kupamanduka

Haven't been having enough energy to blog, so writing a few quick points.

1. As far as I know, it is not the Gita which is in the threat of being banned, but only Prabhupada's commentary. Why is the Indian media distorting it to "Bhagavad Gita ban"? Reasons could vary from naivete to even seculars' love for buying enough credentials to bash Hinduism in future.

2. Prabhupada's commentary certainly contains very regressive stuff - quoting obscure shAstras to say that one who breaks into your house can be killed, quoting(or at least claiming to be quoting) Chanakya that women are less intelligent than men etc. Note that Bhagavad Gita in itself doesn't say things of this sort. It doesn't even say that Kauravas deserved to be killed.

3. However, the same is true for many books from other religions too, and quite possibly the real reason for the case is ISKCON's success in converting. In US, I have heard though not seriously checked, ISKCON was apparently going very strong until child abuse cases crippled its popularity.

4. ISKCON is NOT a Christianized version of Hinduism. Their ideas are borrowed from books like Chaitanya Charitamrita. They also quote from purAnic texts that Shiva spread advaita philosophy to confuse Buddhists. Assuming such quotes are honest (too lazy to check), these kinds of attitudes were there among vaiShNavite cults in India, and ISKCON is following them. In some sense, ISKCON folks can be said to have an Arabian-type Islamist trait - being stuck with medieval, non-accommodating interpretations. This gives a feel of genuineness, I mean belief as opposed to belief in belief, and possibly has helped the organization's success.

5. Don't expect IKSCON people to consider themselves as Hindus or support general Hindu causes. They, as is typical to many modern Hindu cults, would shamelessly get help from Hindu organizations to get platforms for themselves, but never reciprocate such favors. One Hindu organization that is gloriously exceptional in this regard is RSS.

6. That said, the ISKCON guys are useful idiots. They can help promote vegetarianism, and is perhaps the only Hinduism-based organization that can give headaches to ROL/ROP, e.g., this one.

7. Given #5 and #6, I suggest that fellow Hindutva folks go for pragmatic, utility-based cooperation with ISKCON. Realpolitik and not dharma is what Hindus need now (I don't even know if a clear and reasonably comprehensive explanation of dharma is available; I am even a bit agnostic about whether the term has a coherent meaning).

I have many differences with certain of the folks at nationalinterest.in, and even more bitter differences with the anti-Hindu Tyler Cowen, but it is extremely heartening to see Tyler link to Pragati. With a full heart I offer my, however insignificant, congratulations.

It is common for liberals and libertarians to blame conservative elements of the society for claiming to be offended by public infringements on puritanical dress code, that they allegedly, secretly savor. For instance, here is what greatbong wrote a while ago :

If this was the only offensive thing this week, I may have been able to control myself. But no. You see I am not just an Indian but also a Hindu. Which means that I am offended only by cow slaughter and cleavage. At the 175th day celebration of “Shivaji–the Boss”, Shriya Saran came to the occasion, in front of Karunanidhi no less, wearing the kind of clothes I would expect her to come to me wearing. I am linking here to two pictures of Saran taken at that event so that all of you can share my sense of shock while doing “Save As”.[Pic1, Pic2]. Needless to say, there were some alert Hindus who were keeping a tab on the situation, namely the Hindu Makkal Katchi. They immediately launched a police complaint under Section 34C of the Indian Penile Code.

I suggest this article from a rationalist atheist community, "less wrong". Note how they treat "wanting", "liking" and "approving" differently, giving the example of a heroin user.

Side note : I am not a rationalist atheist, but find "Less Wrong" a very very impressive site. The people there really seem to try to honestly and systematically analyze issues, and thereby continuously strive to improve their rational thinking faculty, unlike your average stagnant atheist/agnostic religion-disser who uses agnosticism/atheism almost exclusively to feel intellectually superior (and consequently stagnates), and panders to the great Indian liberal mediocrity.

Greatbong says on twitter that DNA would be imbalanced if it were not ready to publish an article along the lines of "Make India an Islamic state and disenfranchise Hindus". Ketan Panchal retweeted one such utterance of Greatbong. I wouldn't be bothered if he were an ordinary tweeter, but he is one of the rare few people who usually follows up arguments thoroughly, doesn't conveniently ignore difficult opposition arguments so as to focus on low lying fruit, who almost always looks for the nuances (except when he makes occasional blanket statements on religion).

