The Hindus by Wendy Doniger

The Hindus by Wendy Doniger

Author:Wendy Doniger
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub, pdf
Tags: Women in Hinduism - History, Religion, Hinduism - Relations, Social Aspects, Women in Hinduism, General, Hinduism - Social Aspects - History, Pariahs in Hinduism, Hinduism, Pariahs in Hinduism - History, History
ISBN: 9781101028704
Publisher: Penguin Press
Published: 2009-03-24T10:00:00+00:00


The ambivalent moral status of the sages in this version of the myth is evident from Vishnu’s statement: The sages are evil and doomed to hell, but the gods must protect and delude them (an interesting combination) so that they will ultimately find merit. Moreover, even though the doctrines that Shiva teaches them are mediating ones—below the Vedas but above damnation—he cannot teach those doctrines while the sages are still cursed to be heretics (which is what being debarred from the Vedas amounts to in these stories); he must come to them “when the force of the curse had come to an end” to teach them new false texts. That is, they need to have worked off the curse, to have started on the path upward, before he can give them the Tantras.

How can Shiva “protect” the sages by teaching them a new heresy? The “left-hand” doctrines help them by giving them some religion, albeit a heresy, since they are denied the Vedas; the heresy serves as a staircase between non-Vedic and Vedic religion,51 bridging the gap between complete darkness and true religion, purifying them enough so that they can enter the waters of purification. They need an orthodox heresy (an oxymoron, but it fits the situation) to break the ritual chain of impurity. This concept of weaning is expounded by apologists for the Tantras, who argue that Shiva knew that the animal leanings of certain people made them need meat and wine and therefore invented Tantric rites in order gradually to wean them from this pleasure “in associating it with religion,” the idea being that it is better to bow to Shiva with your sandals on than never to bow at all.52 Shudras and the victims of curses are forbidden to study the Vedas; some other people are simply incapable. Out of pity for all of them, Shiva teaches heresy, raising them up “step by step,” a doctrine that may have been influenced by the Buddhist idea of skill in means, suiting the teaching to the level of the person to be enlightened. The assumption (often stated explicitly) is that he gives them a religion that is “natural” to them (sahaja, “born with” them), that makes use of the things that everyone naturally enjoys—sex, wine, meat. Tantra in this view is Hinduism with training wheels. Thus Shiva makes some people heretics in the first place so that he can ultimately enlighten them. This enlightenment at first appears as a heresy, which they reject, and indeed it is a heresy, in comparison with the ideal, Vedic or Puranic worship. But for some, this heresy is their only salvation, and their own god has created it for a good reason.

The final Puranic rationalization for the Tantras is that heresies taught to heretics make them so evil that they must reach the furthest point of the cycle and then rebound from the extreme, to become good again, to go back to the head of the queue, to go back to GO, like all the creatures of the Kali Age.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.