnu strategy" analogy.

The point went home, apparently, with accusations of "fundamentalism" emanating from him. Accusing someone of ignorance & faulty scholarship is a far cry from "fundamentalism". Hindus are not even a party to any of the conflicts her describes! Bottom line- he made a religious issue out of a foreign policy issue, and needs to explain clearly.

The less said about his line "the speaker is actually Shiva who takes on the form of Vishnu" the better. Unfortunately, by adding another ridiculous statement to the mix, he is exhibiting even more glaringly his lack of grasp of basic hindu thought.

Shiva as Rudra (the regeneration/destruction aspect in general) is quite absent in the Gita, and Shiva & Vishnu do not take each others forms.

Finally, I agree, the analysis merits discussion on its own merit, and one wishes the author would rephrase it without the irrelevant "vishnu strategy" bit.

REFERENCES:

With regards to the Gita passage he purports to quote, here's some details:

1. His take:

<b><i>“The Supreme Lord said: I am death, the mighty destroyer of the world, out to destroy.”</i></b> According to the great Hindu text Bhagavad-Gita, Vishnu delivered that speech to Prince Arjuna before a great battle almost eight millennia ago. Physicist Robert Oppenheimer paraphrased it in 1945 to describe the explosion of the atomic bomb. <i><b>The latest channeling of the Hindu god</b></i> can be found in an Israeli commander's evaluation of last summer's war with Lebanon: “<i><b>What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs</b></i>.”


2. The actual shloka (verses) from where he picks it up, and (a) mistranslates, (b) violates the context.

The above said quote is from the eleventh chapter of Bhagavad Gita (verse 32). And Conn Halliman has not taken the entire quote but mutilated it to suit his article.

<i>I am death,
The mighty destroyer of the world, out to destroy.
Even without your participation all the warriors
Standing arrayed in the opposing armies
Shall cease to exist. </i>
<i><b>
Kalo’smi lokaksayakrt-pravrddho
Lokan smahartum-iha pravrttah|
rte’pi twam na bhavisyanti sarve
ye’vasthitah pratyanikesu yodhah||
</b></i>

The term used for death in the verse is ‘Kal’ which also means ‘Time’ so the verse also means

Time am I, that comes to destroy worlds, grown mature, engaged here in subduing the world.
Even without thee, all the warriors stationed in the opposite ranks shall not be.

(Translated by Shakuntala Rao Shastri)

Krishna is here removing the ignorance of Arjuna by pointing out that ‘Time’ or ‘death’ will anyway consume all those that you are worrying for. When Krishna says ‘Time am I’ he is saying that he is Brahman or the ultimate truth.

From blog-
Wrongly quoting Bhagavad Gita to explain the mass destruction caused by US and its allies


FOR CONTEXT:
[Below from correspondence with Dr Antonio De Nicolas, Philosophy Professor Emeritus, SUNY ]

In my translation of the Gita, The Bhagavad Gita: The Ethics of Decision-Making here is what Chapter 11, v. 32 says:

<i>Time am I, the world-destroyer, grown mature,
engaged here in fetching back the worlds.
Even without you, all the warriors standing over against you
will cease to be.</i>

And in 33,

<i>Therefore stand up, gain glory.
Having conquered enemies,
Enjoy a prosperous kingdom.
By me they are already slain;
Be you merely the occasion, O Savyasaacin (Arjuna)</i>

--------End my Rejoinder----------

~x~

Thanks to Dr Nicolas' timely reference (Dr Nicolas is a renowned Gita Scholar, writing for Sulekha, members like me are proud to have him there.)

[Guest]

Thanks very much Karigar, for your timely and well-reasoned intervention. Hopefully your efforts, and that of the others who sent letters of protest, have completely nipped this in the bud. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->