The Politics of the female body

[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3634]

From: Chitra Raman

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 9:11 am

Hello Ray,

<< I’m not sure I understand what you mean by a conversation between “the pituitary and the gonad”. Sexual arousal is a function of the mind. >>

I’m sorry if that remark came across as being facetious, but that in essence is exactly what I was trying to convey—that arousal is a function of the mind. The pituitary gland is situated at the base of the brain, attached to the hypothalamus. Its anterior lobe releases the hormones that stimulate and regulate sexual function.

I didn’t intend this to branch off into a discussion of what triggers physical arousal. I do agree with your observation that the mind is driven both by personal and cultural triggers. But do correct me if I misunderstood your original intent. My response to you was based on the way you had framed your original post, which I understood as follows:

Sometime post 15th century, Indian women became influenced by European and Islamic perceptions of how much exposure is decent—in other words, the tyranny of “Abrahamic” values. So why can’t Indians in general (and spokespersons of Hinduism in particular?) look into their own history and shed their prudishness because in so doing they will actually be more true to traditional Indian cultural values, rather than giving in to Westernization.

I have no problem with your suggestion that values have changed over time due to interaction with other cultures. I just don’t think one can easily undo the effects of thousands of years of societal “weathering” by returning to an arbitrary point in the past. Change can happen only by being realistic about the underpinnings of present-day attitudes. Next, rather than breaking brick walls with one’s head, one finds ways to get around them.

You also say:

<< If nudity is the trigger for arousal then what of those traditional societies where nudity is the norm? >>

Actually I am aware that nudity can in fact kill the arousal response stone dead, under certain circumstances.

I’m not trying to justify moral policing of women’s dress choices, in case you were wondering. I believe strongly in freedom for women, and freedom to dress as one wishes is only a small part of that.

I also believe that the stranglehold of the patriarchal mindset had set in much before the 15th century, whatever might be the anecdotal evidence provided by European travelers or temple carvings.

The idea that women should be diminished, controlled, scapegoated, and patronized to promote societal well-being is reflected as early as the Manu Dharma Shastra, which is dated 600 BCE. The Manu Dharma Shastra is a reflection of the Hindu social realm, not the spiritual. Those two universes, in any society, have a very narrow field of intersection.

Independence and freedom from the consequences of judgment (nobody is entirely free from judgment by society)—hinges not so much upon moral proscriptions by any religious tradition as on education and economic independence.

The Bollywood movie star, Hema Malini, who is from an Iyengar family, had no problems with going through a farcical conversion to Islam for the sole purpose of “marrying” her partner Dharminder, who refused to divorce his first wife. She had two daughters with him who seem to have done quite well for themselves. I know other women who live the life they please. For that matter I know women in my family who live the life they please just by virtue of having a career, even though they’re not particularly wealthy.

In post #3623, you ask in reference to “what Lalleshwari would have wanted,”

<< is this what the spiritual tradition of India would see as healthy? And yet the censors actually assist this process by feeding into the ‘body as sin’ message. Is this something those who are promoting a ‘Hindu’ renaissance should be thinking about? >>

I’m trying to understand how you’re taking Hindu spiritual notions of the irrelevance of the body, arrived at by practicing sages living a life of mental and physical discipline—and applying those standards to how *Bollywood* censorship ought to operate, or how the politics of religion ought to operate? I cannot think of two realms farther apart!

I strongly agree with the portions of Umair’s response in post #3610 excerpted below:

<< I do not think there is evidence of any standardized mode of female dress having prevailed all over India, whether in medieval times or ancient times. That is, dress is a phenomenon that is quite likely to be “local”, particularly in an era when one mode of dress was not presented as a symbol of progress/backwardness, etc. >>

<< What all this reveals is the instrumentalization of woman, who serves as a stand in for, as a cipher pointing to, various abstractions. Unfortunately this sort of service is not merely a legacy of India’s Islamic conquerors (though it is certainly in part that), nor is it merely the result of colonial attitudes towards India (though it is certainly in part that), and it seems to me that the metaphysics underlying such a view are “in place” even prior to the Islamic invasions; the combination is highly problematic, and what is most disappointing is the utter political failure involved, a political failure in which complicity is rather widely shared >>

<< Whether or not Indian cultures traditionally held certain views about how women ought to dress are certainly relevant, but not as much as ideologues would have us believe. >>

Actually, in contemporary circumstances I question even whether the option of wearing revealing clothing reflects true freedom or independence for women. I tried to explore some of those contradictions in a paper on Western and Indian perceptions of feminism that I put together for the WAVES Conference last year. I’d be glad to share it offline with you Ray, if you’re interested.

You indicate that you agree with this view in the following statement:

<< I agree with you that the real issue is the free agency of women. The young women in the malls are likely just as much ‘fashion slaves’ as young Western women. >>

Of more concern to me is that despite a brief fling with some of the more transient and illusory symbols of “freedom,” many of them will become subsumed by the great amorphous averaging-out of the Indian Institute of Marriage.

<< I’m not suggesting that anyone should push a reset button. What I was suggesting was that the current Indian moral conservatism is actually not rooted in Indian tradition but has been absorbed from elsewhere. It may have more to do with a reaction to Muslim and European colonialism and not wanting to appear to be uncivilized… >>

If you’re inferring greater moral conservatism overall in India from the proclamations of VHP or the Shiv Sena in Mumbai, I would ask you to consider how accurate it would be to judge ground realities for women in the US from, say the convention speeches of Pat Buchanan or the radio rants of Rush Limbaugh. Times are changing – all it takes is for women to stop waiting for someone to give them a hand up, choosing instead to take their lives in their own hands.

Regards,

Chitra

Response to Ray’s post on November 25, 2005

Hello Chitra,

If you separately send me your feminism paper, we could make it available for all our readers here at your svAbhinava section.

Regards,

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3654]

Re: Was the ‘original’ (�di) Shankara a breast-fetishist? Erotics, renunciation, and the aesthetics of (Hindu) ‘catholicism’

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 9:03 am

Colonial ‘enlightenment’ has succeeded in amputating this ‘moral organ’ from its spiritual trunk, but only at the cost, it seems, of supplanting it with an exaggerated (and self-defeating?) prudery that might perplex even good ‘born-again’ American fundamentalists.

I’m sorry that I couldn’t respond to the many posts on this thread because I was away for the long weekend. I will write a comprehensive response to/against the many ideas which this thread seems to have generated.

But prior to this I would like the members to think about one thing:

Normally it is said in regards to sexuality/clothing, etc., that Victorian/colonial prudery changed the way Indians viewed sex. True, that such sentiment might have affected people who lived in the cities and who had direct interaction with the British and their ideas.

But how much of this argument is relevant when it comes to people in the villages? Are we to think that people in remote villages in Tamil Nadu prescribe to such attitudes regarding clothing and sex, etc., because they were influenced by British ideas?

There’re numerous traditional customs (even in cities leave alone the villages) which have shown little sign of being affected by European ideas and still persist to this day. Where is the evidence that the people in remote villages were influenced by European ideas?

[In response to Sunthar’s post (Nov 26, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3637]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3655]

Re: Was the ‘original’ (�di) Shankara a breast-fetishist? Erotics, renunciation

From: “Paul Kekai Manansala”

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 9:56 am

--- In [email protected], Nandakumar Chandran wrote:

Yup, you can walk days into remotest high Nepalese villages that have no road connection and are off the tourist trail, and still find some people wearing printed t-shirts, smoking cigarettes, etc.

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

http://sambali.blogspot.com/

[In response to Nandakumar’s post (Nov 28, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3654]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3656]

Re: Of Freedom and Hijabs

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 9:45 am

--- In [email protected], Ray Harris wrote:

Hi Umair,

I stand corrected in regard to the countries you mention. In regard to the need to dress modestly in non-Muslim countries, indeed, you are correct. But I was trying to convey, perhaps ineptly, the idea of reciprocity. As I recall the French bans were decried in many Muslim countries, including those countries that reserve the right to make similar laws for themselves. > Well, neither Umar or myself defended “similar laws” in other countries.

However, it seems that you have greatly overstated this issue. Not only are Western women not forced by law to wear the hijab in most Muslim countries, but neither are Muslim women so coerced. > So, either one can enforce a dress code or one cannot. If it is not right for the French to protect their secular values through a dress code then it is not right for Muslims to protect their religious and cultural values through a dress code.> Again this is misleading. Quotes from the following site—http://www.religioustolerance.org/rt_franc2.htm:

Re: the original prohibition:

“The Minister of Education ordered the expulsion from schools of all female students who wore the hijab. The French government took no action against Roman Catholic students wearing a crucifix, Protestant students wearing a cross, Sikh male students wearing a turban, or Jewish male students wearing a yarmulke (skullcap).”

It was only after much protest and controversy that other religions were added to this “secular” action, but not completely:

“The new “secularity law’ was passed with overwhelming support and a vote of 276 to 20. The law will take effect at the start of the school year in 2004-SEP. It bans the wearing of Muslim hijabs, Sikh’s head coverings, large Christian crosses or crucifixes, Jewish yarmulkes, etc. Small Christian jewelry is permitted.”

> And it is especially not reasonable if they condemn the French but accept their own laws mandating dress codes. >

Well, it is reasonable for French Muslims to condemn the dress codes. One cannot generalize the beliefs of Muslims elsewhere on every Muslim in France.

Note for all its bold talk secularity, rights liberty, etc., France’s treatment of its minorities leaves something to be desired. The employment and wage disparity between Muslims and Christians in France is astonishing. Significantly greater than anything between blacks and whites in the Deep South of the U.S. of long ago. Overall unemployement is about 30 percent but in some areas there is up to 60 percent unemployment of young Muslim adults.

And despite having a large non-white minority I have heard that the French parliament does not have a single non-white member.

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

[Response to Ray’s post (November 28, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3651]

Hello everyone,

One could make similar observations about the dearth of Indologists of Indian origin in the French (as contrasted to the American) establishment, and the marginalization (in more than one sense...) of the few that there are...

But this thread was about dress-codes, eroticism, and normative ethics...not only has it digressed to the politics of the hijab in other countries, it is now in danger of being completely derailed into a controversy between Anglo-Saxon multiculturalism and French assimilationism.

With too many issues mixed up, we aren’t going to get anywhere. So I request that we suspend this subthread and get back to the original subject of Indian ethics in relation to sexuality and censorship.

Thanks.

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3657]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3656]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 9:51 am

Bhartrahari’s in his vairaagya shaatakam says: there’re only two things of real interest to a man. The breasts of a well formed young beautiful woman and the forest (renunciation).

However intellectuals might psychoanalyze the dynamics which surround the attraction between the sexes there is little doubt that the normal man is aroused by the sight of a woman’s breasts.