Now Greatbong's point would have been good if "Hindu Rashtra" had any remote semblance to being a Hindu analogue of "Islamic State". So what indeed does Mr. Swamy purport to convey by writing Hindu Rashtra? Obviously no one has defined a Hindu Rashtra, and I would be surprised if more than a small handful have made any serious attempt at coming up with a definition for the same. But let us look at what all Swamy proposes in that regard. Unlike what Greatbong says, he doesn't advocate disenfranchising Muslims. He wants them to pay some lip service to respecting Hindus and to their ancestors having been Hindus. He wants a ban on conversions out of Hinduism. So what exactly he advocating? Something hardly worse (worse for secularism, that is) than Malaysia : see [BBC link] on Malaysian authorities' ill-treatment of a Hindu woman, and mentions in particular :

However, under Malaysia's Islamic law, having Muslim parents makes one a Muslim and, as such, one is not allowed to change one's faith or marry a non-Muslim.

. Yes, Malaysia, which many seculars uphold as an example of liberalism and tolerance of a Muslim country. Swamy is advocating something only along the lines of Malaysia. Go ahead and call it misguided, but clearly those who are outraged read this to be much more than that. Of course, in general an "Islamic state", as opposed to Malaysia, comes with much less secular connotations (just to remind, connotation vs denotation).

In contrast, via TRISH00L's twitter, here is a video in which (at the 42nd minute) Asaduddin Owaisi says "Let everybody convert to Islam, there won't be casteism" and "stands by it". Where is the secular outrage over that? Barkha et al continue to indulge him. Recently the INI guys had what they call a "stimulating" conversation with Owaisi over a "fine Hyderabadi dinner". With EVEN them practicing double standards so openly like this, why act surprised if some Hindus feel that abrogating secularism and establishing Hindu Rashtra is the ONLY way they won't be treated as second class citizens?

Related point : Many seculars who have objection to stereotyping Muslims themselves seem to stereotype RSS, and attack it for what totally unrelated organizations do. When confronted, the standard reply is "Stereotyping a community is not the same as stereotyping an organization". Is this "not the same as" a good enough reason for stereotyping RSS? Moreover, by stereotyping and unfairly blaming RSS you are actually surrendering your moral authority to ask others not to stereotype communities : there is no reason others should abide by your conventions as to where to draw the lines. It is not enough if you just disagree with stereotyping RSS : at least some of your anti-RSS ilk should actually stand up against that stereotyping. Or else, mind you, Hindu-sympathizers are going to feel treated as second-class citizens.

In fact, part of the outrage over Swamy's article is due to blanket stereotyping of Hindutva-people. You might have seen crass Hindus who keep saying things like "fuck Muslims", "Nuke Pakistan" etc. The problem is, you start thinking that all of Hindutva is that, and start superimposing these views on all serious advocates of Hindutva.

Closing quote :

"In secularism Hindu is the Untermensch." - Gaurav ji.

Went to Patel Brothers' grocery shop at the Devon St yesterday, and saw chappatis advertising themselves as "ready to puff up". The cover featured invitingly puffed pretty chapatis, and I think the brand was "Swad", and the chapatis were quite cheap.

But on scrutizing the cover my heart almost sank : it was "Product of China". But for that small mention everything about the packet seemed perfectly Indian : the product information was printed nicely in both English and Devanagari - their transliteration of wheat into "व्हीट" was deliciously reminiscent of my days in Mumbai.

Did they really see a good business opportunity here (in spite of so many Indian companies having already been into that market), or are just bent on screwing Indian business?

By the way the Pakistani Basmati brand Anarkali at Patel Bros. sells for $5.99 per ten pounds, while the cheapest Indian Basmati sells for $9.99 per ten pounds. This though, once can understand given how much inflation India has recently had. But if food prices rose in India just due to development and the resulting increase in demand, how come the Chinese manage to sell chapatis so cheaply? Is it possible that the Chinese government subsidized this chapati business to compete with India? Well I seem to be getting too much into conspiracy theories so let me stop there.