Grannys (Paatis) not taking care to cover their breasts is a ridiculous argument. Individual “kinks” aside, the normal male or female looks for youth, firmness, smoothness, etc., in the flesh of the member of the opposite sex. Old women don’t take too much care to cover themselves primarily because they know they don’t have anything anymore to physically interest a man.

Saints like Vardhamaana going nude is totally different. The emphasis there is that they have gone beyond the confines of the body. The body is not the point of emphasis at all as it is in Bollywood, eroticism, etc.

The normal idea that the Indian views on clothing and sex, etc., have been influenced by Victorian prudery cannot hold water since we find similar ideas in remote villages too where European ideas have had little or no penetration. In such societies many traditions, which are in total conflict with modern ideas too, persist, which only reveals the tenacity of such societies to cling to their cultural ideals.

Nadars’ protests against their women going bare-breasted is clearly to protect their women’s honor. That castes opposed to them used such laws so as to humiliate the Nadars speaks for itself.

BTW if topless statues are to be representative of ancient Indian women going bare-breasted in public, likewise are erotic sculpture indicative of ancient Indians doing it in the open?

Nandakumar

In response to numerous posts on this thread.

------------------

[Rest of this thread at Paul’s post (Nov 28, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3658]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3618]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 10:02 am

Where is the evidence from regular texts that women went bare-breasted in ancient India? [Nandakumar]

There’s plenty of evidence from “regular texts.” [Paul]

Er, Paul, I’m still waiting for you to provide such “evidence from regular texts.”

[In response to Paul’s post (Nov 24, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3659]

Re: Was the ‘original’ (�di) Shankara a breast-fetishist? Erotics, renunciation,

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 10:07 am

Yup, you can walk days into remotest high Nepalese villages that have no road connection and are off the tourist trail, and still find some > people wearing printed t-shirts, smoking cigarettes, etc. [Paul]

1. India is more than Nepal.

2. And there’s more to culture and tradition than superficialities like t-shirts and smoking.

Also while a t-shirt can be a substitute for a shirt or an angavastaram [traditional upper garment] and a cigarette for a beedi [home-made Indian cigarette], a bikini cannot substitute for a saree. Primarily because of the values associated with such attire.

Nandakumar

In response to Paul’s post (Nov 28, 2005):

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3655]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3660]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3657]

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 10:22 am

--- In [email protected], Nandakumar Chandran wrote:

Bhartrahari’s in his vairaagya shaatakam says: there’re only two things of real interest to a man. The breasts of a well formed young beautiful woman and the forest (renunciation).

Since forest renunciation is hardly a universal idea, and is in fact absent from most societies, I think we can dismiss this statement.

BTW if topless statues are to be representative of ancient Indian women going bare-breasted in public, likewise are erotic sculpture > indicative of ancient Indians doing it in the open?

As noted there are scenes from the life of the Buddha and the Jataka tales from Ajanta and elsewhere showing most women in normal life going bare breasted (and also with some covering the breasts).

Also there are many written examples both Indian and foreign suggesting that going bare breasted was the norm.

For example, according to Manasollasa, the women of Dravida went bare-breasted. The Dhammapadatthakatha suggests that noble women in 5th century Sri Lanka went bare-breasted while Chandalas had to cover their breasts (opposite of the Nadar situation).

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

[Response to Nandakumar’s post (Nov 28, 2005) at

Hello everyone,

I’d request everyone to bear in mind that there are many members who are not so familiar with Indian culture and traditions, let alone Sanskrit, Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, etc. So please provide an English gloss for Indian terms wherever possible.

Thanks,

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3661]

Bosoms of Sri Lanka

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 11:00 am

Royal lady being served, Sigiriya fresco, 7th century Sri Lanka

19th century European century of Sri Lanka “natives”

Marco Polo on 13th century Jaffna:

“It is governed by a King whose name is Sendeznax. The people worship idols, and are independent of every other state. Both men and women go nearly in a state of nudity (the writer has cause to envy this climatic adaptation) only wrapping a cloth round the middle part of their bodies.”

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3662]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3660]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 10:58 am

Since forest renunciation is hardly a universal idea, and is in fact absent from most societies, I think we can dismiss this statement.

1. Forest renunciation is very prominent in Indian culture through the ages—aaranyakas, dharma shaastras, samnyaasins, siddhaas etc.

2. We’re specifically talking about India’s past.

As noted there are scenes from the life of the Buddha and the Jataka tales from Ajanta and elsewhere showing most women in normal life going bare breasted (and also with some covering the breasts).

Sculpture is not literature—not “regular works”.

And “elsewhere” is not being specific.

> For example, according to Manasollasa, the women of Dravida went bare-breasted.

Where? Please quote the verse.

Nandakumar

[In response to Paul’s post (Nov 28, 2005) :

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3663]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 10:43 am

BTW a general question: who benefits from such “liberated” notions of sexuality and dress codes today?

The dharma?

Corporates who want to sell their products—clothes, cosmetics, etc.?

Filmmakers?

I don’t see Gandhi or Vivekananda or Ramana Maharishi or Sri Sri Ravishankar supporting such ideas.

In contrast, filmmakers and actors like Kamalhassan and “artists” like MF Hussain (who painted a nude portrait of goddess Saraswati) do.

Nandakumar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3664]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3663]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 2:09 pm

BTW a general question: who benefits from such “liberated” notions > of sexuality and dresscodes today? [Nandakumar]

I forgot one primary such interested party: Indian intellectuals who are forever trying to retrofit Western values on Indian society primarily because having their intelligence hijacked (due to Western education), they cannot in any meaningful way reconcile themselves with traditional culture.

Ideas regarding free sex, revealing clothes, etc., is pretty much a modern Western phenomenon � la Woodstock, Rock ‘n roll, Hollywood, MTV, etc.

In the guise of asserting traditional values (as against a non- existent “Victorian prudery”), Indian intellectuals are pretty much welcoming modern Western pop-culture with open arms.

[In response to my own post (Nov 28, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3665]

Re: Was the ‘original’ (�di) Shankara a breast-fetishist? Erotics, renunciation, and the aesthetics of (Hindu) ‘catholicism’

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 2:47 pm

I’m from a traditional smaartha family. One of my grand uncles was even a Shankaraachaarya. I’ve studied Indian philosophy for around 6 to 7 years.

With this background, when I come upon instances like Shankara enjoying pleasures in a royal harem, I can only think of it as a pleasure for the sake of knowledge—for the sake of helping the society.

Because Shankara is teaching Advaita to non-jnaanis who are normally sunk in lusts of life. So he need a basis in such lusts to teach them how to overcome them.

Likewise in traditional niyoga [‘levirate’ of sorts—SV] where a brahmin helps somebody ...

The emphasis is not pleasure for its own sake, but for the sake of knowledge or for helping the society.

Likewise in Saundaryalahar�, when the poet praises the female anatomy, I cannot think of equating it with the bawdy lyrics of Bollywood. The poet’s perspective is different. As a commentator in a column in the Hindu noted: you need be to spiritually mature to understand such texts.

BTW since the Brahma Sutra Bhaashyam and the Saundaryalahar� have significant philosophical differences, I find it difficult to accept that they were composed by the same hand.

Also Shankara is a follower of the smriti—mainly the Manu. Manu says a woman should not be alone even with her father or brother—however can this view be reconciled with all these liberal notions ascribed to Shankara?

Kaama is perfectly valid between a husband and wife. So traditional kaama literature is necessarily to be interpreted that way.

>But within the orgiastic secret tantric rituals, the distinction >between the courtesan and the familial woman would appear to become >blurred, and one can only wonder as to what reality the adulterous >beauties extolled so effusively by the Sanskrit poets correspond....

This is totally unwarranted and has no ground reality beyond the author’s imagination!

But modern interpretation of traditional Indian culture seems steeped in such flights of fancy!

BTW why is that such arguments are always against traditional culture the way it is practiced?

The normal traditional Hindu will be repelled by such an interpretation because it goes against the substance and practice of his culture.

While the brainwashed Westernized Indian “intellectual” welcomes it as “progress” (progress = Westernization).

Sexual perversion is historically a proven means to subvert a society.

[In response to Sunthar’s post (Nov 28, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3637]

Hello Nandakumar,

You might want to desist from reading into my post more than what I explicitly put into it:

Nowhere in my previous posts have I endorsed Ray’s views and agenda regarding Bollywood (nor those of his opponents...like yourself), nor suggested that the West should be a model for India. Rather, I have often suggested the reverse and not just on this particular issue.

Instead, I concentrated on demonstrating, with evidence, that Shankara’s attitude to sexuality, women, and the ‘eroticized’ breast was more complex (and nuanced) than what your original citation from the (equally spurious) Bhaja-Govindam would have us believe, and not so far from Abhinava’s own views.

Whatever the ‘original’ Shankara may have been and taught, this is how the latter *brahmanical* hagiographies came to perceive him, but also use these attributions to justify the Sri Vidy� cult (alongside animal sacrifices?) in the ‘orthodox’ maths. So who is trying to subvert tradition here?

Abhinava himself (unlike Paul Gaugin!) was certainly likewise not for generalized (‘Polynesian’ style) free-sex. For example, while discussing the niyoga inthe context of his discussion of z�nta-rasa, he clearly states that the brother-in-law smears his body with oil (?) in order to evoke disgust (= dispassion) while impregnating his sister-in-law. Point is that Shankara, despite the Veda/Tantra opposition, is perhaps not so far from Abhinava.

There are also Christian fundamentalists and secular puritans in the West who are even more ‘hung-up’ about sex just as there have been and still are ‘liberal’ currents to be found within the Indian traditions even in the most ‘unlikely’ (for the modern Hindu) places. Actually, I have previously made the point that the American preoccupation with and sensationalization of sex has as much to do with a submerged but still potent ‘puritanism’—which is precisely what came to the fore in the Clinton-Lewinsky soap-opera (maybe Bollywood should do a movie of the antics in the White House and clarify to the censor-board that it’s a true-to-life documentary?).

I have no problem with others having different opinions and, more so, opposed values (this is what has been distinctly ‘Hindu’ in India perhaps?), but it’s self-defeating, especially on a public forum, to attempt to dismiss another’s factual evidence and reasoned arguments by trying to stick a ‘Western’ label...

Regards,

Sunthar

P.S. You might want to take a closer look at the treatment of the Vasantasen� with respect to the (brahmin) hero’s wife in the Mrcchakatik� to see how Sanskrit playwrights understood the social and ritual role of the courtesan...

...and Bollywood fans here might have noticed that in Devad�s, the wife and the courtesan finally get to meet because earth from the latter’s home is necessary for the accomplishment of the religious rites for the prosperity of domestic life!

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3666]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3657]

From: R.M. Paulraj

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 3:46 pm

Hi all!

I agree with the views of Nandakumar. I would also like to add some more information to the ongoing debate.

The women-folk of the migrant Nadars in Travancore state actually continued to wear ‘sari’ the way they used to wear it before migrating to Travancore (like the women of other castes in Tamil Nadu). This infringed upon the caste pride of the Nairs since the Nair women, like the women of other Malayali castes on the west coast, normally went bare-breasted. The Nairs aggressively attempted to impose a dress code on the Nadars in order to make them accept a subservient position below them. This led to the uncompromising resistance from the Nadars.

Even today, there are various communities in different parts of the world the women-folks of which are bare-breasted. The males of a number of tribal communities in Africa, the Amerindian tribals in the Americas, especially in the central and southern parts of that continent, and a number of forest tribals in India, Indonesia, etc., are still scantily clad, while the females are bare-breasted.

One aspect of Indian clothing, I think should necessarily be noticed, is that the garments were all rectangular in shape—having been taken directly from the loom. ‘Wearing’ merely meant ‘winding’ these cloths around the body. The cloths were not worked any further to make them match the shape of the human body. No innovative thinking went into this. Even the turban, the counterpart of the western hat, was a piece of rectangular cloth wound around the head.

R.M.Paulraj

[Partly in response to Nandakumar’s post (Nov 28, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3667]

Re: Was the ‘original’ (�di) Shankara a breast-fetishist? Erotics, renunciation, and the aesthetics of (Hindu) ‘catholicism’

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 3:46 pm

> You might want to desist from reading into my post more than what > I explicitly put into it:

Sunthar, you’re reading more into my posts as well. Apart from dismissing your comment regarding the role of a housewife in a tantric ritual as a “flight of fancy”, none of my further comments regarding Indian intellectuals is directed at you specifically.

Though I do believe that you’ve a bit too much of a Western influence than is healthy/justified in a scholar who specializes in Abhinava (because it colours your perception of the Saiva), I do not necessarily group you with the modern Indian “intellectual”.

Modern Indian “intellectuals” as a rule have never studied tradition.

>Rather, I have often suggested the reverse and not just on this >particular issue.

But today arguments seemingly anti-Western are actually pro-Western. Like (a non-existent) “Victorian prudery” versus “true native tradition” aka pop culture.

> * Whatever the ‘original’ Shankara may have been and taught, this >is how the latter *brahmanical* hagiographies came to perceive him, >but also use these attributions to justify the Sri Vidy� cult >(alongside animal sacrifices?) in the ‘orthodox’ maths. So who is >trying to subvert tradition here?

But where’s the evidence of eroticism in sri vidy�?

> I have no problem with others having different opinions and, more >so, opposed values (this is what has been distinctly ‘Hindu’ in >India perhaps?), but it’s self-defeating, especially on a public >forum, to attempt to dismiss another’s factual evidence and >reasoned arguments by trying to stick a ‘Western’ label...

I don’t think I have ever shied away from reasoned arguments/discussions. My comments regarding Westernization, subversion, etc., are only in addition.

> ...and Bollywood fans here might have noticed that in Devad�s, the >wife and the courtesan finally get to meet because earth from the >latter’s home is necessary for the accomplishment of the religious >rites for the prosperity of domestic life!

That can happen in Bollywood, but did that happen with Kannagi and Maadhavi in Silappadigaaram?

Nandakumar

[In response to Sunthar (Nov 28, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3665]

----------------------

Just a note on the Navaratri encounter: the two women do not meet in the earlier cinematic renderings of the story, nor is it sanctioned by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s original novel. Nevertheless, the theme introduced here of taking ‘auspicious’ mud from the courtesan’s abode seems to derive from age-old ritual, for which other parallels could be given (including the obligatory presence of prostitutes in the marriage procession as part of many local Hindu traditions). Eroticism and chastity are both valued within the Indian ethos (so Kannagi/M�dhav� wouldn’t really amount to a counter-example...) and you get interesting permutations, such as the courtsan Candramukhi becoming chaste after she meets Devd�s. C�rudatta actually ends up marrying the transformed and ‘domesticated’ Vasantasen�.

Similarly, K�lid�sa who so sensitively suggests P�rvat�’s (sexual) modesty (lajj�) when N�rada visits her father to discuss her marriage (l�l�-kamala-patr�Ni gaNay�m�sa ca p�rvat�) has been charged with ‘indecency’ for portraying the love-making of our (divine) parents in such intimate detail (Kum�ra-Sambhava).

The task here, as I see it, is not so much that of heaping counter-eaxmples on either side but of seeing how they fit into a larger complex pattern of values and cultural aesthetics. What we seem to be witnessing in these, ancient yet ever-fresh, stories is the general Indian sensibility playing with these (apparent) ‘contradictions’ to arrive at ever new (tentative) resolutions....

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3668]

Jataka Tales in Paint

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 11:32 pm

These “irregular” texts portray the texts of the Jataka in wonderful detail.

Birth scene from the Mahajanaka Jataka

Buddha in his past life from the Vessantarajataka

A noble lady from the caves of Ajanta.

Queen Sivali,

Mahajanakajataka

Queen Janpadkalyani, Cave1

Queen Janpada

Palace maids

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3669]

Re: Was the ‘original’ (�di) Shankara a breast-fetishist? Erotics, renunciation, and the aesthetics of (Hindu) ‘catholicism’

From: “Ray Harris”

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 11:39 pm

Hi Nandakumar,

I was intrigued by this assertion:

“Sexual perversion is historically a proven means to subvert a society.”

I was wondering what evidence you had to support this view. I know that some have argued that the sexual licence of Rome lead to its collapse but this is wildly inaccurate. I suppose it also depends on a definition of “sexual perversion.” Greek society managed to create a high culture whilst indulging in a number of homoerotic practices. Sparta was also quite successful and homosexuality was practiced amongst both men and women in that society, in fact Spartan women were known to be educated, some being noted as poets and some as philosophers.

Ray Harris

[Reponse to Nandakumar’s post (Nov 28, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3665]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3670]

http://www.tribuneindia.com/1999/99jul04/book.htm#1

From: Ravishankar V.

Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005; 11:55 pm

This is a general reaction, not to anything by any single person in the discussion so far.

I had been meaning to send this response from the beginning of the discussion on this issue of women, dresses and culture in India, but held back. I thought that others seemed more knowledgeable in these matters and some one is bound to references to bring up previous scholarship in the matter to our attention.

I also expected emergence of some sub-threads to how nationalism, identity and anti-colonialism were often tied to dress, and thus lead us to another area where cultural discussion can also be examined as socially, historically and politically material while the tussles take place in the symbolic realm.

Since not much came up by way of reference to recent academic work, I (reluctantly) went for a bibliographic search. It helped that I knew what to look for. An OUP publication from the late 90’s. I had looked at this book some years back, planning to write an article on it reviewing it for a Tamil e-zine, but never got around to it. So here is perhaps a well researched book from OUP that some one with immediate access to a good university library can look up and give us some more information.

Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India by Emma Tarlo OUP

This book covers at least the years of Europe’s intersection with an India in transition from pre ‘modern’ era to a different world especially through clothing. That is all I remember about this book.

One review that Google search showed was from Tribune India. I have no idea what this newspaper/magazine is. It is possible it is a publication partial to RSS?

I got a few pages of the bibliography of the book from Google but the link is too long. Copying it and pasting it to make it work may be a bit difficult. But doing a search with the names of the author and the book may lead one to the bibliography pages of the book.

Another review from a site whose name shows where the site comes from.

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1998/7/1998-7-21.shtml

Since the discussions here are relating the clothing to Hinduism, I thought the above review may be relevant.

A third link has a short bibliography related to clothing and cultural transactions which have a material basis. http://mcu.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/9/1/59

For example, how while identity construction is taking place actively through clothing, its discarding also generates many value transformations that are mediated through existing social tiers and the interactions among the various communities of people. Why focus only on sexuality? I can see that it is at the focus here perhaps because of its genesis in questions on Bollywood’s influence on Indian culture today. The above work shows even destruction of clothing has cultural implications and for some reason this article seems to locate these meaning making activities mainly in the lives of women. I don’t see much of a discussion about men in this paper. I wonder why? On the other hand Nytimes has recently published a series of articles on Clothing of contemporary African politicians and how most of them affect western clothes even while they are all rhetorically fiercely anti-west. It tracks the politics of such a conflicted sartorial politics in Africa and the discussion, if I remember correct focused on men for the most part.

I brought this up to suggest that other than sexuality, and identity politics based on chastity etc, there are other dimensions such as anti-colonial movements that have focused on clothingglobally through the past several centuries. In fact a large number of social movements across the world during the 20th century have used clothing as one of the key tools of mobilization. Nazis, Fascists, Communists, Indian Nationalists (of different kinds) and Dravidianists to name a few. A foucaldian take on that would be his key phrase ‘disciplining’—perhaps. While the positive spin on such matters seems to revolve around community cohesion or group solidarity for resistance or resurgence etc, for him it would simply be another way to servitude of the mind and body. I do note that some of our discussants looked at the French and their reaction to the ‘body politics’ of Muslims in France and elsewhere.

If any one wishes to look at the full article here is the link from google. http://mcu.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/9/1/59 SHEDDING SKINS The Materiality of Divestment in India LUCY NORRIS University College London, UK Journal of Material Culture Vol. 9(1): 59–71 Copyright (c) 2004 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)

Some references that caught my eye in the biblio section of this paper are: Bayly, C.A. (1986) ‘The Origins of Swadeshi (Home Industry): Cloth and Indian Society, 1700–1930’, in A. Appadurai (ed.) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, pp. 285–321. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Hansen, Karen Tranberg (2000) Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press .

I am hoping that some one from the group here, who has read Emma Tarlo’s book would offer us some insights from that book for our benefit.

Ravishankar, V.

[Rest of this thread at R.M. Paulraj’s post (Nov 28, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3666]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3672]

Re: Was the ‘original’ (�di) Shankara a breast-fetishist? Erotics, renunciation,

From: “Paul Kekai Manansala”

Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005; 12:05 am

--- In [email protected], [Sunthar] wrote: >

* Instead, I concentrated on demonstrating, with evidence, that Shankara’s attitude to sexuality, women, and the ‘eroticized’ breast was more complex (and nuanced) than what your original citation from the (equally spurious) Bhaja-Govindam would have us believe, and not so far from Abhinava’s own views.

The redoubtable Ambrose from Akandabaratam recently posted a discussion on go-mata and this reminded me of the unusual way in which Sankara remembered his mother.

Now it was pointed out that animals all give up mother’s milk after infancy. Yet Indian pandits suggest continuing to drink milk into adulthood even though studies have shown that in some parts of India more than 50 percent of the population is lactose intolerant.