Unfortunately, live journal seems to have shifted my comment policy to "Screen anonymous comments". I was never aware of this, and hence accidentally a few comments got screened. I don't know why that happened : I did delete some comments that were just sales of arbit items - because they clearly were spam. My apologies. I have fixed the issue; if you still have problem commenting here, I would appreciate it if you let me know by emailing me at my live journal id at gmail dot com.

So please still feel free to comment here anonymously. I especially love to hear from anonymous readers because their honesty will not be compromised by their desire to appear respectable etc.

UPDATE : I found that with each post they require me to explicitly change the comment screening from "Journal Default" to "Disable" (i.e., allow anonymous comments). So even after I made this post yesterday it wasn't accepting anonymous comments. It should be fixed now. It also seems to show irritating ads to those who want to comment. I am thinking of shifting away from this stupid platform.

Can you just shut the bloody fuck up about Manu Joseph's "Christian agenda"? While such a thing may be possible, as long as you make that claim without providing any better proof than referring to : (a) his Christian background, and (b) his selective targeting of Hindu leaders; you are actually undermining your credibility as well as that of the Hindutva movement. This hurts the Hindu cause very badly.

Because humans typically evaluate ideas based on who are espousing them, and if they see Hindutva supporters making what seems to them as mere conspiracy theories, their incentive to listen to Hindutva view points will decrease.

Here is the problem with all you guys : you speak out your mind, without any consideration of in what manner what you write impacts your readers' world view. What matters is not whether you are reasonable or not, but whether your readers perceive you as reasonable or not. And you don't make even the slightest effort to forecast potential secular reader perception of your writings. Consequently you lose potential allies (something Shri Koenraad Elst has diagnosed to be a very serious weakness of the Hindus). You may say "Why should we care about what others think?" : well we should because Hinduism currently needs whatever help and support we can afford to get.

So I give you this abstract talisman : whenever you wish to write something, present your view point to one of your non-belligerent secular friends. If you have no such friend with whom a dialogue of the sort is feasible, try to actively recall all secular people you have talked to in the past, and create a prototype based on your memory files. Does your writing make him sympathetic to the Hindu view? If so go ahead and write. Otherwise try to edit your writing so as to make it more convincing.

NOTE I am not doing an Ashok Malik here. Ashok Malik is being hypocritical in calling Internet Hindus as uncouth, when tonnes of leftists and even well established media personnel act essentially no differently. All Ashok Malik is seeking to do is to disassociate himself from "the great unwashed". In contrast, I am NOT asking you to be polite etc. : if you can successfully and transformatively, convince a secular reader that his point of view is shameful, just go ahead. I am just asking you to ponder over how your writing registers in the reader brain, and base your writing on that. Because that is what is needed to further the Hindu cause. Screw Harishchandra, his approach is just not meant for Kaliyuga.

From Vox at Alpha Game Plan, via Dr. Helen, on why one should NOT listen to female advice on dating :

It cannot be stressed enough that female dating advice is aimed at ALPHAS and concerns how women wish ALPHAS would behave. It isn't aimed at the majority of men, because to women, the majority of men simply don't figure into their calculations at all. As OK Cupid has demonstrated, women rate 80 percent of men below average.
...
This is why all of the myths so cherished by deltas and gammas are precisely that, myths. Women aren't attracted to a man who is a gentleman, they are attracted to an Alpha and they would like him to behave like a gentleman.

The point of this post is to alert you about two main facts that most people don't, and you as a worthy though nonexistent reader of the Mandukopanishad should, keep in mind while reading articles about sex ratio. As the Malayalam proverb goes, one should not jump to fetch a rope upon hearing that an ox has delivered.

One KPM Basheer writes in the Chindu, in an article titled "State makes big leap in sex ratio" (the "State" being Kerala) :

The State's sex ratio (the number of females per 1,000 males) is 1,084. This is a big jump from ten years ago—in 2001 the State's sex ratio was 1,058.
...
But, the sex ratio among children in the 0-6 age group presents a gloomy picture. The ratio now is 959—meaning fewer female children than males had been born in the last six years. In 2001, there were 960 female children for every 1,000 male children in the 0-6 age group. Ever since population census started in India in 1901, Kerala always had a higher total number of females than males. If the sex ratio among children persists over the next couple of decades, the sex ratio might level off.

Before going into Basheer's argument, let me recap two of the main trends in our census data that seem superficially to sort of conflict, namely :

(i) The number of women in India per 1000 men has increased (though it still remains lower than that of men) from 933 in 2001 to 940 in 2011.

(ii) The number of girls per 1000 males in the 0-6 age group has decreased from 927 in 2001 to 913/914 in 2014, prompting one Amanda Hodge to write in "The Australian" under the heading "India's male bias still growing" [link], and CNN to write an article with similar sentiments. Our very own blogosphere's Shantanu is depressed and sad.

Well, as the wise would say, be neither elated by (i), nor depressed by (ii). Here is why.

Coming to Basheer's argument, or Hodge's implication that bias against girls being born is growing, there is this small problem with it. Namely, the sex-ratio-at-birth among American whites, for the last few decades, has been around 1050 males per 1000 females, which translates to about 952 females per 1000 males - which is actually lower than Kerala. As per the same link, at least as of 2003, the sex-ratio at birth for African Americans was about 1036 males for 1000 females, or about 965 females for 1000 males. Thus :

sex-ratio-at-birth of white Americans    <    0-6 sex ratio of Mallus    <    sex-ratio-at-birth of African Americans.

What explains this? Well, here is what wikipedia says about human sex ratio at birth :

In humans the secondary sex ratio is commonly assumed to be 105 boys to 100 girls.

This is about what you see with white Americans. So why is it different for African Americans? Here is something else the same wikipedia article says :

Stressing factors during gestation, such as environmental temperature and maternal malnutrition generally appear to increase fetal deaths particularly among males, resulting in a higher girl to boy ratio. Also, higher incidence of Hepatitis B virus in populations is believed to increase the female to male sex ratio, while some unexplained environmental health hazards are thought to have the opposite effect.

(please check wikipedia for the references that I have suppressed).

Thus, better maternity care increases the proportion of boys being born (or rather, diminishes the disparity caused by the female foetus being "more robust"). This might well be the main reason for India's 0-6 ratio dropping from 927 in 2001 to 914. At any rate, that Kerala has "only" 959 girl children in the 0-6 range for every 1000 boy children, doesn't seem to give any reason to worry.

More boys being born than girls does not contradict there being more women in the world than men. Even in the 20-44 age group, there are more males than females in the US, something that is not true for the 45-64 age group or the over 65 age group, or for the aggregate over all ages [link]. And this reversal, of course, is caused by the fact that men are more likely than women to die by a certain age. Based on this, we are led to the following as the most natural explanation for the two trends mentioned in our census data :

(i) As mentioned above, better maternity care has decreased the proportion of baby girls being born.

(ii) Our life expectancy has increased from around 63.2 years in 2002 to 66.8 now^{footnote} - which means there is now a larger contribution from senior age-groups where women numerically dominate - and this is likely the main reason why there is a larger percentage of women in India today than in 2001.

Footnote : The CIA statistics seem on Indian life expectancy seems weird - at least as quoted in this website. But believing in the upward trend seems to be a relatively safe proposition.

A few months back, Shri Koenraad Elst wrote a post claiming that the medieval Hatha Yoga was most likely borrowed from Chinese Taoist practices such as taijiquan and qigong, and that the modern Hatha Yoga as practiced in the west is mostly a product of western influences that came during the British rule. A similar point of view has been voiced by Meera Nanda, but by using strident, heavy handed rhetoric against "nationalism", pitting the caste of vedic sages against that of "actual Hatha yogins", trying to relate Hindu American Foundation with Brahminism and what not. Though, I should add that her points on Shritatva-nidhi and the Mysore court add some interesting points to this discussion, which Elst is perhaps not aware of. Wendy Doniger in an article I first located on "Christian Post" (I can't find it there now), too makes the point about much of the present day hatha-yogic-postures being based on European influence in the nineteenth century. Since what Doniger writes is more or less a small subset of what each of Elst and Nanda writes, and since Doniger doesn't bother to adduce much evidence, most of this article will focus on Elst's and Nanda's contentions and of course, the various axes that Nanda seeks to grind.