I got to thinking of the gravity-defying depiction of Indian bosoms in sculpture and the swollen udders of a dairy cow and nearly had a Freudian epiphany.

Maybe someone should contact Wendy Doniger or Paul Courtright, or has this angle already been studied before.

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

[Response to Sunthar (Nov. 28, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/abhinavagupta/3665]

There’s certainly a symbolic identification of the cow not only with the mother but also the brahmin:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/792

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/798

Things get more intriguing because Shankara is said to have personally chopped his beloved mother up into pieces for cremation (a tradition apparently followed by the Nambudiris)....

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3673]

Re: Was the ‘original’ (�di) Shankara a breast-fetishist? Erotics, renunciation,

From: R.M. Paulraj

Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005; 3:46 am

Paul says

Now it was pointed out that animals all give up mother’s milk after infancy. Yet Indian pandits suggest continuing to drink milk into adulthood

In India the traditional marital alliances of quite a number of castes, including especially the various Brahmin sects, had led to a peculiar situation that was prevalent in several households.

It was quite normal, in fact it was ‘the’ norm, to have more than nine or ten children in the days only about half a century ago. Naturally, the age difference between the elder children and the younger ones was anywhere between ten to twenty years or more.

Now, the girls were married off at a very tender age, i.e., immediately after attaining puberty, and in a large number of cases to the girls’ own maternal uncles. In the meanwhile, it was not unusual for such a married girl’s parents to continue to have children. As a result, it was also not unusual for some of the parents’ younger children to be younger than this girl’s first children. Consequently, both the mother and the daughter will be suckling babies at the same time.

In this situation, it was not uncommon for the ‘grandmother’, who will only be in her thirties and having a baby at her lap, to feed the children of her daughter from her own breasts along with her own child. It was also common for children to keep suckling till the age of eight or so in those days. Therefore, it was a great task to wean away a grown up child from suckling and it required a lot of effort to achieve this. One way to physically prevent a child from feeding from the mother’s/grandmother’s breast was to apply the bitter gel obtained from the pulpy interior of aloe vera leaves on the breasts. The child who attempts to drink milk would thus be discouraged by the bitter taste of the teats. (What an ingenious idea!).

It may be common among the animal kingdom to give up mother’s milk at infancy, as Paul Kekai Manansala says. But it was not equally common among our own species till about half a century ago.

Please don’t mistake me. I have no disrespect towards the mothers or grandmothers, nor I ridicule them, for these things. These are all things of the past when whole villages functioned as a single family in matters related to normal day-to-day needs.

It may also be noted here that the women had no qualms about feeding even an unrelated child in the neighbourhood.

R.M.Paulraj

[In response to Paul Kekai Manansala (Nov. 29, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3672]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3675]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3670]

From: “Vinay Bahl”

Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005; 7:18 am

Just to add to the bibliography on Indian clothes, also see my forthcoming article in _Dialectical Anthropology_ (November 2005).

The larger version of the article is published in a book _What Went Wrong With ‘History From Below’_. Kolkata. K.P. Bagchi 2005.

[Vinay Bahl]

[Response to Ravishankar’s post (Nov 28, 2005) at

--------------

You can read Vinay’s article under the same title at EPW:

http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2003&leaf=01&filename=5366&filetype=\ html

http://www.svabhinava.org/friends/VinayBahl/default.htm

Sunthar

P.S. Vinay, I’ll be happy to post your new essay at svAbhinava Friends

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3676]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3670]

From: Chitra Raman

Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005; 8:48 am

Dear Ravishankar,

Many thanks for adding depth of field to this perspective!

I was about to ask the “breast” minds on this group whether they had any insights to share on the evolution (or not) of the role many men arrogate for themselves in the lives of women !

Would I be stereotyping men unfairly if I said there is a tendency among men from all cultures to see women as part of their ecosystem and therefore requiring to be controlled (okay, “protected”), whereas on the other hand they quite naturally accept other men as individuals with distinct personalities ? If I’m right, is this impulse innate or culturally ordained?

Regards,

Chitra

[In response to Ravishankar’s post (November 29, 2005) at:

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3678]

Re breasts as sexual symbols (please ignore previous mail)

From: Venkitesh

Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005; 4:07 am

Dear Friends

I hope I am contributing to this discussion.

In traditional cultures breasts did not have much to do with sexuality and more to do with motherhood. Hence women used go topless.

Only in modern times with the advent of semitic religions has breasts really been associated with sexual connotations.

http://www.breastfeeding.com/reading_room/breasts_shaped_babies.html

It is true that in many cultures around the world, the breast is not sexual,” says Marilyn Yalom, author of A History of the Breast and A History of the Wife. “The breast is over-eroticized in the Western world, but if you look at cultures in Africa, the breast is for the baby, not for the male. It is the buttocks that have become the erotic focal [there].”

The same is true in other cultures; for example, the Chinese make a fetish of the foot, whereas the Japanese concentrated on the nape of the neck. Blame the male academics for the sexual selection theory, Bentley says. “The majority of people who used the sexual selection argument have been male and were part of Western culture with its eroticized view of the breast.”

http://www.sexscrolls.net/breasts.html

Breasts Through The Ages Or—Thanks for the mammaries. Ah …The breast. So many varieties. They are everywhere these days. Turn on the computer and up pops an ad. Breasts. Turn on the television and the characters are active. Breasts. Breasts in magazines, advertisements, everywhere. Breasts have a history of their own.

Yes, they rate their own history. During the ancient history of women, the breasts are displayed to their finest, in empire styles, toga wraps, and bodices that hinted or presented the bust line in all its glory. Gowns accentuated the female form, for the most part. Displaying the breast wasn’t taboo and often, servants and women bound for the games went without covering. Much of the art from our ancient past depicts the breast as a thing of both beauty and functionality. As Christianity swept the lands, the idea of modesty became part of religious behavior. Women in different areas hid breasts, legs and form, although style always allowed the most chic yet desirable bodices. The painting which portrays Mary breastfeeding the infant Jesus, with her Divine breasts, brought about the power / erotic responses from men. They felt the power of fathering so that the breasts would fill with milk, combined with the erotic nature of breasts and nipples as an extension of sensuality. “The man is happy who can fill you with milk, and who can transform the virgin breasts into a beautiful and perfect woman.” In a poem written by Clemant Merot in the 16th century.

The Female Breast and Sexual Attraction PART I (Click Here for Part II)

A Brief and Unusual History Lesson in Breastology A whimsical Look at the Past—Present—Future

http://www.allnaturalbreastcare.com/sexhistberc.htm

The male obsession with female breasts is a fairly recent phenomenon from a historical viewpoint. In all types of ancient art medium, the female breast was usually exposed. Even in the Christian realm, paintings, sculptures, and drawings commonly and frequently depicted females with one or more uncovered breasts. The Sistine Chapel is adorned with female breasts and ancient artifacts depicting nudity seem to have far greater shock value in modern times than the artists would have believed possible in their time period. The first well-known written work on human sexuality that involved reference to breasts occurred during the 2nd century BC with the advent of the Karma Sutra. In Ancient Egypt, women accented their breasts with primitive cosmetics and exotic scents. However, body painting began much earlier with primitive man and female breasts received far less focus than facial features. In truth, there are no ancient social or cultural precedents to explain the current belief that female breasts are sexual magnets for males. Female breasts and sexuality did not become strongly connected until the repressive Victorian age when women were expected to cover more of their bodies. Strangely, during this same era, the female breast reached a zenith of sorts, as women’s clothing was deliberately and provocatively designed to emphasize, enlarge, and expose as much of the female breast as possible without showing the nipples. Thereafter in western societies, the female breast continued its onward march towards becoming a social icon and sexual projectile.

Cultural Differences It is also worth noting that American attitudes about the sexuality of breasts are hardly universal and may even represent a minority viewpoint in the larger worldly view. There are widespread cultural differences in male and female attitudes about female breasts and the role they play in sexual attraction. In so called primitive societies, the female breast was seldom covered. Eastern cultures and European attitudes about female breasts and nudity in general are quite different. For example, at one extreme, women in Middle Eastern countries are not allowed to expose any part of their breasts in public; yet, in most western European countries, females often and routinely go topless at beaches and public bathing facilities. As in most things, cultural differences abound but the question remains for American women. How did American males, specifically, become so obsessed with female breasts as objects of sexual desire and attraction?

As I believe the thighs and the buttocks were symbols of ‘turned on’ the men more than breasts.

Venkitesh (viji)

[Rest of this thread at Paulraj (Nov 29, 2005)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3673]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3679]

Re: Was the ‘original’ (�di) Shankara a breast-fetishist? Erotics, renunciation, and the aesthetics of (Hindu) ‘catholicism’

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005; 8:34 am

Nevertheless, the theme introduced here of taking ‘auspicious’ mud >from the courtesan’s abode seems to derive from age-old ritual, for which other parallels could be given (including the obligatory presence of prostitutes in the marriage procession as part of many >local Hindu traditions).

Appreciate if you could give references here.

Eroticism and chastity are both valued within the Indian ethos

But only within the marriage—it should be clearly qualified.

No shaastra says it is ok to go to prostitutes.

It might have been a practice in the society, but has no shaastric sanction.

and you get interesting permutations, such as the courtesan Candramukhi becoming chaste after she meets Devd�s. C�rudatta actually ends up marrying the transformed and ‘domesticated’ Vasantasen�.

Sorry, I’ve not seen the movie—so I’m lost here.

There you go. It is a poet’s flight of fantasy which is in odds with the society’s sense of right and wrong.

After our discussions yesterday I checked with a traditional Advaita scholar regarding Shankara and Saundaryalahari. According to him :

1. You can appreciate a woman’s beauty without desire—that’s itself the measure of spiritual purity in you.

2. And it is a measure of Shankara’s devotion to Shakti to describe the godesses’s body in such beautiful terms, though the normal body is to be looked down on as a sack of skin which contains so many impurities.

So traditionalists who sustain the tradition view it in a totally different way than Western-educated intellectuals.

What we seem to be witnessing in these, ancient yet ever-fresh, stories is the general Indian sensibility playing with these (apparent) ‘contradictions’ to arrive at ever new (tentative) resolutions....

There’s always been dharma and adharma in the society.

Nandakumar

[In response to Sunthar (Nov 28, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3667]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3680]

Re: Was the ‘original’ (�di) Shankara a breast-fetishist? Erotics, renunciation,

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005; 9:40 am

--- In [email protected], R.M. Paulraj wrote:

Paul says

Now it was pointed out that animals all give up mother’s milk after infancy. Yet Indian pandits suggest continuing to drink milk into adulthood

There are certainly areas where milk has allowed people to survive. Mare’s milk among the nomads of Central Asia, and cow’s milk among the pastoral people of the Sudan and the Kalahari. In those environments, agriculture was until lately quite impossible.

However, in these areas they usually ferment and pre-digest the milk with lactobacteria.

Recent studies show the great majority of adults lack the enyzmes necessary to digest fresh milk. Older studies missed many lactose intolerant people.

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

[In response to R.M. Paulraj (Nov. 29, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3673]

Let’s not stray too far and too long into the anthropology and biology of milk-drinking, as the original thread was on the (‘fetishization’ of the) mammary glands. The latter subject is of interest to (not just Abhinava’s) aesthetics (i.e., to this forum) because of the strong erotic value attached to prominent breasts in Sanskrit literature and the Indian visual arts. The question was: can Bollywood legitimately resort to such traditions, and if so how, in its handling of nudity and sexuality.

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3681]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3676]

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005; 10:04 am

From my own studies I would say that women during Paleolithic times were equal to men and may have even had a higher spiritual placement, if the “mother goddess” statues are any indication.

Burial practices, when they existed, did not indicate any higher status for men.

Sometime during the Neolithic, things went downhill for most women. So I don’t believe it is innate.

You are quite right though.

In medieval Europe, women were not considered true citizens and thus were not polled or taxed. They could not sit as judges and rarely as witnesses in criminal proceedings.

They could not own or inherit property usually except as surrogates in the absence of an agnatic (male) heir. In most cases, after 1100 CE, even when they owned property they had to be under tutelage from male members of their own family.

If a propertied woman married all that she owned became the husband’s property.

In fact, only a few pre-modern societies allowed women to fully inherit and own property on their own. In these societies, women retained their own property even after marriage.

I had heard that one legal argument used even in the early history of the United States is that “property” cannot own “property.”

[In response to Chitra’s post (November 29, 2005) at:

Prince Mahajanaka, Sivali and other court members

The prince after becoming a monk

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3683]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3678]

From: Umair Ahmed Muhajir

Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005; 3:55 pm

Venkitesh wrote:

“Only in modern times with the advent of semitic religions have breasts really been associated with sexual connotations.”

This does not appear to be the case if pre-Christian Greek and Roman literature is considered, not to mention Sunthar’s point about the prominent (erotic) place accorded to breasts in Sanskrit literature. More broadly, while I can easily see a link between the semitic religions and the problematization of the female body, I am at a loss if the claimed link is between the semitic religions and the female breast in particular.

Umair Ahmed Muhajir

[Response to Venkitesh’s post, dated November 29, 2005, at

Taken together, the imaginative world of Sanskrit literature and the real-life testimony of pre-Islamic visual arts of India would seem to suggest that the female breast did not need to be covered (as in the Semitic and modern Western context) to acquire a widely shared (only by men?) hedonistic value (i.e., did the women too experience their breasts as erotically charged even if only on account of the gaze of the opposite sex?). Though there is even evidence that such a ‘taste’ was deliberately cultivated as an aesthetic ‘norm’ even by the ascetic ideal that denounces its attraction (otherwise why single out the breast?), the question would be does this amount to “fetishization” not just as in contemporary commercialization (ads and swimsuit magazines) but also in the psychological sense as when we speak of the ‘traditional’ proclivity for small feet (and its very real physiological impact on the well-being) of Chinese women?

Regards,

Sunthar

P.S. I must confess that my own Romantic notions and sensibility (as shaped by English literature) posed great difficulties, at least at first, in appreciating (the zrng�ra-rasa of) Sanskrit poetry....

[Rest of this thread at Sunthar V. (Nov 01, 2005)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3454]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3686]

Re http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3683]

From: A.H. Venkitesh

Date: Tue Nov 29, 2005; 10:47 pm

Dear Umair

It is only when the missionaries came to India and various places and told the natives to cover up, that they really started doing so. Of course it is funny to see that the natives say in Bali are covering up while the Westerners frolicking topless, in Tahiti etc.

In the Pacific Islands they used coconut shells to cover their breasts. In Alaska there was some unintended effects. When the topless women covered their breasts, they died of cold.

Seriously speaking, at the heart of these discussions is clothing by women in traditional belief systems like Hinduism, African religions etc was really based on the region’s physical environment. So the women wore whatever was available based on the climate, topography etc. Male considerations were at best of secondary importance.

However in the Semitic religions—women had to cover up in order not to arouse the man. So here the hijab, covering of breasts etc were essentially imposed on women (by men based on their religion) and did not have much to do with their natural environment.

Hence we see Muslim lady in an extremely cold climate wearing the hijab and the same is followed by women in extremely hot and humid countries as well (Africa, South East Asia etc)

So the goal of female clothing in traditional cultures is different from that of the Semitic beliefs.

A.H. Venkitesh (Viji)

Response to Umair’s post (Nov 29, 2005) at

Hello Venkitesh,

Sunthar

P.S. I’ll be updating our “Nudity and Hindu eros” digest today:

http://www.svabhinava.org/HinduCivilization/Dialogues/SexualityFemaleBody-frame.htm

So I’d request that everyone review the arguments so far to minimize repetition and stick to the core issues.

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3687]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3686]

From: Umair Muhajir

Date: Wed Nov 30, 2005; 9:55 am

Dear Venkitesh,

But my point was not about the importance of Semitic religions in “covering up” (a point I agreed with), but about the notion that prior to the Semitic religions breasts had not been objects of erotic attention. You had made that claim in your post, and whatever the nature of the cover-up there were a whole range of pre-Semitic religion societies where the breast was in fact eroticized. Indeed the cover up of the breast in Semitic religions does not mean that where breasts are not covered up they were not eroticized but instead that the Semitic religions espouse an ideology whereby that which is eroticized ought to be concealed. The two notions are distinct.

I might also add that in pre-Judeo-Christian-Islamic Europe and much of the Middle East women did not bare their breasts in public, except in contexts where eroticism was sought to be highlighted: not in Greece, not in Rome, and not to my knowledge in ancient Persia or Mesopotamia.

Aside: A useful book I would recommend is Leila Ahmed’s Women and Gender in Islam, which attempts to undermine some of the historical claims made by the Muslim proponents of purdah. Ahmed claims that the early Islamic Arabs borrowed the purdah from Persia and the Byzantines, and further adds a class dimension by claiming that in these countries purdah-like arrangements were mostly associated with the aristocracy. One of Ahmed’s points, not dissimilar to one you have made, is that pre-Islamic Arabs, as well as nomadic Bedouin until modern times (when, I might add, they were forced otherwise by the modern Saudi state) wore traditional dress that mostly covered both men and women—understandable in desert conditions (and readily verifiable if one looks at traditional male Arab dress today, which is loose and covers every part of the body except for the hands and the face), but that this traditional public dress was not the same as the burqa as we know it.

Umair Ahmed Muhajir

[Response to Venkitesh’s post (Nov 29, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3688]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3686]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Wed Nov 30, 2005; 1:01 pm

Seriously speaking, at the heart of these discussions is clothing by women in traditional belief systems like Hinduism, African religions, etc., was really based on the region’s physical environment. So the women wore whatever was available based on the climate, topography, etc. Male considerations were at best of secondary importance. [Venkitesh]

This flies in the face of 4000 years of traditional Indian literature [Vedic, Buddhist, Jain] concerning kaama, dharma, and moksha.

But from what I’ve been observing on this list, it looks like people can make whatever (all encompassing) comment(s) they want without backing up with textual proof. Such a practice totally dilutes the seriousness/substance of discussions.

[In response to Venkitesh’s post (Nov 30, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3689]

http://www.bigpedia.com/encyclopedia/Sari

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Wed Nov 30, 2005; 2:10 pm

--- In [email protected], Nandakumar Chandran wrote:

This flies in the face of 4000 years of traditional Indian literature [Vedic, Buddhist, Jain] concerning kaama, dharma, and moksha. But from what I’ve been observing on this list, it looks like people can make whatever (all encompassing) comment(s) they want without backing up with textual proof. Such a practice totally dilutes the seriousness/substance of discussions.

You seem to be far ahead the leader in this practice.

The only support you have brought in terms of “textual proof” is some late quote of Sankara on a woman’s navel.

Aren’t women’s navels exposed in many parts of India?

“The classic sari or ‘Nivi drape’ consists of a single strip of cloth, draped below the navel and around the hips to form the lower section of the clothing.”

Also you have given no reason why we should ignore multiple foreign sources on the dress of women in some cases only less than a century ago.

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

[In response to Nandakumar’s post (Nov 30, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3686]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3691]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3689]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Wed Nov 30, 2005; 3:32 pm

The only support you have brought in terms of “textual proof” is some late quote of Sankara on a woman’s navel. [Paul]

Paul, I’m not surprised at your comment here given that you’ve repeatedly shown that you don’t even care to read posts properly and often exercise your own imagination in making up what people supposedly said!

Aren’t women’s navels exposed in many parts of India?

I’ve lived in multiple parts of the country—I can confidently tell you that no normal woman would expose her navel. Probably models or the glitterati or the “fashion conscious” might. But those are exceptions.

You need more than Wikepedia/Google to know about actual cultural practices in India.

Also you have given no reason why we should ignore multiple foreign sources on the dress of women in some cases only less than a century ago.

Not when they’re in conflict with local texts or customs.

Nandakumar

[In response to Paul’s post (Nov 30, 2005) at

I think we should leave this particular (increasingly unproductive...) difference of opinion as it is, for most of our members have been provided enough information by now, and are surely capable of following up on all the leads themselves before arriving at their own conclusions.

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3694]

Women as ‘other’ and eroticized breasts

From: Ray Harris

Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005; 12:45 am

Hi Umair, all,

In my earlier posts I did not want to concentrate on breasts as such. I was interested in uncovering how it is that modern India is apparently more puritan than it used to be (which may have also extended to sexual mores, the Russian merchant Nitikin, who came ashore in 15th C Maharashtra, commented that “Women who know you willingly concede their favors for they like white men”—which suggests a certain liberality not found today). This is not just about breasts but about the making a problem of the body, turning into a source of shame and sin, whether that sin is framed in Judeo-Christian terms, or Buddhist, or even Advaita Vedantic.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that an uncovered part of the body can just as easily be eroticized as a covered part. What else is the point of make-up if not to draw attention to the lips and the eyes as an erotic statement? When you cover any part of the body the erotic gaze is internalized in one’s imagination. To assume that men aren’t undressing clothed women in their minds is to be naive. To think that covering the female body stops the erotic gaze is to defy reality. Religious injunctions that are projected onto ‘the other’—yes, men make women the ‘other’ and commit all the errors of essentializing women—and which become moral inhibitions and restrictions tell us more about the individuals who seek to impose a moral order. Again, it is a matter, surely, of self-control? Because I have not seen any substantive evidence to suggest that wearing modest clothes inhibits the erotic imagination, or for that matter leads to an end of sexual assault.