At the outset, I should admit that I have not been able to find any solid evidence for indigenous origins of Hatha Yoga. The best attempt in this direction that I have seen, has come from Shri Sarvesh Tiwari has tried to support the indigenous origin theory by quoting from a very admirably wide variety of sources. Yet, I am afraid the case he has to make is far from solid, though he has raised many points that deserve serious consideration (which is what I think about Shri Elst's arguments too, as we will shortly see).

Consideration of Shri Sarwesh Tiwari's points

He makes a very good point by quoting from the Brahma-Sutra-Bhasya of Shri Shankaracharya a sentence referring to Padmasana (the original quote can be seen in his post, and the translation can be seen here). To fully appreciate this point, one must consider the following :

1. Almost all (if not all) historians accept that this Brahma-Sutra-Bhashya was indeed authored by the original Shankaracharya (there are four such works which are more or less unanimously believed to be the original Bhagavatpada's : the Gita-Bhashya, the Upanishad Bhasyas, the Brahma-Sutra-Bhashya, and Upadesha-Sahasri; on the other hand even Viveka-Chudamani is disputed).

2. The argument of Dr. Elst dismissing the yogic nature of Pashupati seal, namely. the posture "comes naturally to people in a hot climate", does not apply to Padmasana.

3. Shankaracharya's authorship of Kundalini-related works such as Saundarya-Lahari is disputed. If Shankaracharya did not concern himself with Kundalini, then Elst's argument about Hatha Yoga being developed around the chakra and Kundalini lore cannot be applied to this reference.

But unfortunately, the same argument cannot be applied to Sarvesh's quote from the Yoga-Sutra commentary attributed to Shankaracharya, since that commentary is hardly accepted among historians as the Acharya's and the historians' position is somewhat justified by the lack of popularity of that commentary. As regards Sarvesh's quoting of Raja Bhoja's commentary, all I can say is - we will need to date the commentary historically before we can push the claim that his commentary predates the medieval Hatha-Yoga texts. Sarvesh makes another good point by showing a "Vrikshasana" sculpture from a circa. 600 AD Pallava temple (Vrikshasana is mentioned in the considered-to-be-seventeenth-century Gheranda Samhita, so it is not British coincidence). As for his claim about the standing posture of Jain monks, I don't know how yogic it was (but it does hit against the "climate argument" of Elst that we will consider later below). As for the posture of the great Jain founder Mahavira sitting in godohasana, I don't know the antiquity of the representation, and the burden of presenting that with proof is Sarwesh's. His point about Mahabharata and Virasana is interesting, especially since the text of the Mahabharata is believed to have reached its "final" or present form during the Gupta period, around 400 AD.

But still, at the end all we have is a kundalini-free reference to Padmasaba, a sculpture showing Vrikshasana and the name Virasana. This is why I feel that Sarwesh, despite his excellent reading, has only been able to put the issue of indigenous origin into the domain where it merits serious consideration.

On the Chinese Origin theory

Elst passes part of the buck to Geoffrey Samuel, who according to him "argues convincingly that kundalini yoga and the whole system of chakra lore, definitely not older than the 5th century CE, is a highly indianized adaptation of Chinese "inner alchemy" including the "small celestial orbit" and some of its sexual techniques." I haven't read Geoffrey Samuel, and am basing myself purely on what Elst and Nanda have written. Elst continues the quote from a sentence before the last :

Its core practice is the controlled circulation of energy, and the hatha yoga postures seem to have evolved out of the effort to facilitate this energy circulation through contribed postures.

This is weird, since the stated aim of the supposedly-fourteenth-century Hatha-Yoga-Pradeepika (access the full translation here), is to get the aspirant to "Raja Yoga" - this goal is not stated in terms of chakras. Further apart from phalashruti-type comments on a couple of Asanas (Matsyasana and Padmasana or rather a post-Padmasana-prescription) that awaken the Kundalini there is nothing in the book to suggest that the Asanas in themselves have anything to do with the energy centres. Elst continues :

To Samuel's argument, some more data from a comparison of practices may be added, e.g. "negative breathing" (in which the belly is not extended but drawn in during in-breathing, with the breath being drawn up so as to create an upward energy dynamic), and the whole Daoist-originated idea that yoga invigorates and lengthens life.