If I can make a small correction: in regard to the exposure of the breast in Greece—it depends on the time and place. I understand that no such prohibition existed in Sparta. It may have been an Athenian custom to cover the breast but I am not sure about other regions. There was also some influence from Minoa impressing itself on some Greeks.

Ray Harris

[Reply to Umair’s post (Nov 30, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3687]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3696]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3694]

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005; 8:37 am

--- In [email protected], Ray Harris wrote:

Speaking of the eyes these are in my view the woman’s most powerful “weapons” for seducing a man.

So in terms of preventing eroticism only the Taliban and the Saudis know what they are doing.

One thing though is nearly all the world agreed in covering the sexual organs as a norm regarding modesty and/or privacy.

I say privacy as arousal (or lack of it) becomes very obvious if the sexual organs are openly revealed.

Also can lead to embarrassing comparing of one’s “equipment.”

There is at least one example, of which I’m aware, of breasts apparently used to “measure up” a woman in Semitic literature—the Song of Solomon (8:8-10):

“We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?

“If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver: and if she be a door, we will inclose her with boards of cedar.

“I am a wall, and my breasts like towers; then was I in his eyes as one that found favour.”

This is often interpreted spiritually but the imagery used appears to be one where the lover is said to have small (no) breasts (by her competitors, siblings?). They also ask some questions about her chastity apparently.

The lover replies that she is chaste (a wall) and apparently that her breasts though small don’t sag (like towers).

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

[Reply to Ray’s post (Nov 30, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3697]

Asokan breasts

From: Paul Kekai Manasala

Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005; 8:51 am

I just got this from the Indiaarchaeology list.

Relevant to Abhinavagupta discussion are the exposed breasts and navel of the queen and other court ladies in this apparently first ever portrait of King Asoka and his queen at Kanganhalli, Karnataka.

http://asi.nic.in/album_kanganhalli.html

http://asi.nic.in/album_kanganhalli5.html

http://asi.nic.in/album_kanganhalli4.html

Accompanying inscription reading “Ranyo Asoko”

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3700]

Questions of Eros in Hollywood: A similar problem?

From: Sumita Ambasta

Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005; 9:31 am

I recently found this exceptional piece on the much criticized Kubrick film “Eyes Wide shut” in Harper’s by Lee Siegel.

http://www.indelibleinc.com/kubrick/films/ews/reviews/harpers.html

The lines that stand out are:

“Attacking a work of art on the grounds that it doesn’t reflect contemporary appearances and conventions was bad enough, but the critics really c did themselves on the subject of sex. The portrayal of an orgy, after all, had been the centerpiece of the film’s publicity campaign. Therefore, the publicists had to be thoroughly debunked. Yet in debunking all the hype about the sex, the critics never got beyond the hype about the sex. They seemed intent on proving how sexy they were, and how sophisticated they were about sexiness, because when sexiness is marketed as vigorously as it is in America today, one had better appear to have mastered the market. Never mind that Eyes Wide Shut is not about sexiness but about sex.”

“The danger Bill and Alice face is that either domestic emotions will stifle sex or that unbridled sexual indulgence will kill off the individuality that nourishes emotional attachment. This is a dated theme? (That’s like telling Hamlet to lighten up--everyone’s father dies, for goodness sake.)”

The reason these thoughts are relevant to Bollywood discussions of erotic presentation is eros in the Indian setting is never separate from the “dharma, artha, kama, moksha” framework. It is only one part of “kama” The other part would consist of films like “Wall street” and desires that take other forms.

It’s hard for viewers to view films merely on one facet of life (or so I suspect, rather tentatively) and somewhere there is a desire in Indian viewers to see eros as part of a whole? I don’t know whether this is true, but it is a pathway I feel comfortable exploring. We have been discussing women’s clothing and breasts now for many posts and I read with great interest. However, I am not sure without finding exactly what the place of woman’s beauty (or do we prefer aesthetics) holds in a bigger framework of life, can this discussion have any meaning.

Is there not a danger of sheer voyeuristic pleasure in discussing these things without also addressing those questions? (of what place a woman’s aesthetics have in life or art?) Is there not a danger of these questions meandering into mundane and trite realms?

How is this different from the front benchers getting really excited about the titillation? What makes for that difference? And without defining that difference, how can we be sure we are taking an objective look at this topic, and not merely a provocative one?

I keep returning to this question. Does anyone else share this question?

(This is not meant to be offensive in any way, but merely a critical question of the motives we all bring to these discussions)

[Sumita Ambasta]

I couldn’t agree with you more!

Does Bollywood’s continuing appeal to Indians and now increasingly to Westerners revolve solely, or even primarily, around how much or how little women expose themselves? What else is there that is distinctive and commendable in Indian mass-market movies, and how could these be enriched and expanded for wider audiences by a mining of traditional Sanskritic and popular culture? Regards,

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3701]

From: Sumita Ambasta

Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005; 9:46 am

This is not just about breasts but about the making a problem of the body, turning it into a source of shame and sin, whether that sin is framed in Judeo-Christian terms, or Buddhist, or even Advaita Vedantic. [Ray]

Can it be possible that the bringing together of various cultures and views on sexually accepted behavior could have catalyzed an attempt to take a defensive stance? In a world where law does not protect women.

The reason I say this is while walking on the streets of New York in 30 degrees Fahrenheit, it is not unusual to see young girls in states of undress that absolutely do not make for any commonsensical weather-related dressing. It’s obviously provocative, and clearly aimed at gaining and holding the male attention. People from traditional societies (who travel much more across country’s borders) wonder why girls resort to such “slutty dressing.” This term is used by older men and women who find it hard to understand why girls need to weather such cold to expose themselves so desperately. They see a sense of pathos in it. I am pretty sure the girls do not identify with that pathos. A culture where girls need to “market” their wares to gain the best partner, will appear “slutty” to someone from a traditional culture. It’s an issue of “marketing.”

My guess is that some similar dynamics may have occurred in India when Judeo-Christian influences clashed with the social structures of family, mate selection, and sexual relation processes. Is there a possibility that since use of force was OK in those days (we didn’t have sexual harassment law enforcement) the difference in sexual mores may have creates self-consciousness at being exposed to the “other”? On both sides?

How I dress in my home has to be different from how I dress if a guest shows up in most occasions, right?

Is there a little of this dynamic here? When I see New York and immigrant responses to Victoria Secret bill boards, a sexually charged atmosphere, a thought occurs to me. Aren’t these tensions part of the “mixing up” of cultural mores? Isn’t this also an issue of power, where the dominant culture, which can implement its laws through force, drive what is correct or not?

These questions are not mine alone. They have been heard and repeated by many. Is it related?

Sumita

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3702]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3694]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005; 10:00 am

the Russian merchant Nitikin, who came ashore in 15th C Maharashtra, commented that “Women who know you willingly concedetheir favors for they like white men” [Ray]

The problem with such sources is that they are too generic and ambiguous.

What is the exact geographical region that the Russian visited?

Who were the people he talked about?

What was their social background?

Was he talking about devadaasis, poor people, the glitteratti or the traditional housewife?

What is the veracity of his claims?

There’re too many questions here and without clear answers, it is very difficult to make judgments about such issues with such material.

which suggests a certain liberality not found today.

But Buddhist or Vedic or Jain texts on dharma shows the situation in a totally different light.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that an uncovered part of the body can just as easily be eroticized as a covered part.

It can—probably by intellectuals.

The average man is more affected by what can be seen and felt than what can be imagined.

We’ve to understand that people are of different types. The problem with intellectuals is that they often think that normal people are like themselves. It is simply not true.

What else is the point of make-up if not to draw attention to the lips and the eyes as an erotic statement? When you cover any part of the body the erotic gaze is internalized in one’s imagination. To assume that men aren’t undressing clothed women in their minds is to be naive. To think that covering the female body stops the erotic gaze is to defy reality.

But it could check the tendency.

An open breast would probably attract more attention than a covered one.

Also covering it gives the uncovering (physically or in imagination) a negative psychological effect.

There’s a difference between doing something which is considered wrong and doing something which is not considered wrong.

Knowing the difference itself is dharma.

Nandakumar

[In response to Ray’s post (Dec 1, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3703]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3701]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005; 10:28 am

“slutty dressing.” This term is used by older men and women who find it hard to understand why girls need to weather such cold to expose themselves so desperately. They see a sense of pathos in it. I am pretty sure the girls do not identify with that pathos.

You’d be surprised at how people do things simply because it is the normal practice in the society—that other people do it.

Not everybody reflects on or seeks meaning, in what they do.

But that also doesn’t mean that they’ll agree/accept the validity of what they do, once they understand its meaning/dynamics.

Such reactions are not merely restricted only to foreigners. Even many conservatives and traditionally religious societies (especially in the mid-Western USA) don’t take kindly to such blatant sexuality.

Nandakumar

[In response to Sumita’s post (Dec 1, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3704]

Re: Questions of Eros in Hollywood: A similar problem?

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005; 10:40 am

And I thought the movie was about human weakness, erotic imagination, jealousy, and understanding!

artha, kaama, dharma, moksha, in one form or the other, exist in all societies.

artha and kaama in line with dharma with the ultimate aim of moksha—this is the traditional Indian view.

The emphasis is crucial and thus forms the difference between a dharmic society and a non-dharmic one.

Nandakumar

[In response to Sumita’s post (Dec 1, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3700

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3707]

Reply to Sumita

From: Ray Harris

Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005; 10:36 pm

Hi Sumita,

One thing that I would strongly suggest is that women do not necessarily dress to attract the erotic gaze of men, they also dress to satisfy their own erotic image of themselves. The curious thing is that many men are not really attracted to what women choose to wear, nor to makeup. I know of men who are turned off by makeup, who like small breasts and care little for women’s fashion. So we have to assume that a good part of the process is women (and men) dressing to suit themselves and to satisfy what they think is attractive. Furthermore, I know of men who see scantly clad women in cold weather and whose first thought is, ‘where is her coat, isn’t she freezing?’ Mind you, in Australia, it is cool for boys to wear only T-shirts in winter. Amongst teens I would think the driving factor in fashion is appearing cool to your same sex peers, not the opposite sex.

(In the West it is now increasingly fashionable for both men and women to exfoliate their pubic hairs, with men facing pressure from women to do so—a custom incidentally, practiced in Greece, Rome and the ME—and this is often the last part of the body to be displayed).

So some of what drives all of this is peer pressure and the need to be in the ‘in’ crowd by wearing the right fashion of the moment. Which is very likely how India’s dress code changed. The ruling elites, both Muslim and British, dictated what was fashionable and what carried status. Ambitious Hindus affected the Muslim and British norms in order to advance themselves in the new social order. So perhaps changing fashion is more about status than arbitrary notions of morality.

What I find curious is how the self-appointed moral guardians suddenly declare certain things to be obscene, without reference to history or reason.

Besides, I thought the point of the naked avadhut was to point out exactly how arbitrary conventional morality was—and further, that they stood in transgressive opposition to Brahmanical (and Shankarian, Buddhist and others) moral orthodoxies.

In regard to defensive strategies—one has to ask, have such defensive strategies worked? I don’t believe that there is much sexual assault and abuse in nudist communities. In fact, there is far more flirting and sexual gazing on normal beaches and clothed events.

I actually believe there is more likelihood of sexual assault in cultures that have a division between the pure, untouchable girl, and the temptress who invites transgression. It seems assault victims are women who are perceived by the perpetrator to have in some way, asked for it, often for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time and outside the arbitrary ‘protected time/space’ that marks her as unavailable. In some societies that simply means not married and at home. Clothing can simply be torn off and has little effect in stopping assault.

Ray Harris

[Response to Sumira’s post (Dec 01, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3701]

I should point out that on the BHU campus there were frequent (attempted) molestations in public spaces (usually at night) of (fully-clothed) Indian female students and even quite mature matrons (I can remember a case quite vividly...) by male students apparently getting too high on Bollywood love-scenes (while returning from the cinemas on cycle rickshaws). And this despite (or rather because of?) the strict separation of the sexes (the girls’ college and hostel was literally walled off...).

I think this has still to do with the conflict of norms that Sumita brought up and, here, perhaps Bollywood is more a vector of the West?

Regards,

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3708]

Women as other and eroticized breasts

From: Ray Harris

Date: Thu Dec 1, 2005; 10:53 pm

Hi Nandakumar,

I accept and understand your reservations in regard to Nitikin’s observations. I intend it only as a suggestion that might provide a clue that then might be further investigated.

In regard to some of your other points.

I don’t make the same distinctions between the average man and intellectuals as you seem to. In my personal experience the average man has just as active an imagination as intellectuals. Your comments suggest to me a rather prejudiced and inaccurate understanding of “the average man.”

A naked breast in a sea of clothed breasts would certainly draw attention, but a clothed breast on a nudist beach would attract more attention.

Covering the body may indeed inhibit the erotic gaze—but it may also invite the erotic gaze with a curiosity to see what is hidden. This curiosity may itself be a nagging distraction.

I accept that you advocate your understanding of dharma, but what attracted me to this site is the sense in which spirituality may also be about transgression and questioning tradition and moral rules, indeed, in questioning what is dharmic. I’ve understood the Tantric tradition to question traditional ideas of dharma.

Isn’t Tantra dharma to be transgressive, to question, to shock normal moral standards, to shatter conventional understanding in order to point to a deeper reality?

Ray

[Reply to Nandakumar’s post (Dec 01, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3702]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3709]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3707]

From: Sumita Ambasta

Date: Fri Dec 2, 2005; 5:12 am

Yes, fashion is a big power statement. It’s the rich and famous who drive what’s fashionable, and the underlying principle of the propagation of fashion is one of emulation. It’s pretty similar to norms of corporate dressing. In the early 90s, when multinationals were setting up in India, B-School women graduates wore a lot of Indian clothes to work. I remember looking for a suit in Mumbai before a visit to the US and finding only one store in the entire city which stocked one. We wore saris and salwar kammez’es to work and it was considered appropriate clothing.

With a lot more business exchange having occurred in the last decade, I saw younger girls, specially those who have traveled abroad, moving to wearing suits. The desire is to emulate “powerful women” in the corporate world, most of whom dress in Western clothes, the model of transnational business being driven by Western mores. Saris are not the preferred clothing for younger professional women, and salwar kameezes have taken on a more ethnically neutral format, one of a pant set.

On the contrary here in NYC, with Asians moving to dominant positions in businesses, it’s not out of place to wear an ethnic outfit to a formal night. You have to look at any fashion magazine, to see ethnic jewelry, embellished and traditional clothing with flowing skirts, stones, sequins, etc., along with the elaborate form of dressing that is very ethinic in nature is making a comeback in the fashion world. It’s easy for me to source what’s fashionable in New York from India today than what it was 10 years ago.

But the central point of exposure or lack of exposure and the moral values many associate with it are never separate from this question, even as it may seem unrelated.

Fashion, is also driven at some level by the underlying mores of society, even is it is emulative.

I think the issue of assault you describe is simplistic. It’s more an issue of law enforcement. if law was not as strong in NYC, you would probably see as much or even more assault as traditional societes. You may not be familiar with the incident of Puerto Rican Day parade where girls were assaulted in broad daylight in Central Park in NYC and the big scandal was how the police did not do much about it.

Many things were inconclusive but the issue of public behavior and clothing was central to those debates. Yes, it’s what stands out that always draws attention. But it’s important to examine (I am working on these lines) why girls feel compelled to express themselves erotically rather than through other forms also. There are many choices available to girls of self-definition, specially in modern societies. What makes one choice stand out. If “being cool” is important, then why do “success icons” follow erotic model in preference to others?

Why is Britney a bigger role model, rather than lets’ say some social worker, or corporate leader, or political leader?

It’s hard to separate women’s portrayal from the role of women in society. If many goddess forms are available to girls, why the choice of Venus over let’s say Athena?

While the issue of power dynamics is very very important, it’s not the only factor. Moral policing is usually an outcome of these tensions. To invalidate the tension as mere power issues is a little reductionist. There has to be some concern that is hidden by aggressive moral stances, and I am not sure if it’s merely a desire to subjugate women, as is often suggested.

There are more things that need to be explored here.

Bollywood is also struggling with these conflicts, in attempting to integrate the many faces of women, erotic, nurturing, powerful, wise, etc.....But more on that later.

Regards.

Sumita

What I find curious is how the self-appointed moral guardians suddenly declare certain things to be obscene, without reference to history or reason. In regard to defensive strategies—one has to ask, have such defensive strategies worked? I don’t believe that there is much sexual assault and abuse in nudist communities. In fact, there is far more flirting and sexual gazing on normal beaches and clothed events.

[In response to Ray’s post at (Dec 01, 2005)

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3710]

Re: Women as other and eroticized breasts

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Fri Dec 2, 2005; 8:38 am

I guess we all have our own personal experiences and interpretations. Who is to say who is right?

A naked breast in a sea of clothed breasts would certainly draw attention, but a clothed breast on a nudist beach would attract more attention.

But the normal society isn’t a nudist beach, is it?

See the primary question is : which would be more erotic? the bared or the clothed?

We can argue till eternity.

But the fact is that civilizations throughout history have conceived and developed clothing in one form or other to cover up the private parts, even if not breasts, still the genitals are covered.

That means something, doesn’t it?

Also the question of whether European standards of morals were influential in such ideas: from Africa to Asia to South America, the natives of these lands, even as they accepted and assimilated so many European ideas into their local cultures, still they have also not accepted so many things even after centuries of colonialization.

So why should they accept this alone?

People seem to accept things culturally when it benefits them in some way. IF Indians did accept such values (if they didn’t already have such norms) it was because it complemented their existing values.

Yes, I’m sure you’ll find many members of this list supporting your ideas. But I’m generally inclined towards the conservative and orthodox perspective.

Isn’t Tantra dharma to be transgressive, to question, to shock normal moral standards, to shatter conventional understanding in order to point to a deeper reality?

Yes, but in that form it never achieved any popular support—rather were condemned and hounded out of existence.

Nandakumar

[In response to Ray’s post (Dec 02, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3708]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3711]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3709]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Fri Dec 2, 2005; 8:56 am

I think the issue of assault you describe is simplistic. It’s more an issue of law enforcement. If law was not as strong in NYC, you would probably see as much or even more assault as traditional societies.

Very perceptive.

Yes, clothing is very much a statement—a personal definition—an identification. A woman who wears revealing clothes is often considered by men as “wanting it.”

Ray, let us suppose you want to buy apples. Who would you go to? A vendor who keeps his wares covered or the one who’s displaying it?

Likewise those who “want it” approach those who too seem to “want to give it.”

Why is Britney a bigger role model, rather than let’s say some social worker, or corporate leader, or political leader?

Because it is easier.

Because it is more natural for a woman to revel in her physical charms (there’s a reason that fashion, cosmetics, etc., are huge industries).

Because it is more pleasurable and exciting.

Even if Aishwarya Rai had the brains to do something different, what are the bets she would have opted out of “Bollywood”?

Nil, IMO.

As Gautama Siddhaartha is supposed to have said: adharma comes naturally. Dharma comes only with strenuous effort.

Nandakumar

[In response to Sumita’s post (Dec 02, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3713]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3711]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Fri Dec 2, 2005; 9:46 am

Why is Britney a bigger role model, rather than let’s say some social worker, or corporate leader, or political leader?

Maybe, being desired, is more desirable (naturally?) for the average woman than being respected.

I’ve seen even old women pleased with complimentary comments on their looks.

Come on—who wouldn’t?

Even men would I guess. Except maybe for men, some things are even more important.

Nandakumar

[In addition to my own earlier post (Dec 2, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3712]

You may want to fix this website typo. Also, an incorrect feedback link...

From: Kevin Merwin

Date: Fri Dec 2, 2005; 9:26 am

Hello,

In the intro to the “The Politics of the female body: Nudity, Bollywood, and the Hindu Eros” page, we have:

“...Paul Kekai Manansala (who has richly illustrated this digest with ancient bear-breasted frescos from across the Indian subcontinent)...”

We mean bare-breasted, I am fairly certain.

[Kevin Merwin]

PS The email address given by the “feedback” link at the top of the page is throwing an error. The [email protected] email address does not work.

--------------

Hello Kevin,

Yes, I noticed the error...guess only (Indian?) men are ‘bear-breasted’ :-)...last night but have fixed it only just now. Thanks for the reminder. The whole digest has been updated:

http://www.svabhinava.org/HinduCivilization/Dialogues/SexualityFemaleBody-frame.\ htm

Yes, the feedback mailbox has not been forwarding mails to me since several months (change of server). I’ll have this fixed soon.

Nice to hear from you!

Regards,

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3714]

Re: You may want to fix this website typo. Also, an incorrect feedback link...

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Fri Dec 2, 2005; 10:08 am

--- In [email protected],

Kevin Merwin wrote:

In the intro to the “The Politics of the female body: Nudity, Bollywood, and the Hindu Eros” page, we have: “...Paul Kekai Manansala (who has richly illustrated this digest with ancient bear-breasted frescos from across the Indian subcontinent)...”

Sorry if the boob shots offended anyone. I did not mean to be anymore voyeuristic or titillating than in previous discussions about human and animal sacrifice, cannibalism, decapitation, Mahisi rituals with the dead, etc.