Just how "rigorous" is such a comparison argument? No one suggests that one of Newton and Leibniz must have borrowed calculus from the other, here the similarities seem less well laid out. Historians often seem a bit to excited to allege borrowing. Elst continues :

The actual hatha-yogic postures are very different from Daoist exercises in some technical respects, such as Indian muscle-stretching straightness vs. Chinese avoidance of all full stretching, again seemingly traceable to the difference in climate. According to Chinese tradition, daoyin exercises, attested BCE, were devised to make the joints supple in an arthritis-prone cold/wet environment.

Again, I just find arguments like this a bit too weak, vague and conspiracy-theoretic. There are semi-cold and wet enough places seasons in India too. Let me emphasize that here I am not furnishing any argument demolishing Elst's claim, but pointing to how far removed from falsifiability Elst's arguments are.

As for Meera Nanda, she hardly has anything more on this particular issue (the theory of Chinese origin) to add, giving as she does a less detailed description than Elst, refering to Amartya Sen, and claiming that therefore scholars believe the Indian and Chinese systems borrowed from each other.

Before I conclude this section, a word of complaint about historians' tendencies to attribute ideas that were/are current in India. They make something out of the lack of Hatha Yoga texts dated to before the fourteenth century. Let us keep aside the dating issues for this post. Did it ever occur to them that a similar lack of reference should weaken the case of the Chinese origin theory as well? One should always also take into account that Indians have done a very terrible job of recording their practices and keeping the records alive. Also we should try to acknowledge that some authorship claims can just not be settled, instead of building one conspiracy theory on top of another.

Meera Nanda's liberties with truth, and Hindu hatred

The reason I am considering this separately is that unlike Elst, Nanda's article actually reeks of hatred of Hinduism. While she makes some good and well-researched observations she has abused the credibility she could gain therefrom, by using it to bring in irrelevant issues and make sloppy comments just for the sake of denigrating Hinduism and anyone who cares about Hindu identity. Unfortunately I am running out of time so will just loosely indicate my complaints. I hope Sandeepji will do the full-fledged "ass-kicking" Meera Nanda deserves. Meera Nanda writes :

Hatha yoga was a creation of the kanphata (split-eared) Nath Siddha, who were no Sanskrit-speaking sages meditating in the Himalayas. They were (and still are) precisely those matted-hair, ash-smeared sadhus that the HAF wants to banish from the Western imagination. Indeed, if any Hindu tradition can at all claim a patent on postural yoga, it is these caste-defying, ganja-smoking, sexually permissive, Shiva- and Shakti-worshipping sorcerers, alchemists and tantriks, who were cowherds, potters and suchlike. They undertook great physical austerities not because they sought to achieve pure consciousness, unencumbered by the body and other gross matter, but because they wanted magical powers (siddhis) to become immortal and to control the rest of the natural world.

There you go. Since the Nath saints are relatively less known, Meera Nanda thinks she can get away saying anything about them. It is not clear, whether she is talking about a single "kanphata Nath Siddha" or by a group of them. But in any case, these are followers of Gorakhnath, and the Nath Sampradaya is known to put considerable emphasis on celibacy. In addition, the earliest known text according to her, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, emphasizes Yama Niyamas, naming celibacy among others. The text as mentioned earlier aims to take a seeker to "Rajayoga", and glorifies Samadhi. It talks of the "Atma and mind becoming one etc.", so it DOES have something to do with attaining pure consciousness.

One just wonders why Nanda thinks HAF has anything against "matted-hair and ash-smeared sadhus", or how their caste matters. Similarly, why does she just have to bring Brahminism into the picture elsewhere in the article? Even many of the most orthodox caste-centric strains of "Brahminical Hinduism" revered devotees from various castes as being close to God, for instance Shri Ramanujacharya is supposed to have considered Shri Kanchipurna one of his gurus. Why does she use such strong rhetoric about what she calls the "fundamentalist view" of HAF? All it has done is to protest in the most peaceful and civilized manner. That Meera Nanda opts out of a civil discourse, and takes up such a blatantly confrontational and eager-to-belittle approach should alert each serious Hindu about the extent of Hindu hatred that pervades our media.