I guess exposed breasts are highly charged images in today’s world.

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

[Response to Kevin’s post (Dec 02, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3712]

Your images are a welcome visual testimony to these otherwise purely verbal (if not verbose...) discussions. What I find rather striking is how unselfconscious (even coy in a couple of cases...) these bare-breasted women, whatever their social status, seem. It’s not as if they were trying to ‘exhibit’ their (otherwise unappreciated?) physical charms, as seems often the case with the cleavages that are thrust in our faces (and not just in cinema and TV) in the West (to recall the comments of a compatriot residing in Benares during the first visit to BHU of a former French ambassador’s wife...).

I guess what makes the difference is the audience, context, and (perceived) intent of bodily exposure (the Benares I knew was much more tolerant of ‘natural’ nudity in public than is the United States...). What seems to be insufficiently explored and emphasized in the discussion so far is the segregation of ‘social spaces’ (in pre-modern and contemporary India), of and for which this global cyberforum would constitute a newly emerging and challenging kind...

Regards,

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3716]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3709]

From: Ray Harris

Date: Fri Dec 2, 2005; 4:39 pm

Hi Sumita,

I did not mean to be simplistic. The issue is actually quite complex—but in trying to keep my message brief I took some short cuts.

Attitudes to sexual assault vary from culture to culture and from sub-culture to sub-culture. In NYC you would find a difference in the Latino, Hasidic, and College cultures (a difference in Soho, the Village, Harlem and Queens). In the Western world feminism has done a considerable amount to place the blame for rape on the perpetrator and not the victim. The way a woman dressed used to be a defense, it is less accepted now. So I agree that law enforcement is part of the solution. But I would also suggest that cultural attitudes are a more important factor. For instance, I have had a number of women friends who have traveled to the ME and have reported that they are treated differently, that there is a sense of tension because Western women are regarded as morally lax and therefore available (one friend narrowly missed being raped at knife point in Morocco). It is difficult for the law to keep up with cultural and sub-cultural attitudes regarding when and if consent is given—something the ‘no means no’ campaign was meant to clarify.

This means that at different times different modes of dress become signifiers for notions of the erotic, or power (one area that has also become homogenized, apart from business, is the military, with nearly all national armies mimicking Western styles). The irony about the breast is that there are subtle degrees of acceptability. Curiosly the last thing that women should expose are their nipples, yet it is the thing both male and female chests have in common. I mean, that’s how illogical it is. The thing that is different is the fatty tissue and that is actually emphasized in a range of fashions—push up bras that create a cleavage, plunging necklines, backless dresses. If one wanted to hide the breast then one would apply a kind of bandage to flatten them and then hide them completely. But no, they are actually emphasized at the same time as complete exposure is taboo. This hide and reveal game is an erotic play that is a signifier of a ‘will I or won’t I’ erotic tease.

In regard to Britney—pop stars and movie stars seem to be held in higher esteem simply because they are, by their nature, far more obvious as role models. MTV is designed to promote them and other models are invisible in comparison.

I do take your point about Aphrodite (Venus) over Athena. Can I suggest there are several archetypal options, including Artemis (Diana)? She was the virgin, wild huntress (sister to Apollo, he was the sun, she the moon) who was seen bathing naked with nymphs by a certain, unfortunate hunter named Aktaion. She turned him into a deer and had her dogs hunt him down and tear him to bits. What this archetype is about is a powerful sensuality and eroticism that is strong and self-contained and will not suffer exploitation. Are there shades of Durga in Artemis?

In the end I am actually arguing that there are more choices for women than a narrow, patriarchal morality allows. To try and pull it back to my original Bollywood example—the West, through the examples of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Madonna, Jodie Foster, Melissa Ethridge, JD Lang, etc., etc., etc.—have a far wider range of erotic options than the new puritanism of India allows Indian women. Something that has occurred in defiance of India’s rich archetypal tradition and mythological role models.

I would further argue that releasing the energy of all the archetypes creates a creative environment that benefits society. I’m no conservative. In fact I stand opposed to conservative moralisms which tend to stifle creativity, not just artistic creativity but also scientific, mechanical, and entrepreneurial creativity (the West also has a tradition of creative invention and one Australian program, the New Inventors, honors inventors).

Conservative forces want to censor certain archetypes and instead absolutize their chosen archetype, usually the archetype of the dominant male. Women’s bodies are controlled as a symbol of the male’s domination of the female archetypes. This is then also linked to the domination of a transcendent, ascender, male principle over an imminent, descender, female principle. To the ‘ascender’ the other world (heaven, paradise, Indraloka, nirvana) is desired and this world of matter and flesh is condemned. To the ‘descender’ heaven is in this world and flesh is not a sin. The appeal of Tantra is in the unification of the male and female principles. I’m interested in how this can be expressed culturally.

What Artemis might teach us is that women can be naked as a natural expression of themselves, free of the signifiers placed on their natural form by a patriarchal, moralizing, ascender gaze.

Ray

[Response to Sumita’s post (Dec 02, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3717]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3711]

From: Ray Harris

Date: Fri Dec 2, 2005; 4:55 pm

Hi Nandakumar

You say: “Ray, let us suppose you want to buy apples. Who would you go to? A vendor who keeps his wares covered or the one who’s displaying it?”

The problem occurs because there is a confusion of signals. It is not a simple case of displaying apples. A woman (or man) who dresses a certain way may be inviting attention but that attention has to be acceptable. Flirtation is a complex process that goes through a number of stages. Dress certainly signifies availability, along with a host of other signifiers. In some ‘naked’ cultures married women wear a specific item to signify they are married. These signifiers are arbitrary and vary greatly from culture to culture.

Ray

[Response to Nandakumar’s post (Dec 2, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3719]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3716]

From: Sumita Ambasta

Date: Sat Dec 3, 2005; 11:39 am

--- In [email protected], Ray Harris wrote:

Yes, but I am curious about the underlying societal reasons for these. Am in convergence with Postman’s submissions in “Technopoly,” that media marketing models subvert the sacred in society to marketing economic models as the highest value available. Would you agree?

Yes, I am working on such themes to do with Indian media. It does sound that Artemis is close to Durga in spirit, as you describe. However, I always find it interesting how warrior Durga is also worshipped as mother of four children visiting her parents home (on earth) as Durga puja in Bengal. There is a father figure of Shiva (depicted in small pictures behind the m�rti during p�ja). I find the family motif crossing with the warrior motif within Durga very fascinating. Is it two archetypes together? Which one rules? or is it an attempt at integration? Am exploring these questions. These are relevant for Indian women as well as media depiction of females.

Further, while researching the goddess archetypes, I discovered that the triad forms of Mah�saraswat�, Mah�lakshm� and Mah�k�l� have been considered correspondent to sattva, raja, and tamas modes of life. This is very interesting to me, as it sets up a hierarchy of spiritual goals in utilising these archetypes for common life. It provides a model for society and the roles for women. The Vedas, Puranas have these fairly clear faces of women, and its interesting to me that Bollywood focuses more on the S�t� face, rather than these original archetypes. The conservative factions also focus on the R�m- S�t� model of family, the good son narrative in Bollywood films. Is it due to a huge influence of partition-torn people on Bollywood, both from Bengal and Punjab? Their concerns focussed more on protecting family as a unit of social structure and this seemed to be the more powerful appeal to the imagination of a collective which fears loss of social structure? These questions are important. I notice Marathi filmmakers approach women very differently than the filmmakers from Punjab and Bengal (of course these are large generalizations and there are many exceptions but is there a larger trend?) Could “Paheli” have been made by a Yash Chopra camp?

Is the modern focus on other forms of women, a little rebellious and not always the “Sita type” a reconnect with existing female archetypes in our culture, which were merely temporarily submerged in the last years?

I find the film “Hey Ram” very interesting in exploring this theme. The combination of male-female principles was considered very provocative by some but it’s a deeply questioning film about the warrior and the nurturer modes of archetypes.

In the end I am actually arguing that there are more choices for women than a narrow, patriarchal morality allows. To try and pull it back to my original Bollywood example—the West, through the examples of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Madonna, Jodie Foster, Melissa Ethridge, JD Lang, etc., etc., etc.—have a far wider range of erotic options than the new puritanism of India allows Indian women. Something that has occured in defiance of India’s rich archetypal tradition and mythological role models.>

Yes, I see what you describe but I also am aware of many forces that prevent such monolithic growth of definition of the feminine. There is greater resilience in the Indian culture than what we occasionally observe. There is space for an expression of the feminine that is more multidimensional than what is currently visible. It’s only a matter of time.

I would further argue that releasing the energy of all the archetypes creates a creative environment that benefits society. I’m no conservative.

I could not agree more.

Regards

Sumita

[In response to Ray Harris’s post (Dec 2, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3720]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3713]

From: Sumita Ambasta

Date: Sat Dec 3, 2005; 12:31 pm

Maybe, being desired, is more desirable (naturally?) for the average woman than being respected.

Do you see desire and respect as mutually exclusive? Is that a factor of women of your own perception of desire not compatible with respect?

It’s not a personal question, merely a philosophical one? have you seen the film Chitralekha? It deals with this dichotomy, much like Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund, or Mann’s Transposed heads, which is an adaptation of an Indian tale.

Is there a possibility they may not be mutually exclusive?

Even men would I guess. Except maybe for men, some things are even more important.

Ok, like what? Are you implying women do not value those things?

Regards

Sumita

[In response to Nandakumar’s post (Dec 2, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3722]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3719]

From: Ray Harris

Date: Sat Dec 3, 2005; 5:03 pm

Hi Sumita,

Artemis is also the goddess of childbirth and children. It is said that she was born very quickly and immediately had to help her mortal mother, Leto, deliver her twin brother Apollo through a long and difficult birth. Artemis is actually a form of the ancient Earth Mother and she is a triple goddess, one of her forms being a multi-breasted mother figure. As the maiden she is probably around 12-16 years of age. Along with Athena and Aphrodite she is a virgin goddess, meaning that she is independent of men. The idea of the virgin is linked to the concept of Sophia, wisdom. Being a Virgin in this sense is linked to the womb as a symbol of the matrix of the creative universe. The idea of Abrahamic veil is in fact a literal adaptation of the symbol of the hymen, that which prevents access to the creative matrix of the Kosmos. Patriarchal misreading has turned the veil in a literal object of clothing. It is closest to its real symbolic meaning in the wedding veil—and farthest in its use as a method to hide women from the male gaze.

The virgin goddesses hold an important meaning as ways to access the mystery. Artemis was especially worshipped in Sparta. Sparta is usually understood as a template for a male, fascist state—and indeed, it was brutal and cruel for men. But surprisingly women did well. They were educated, inherited property from their husbands. Spartan women were known for their beauty and some have gone down in history as poets, philosophers (particularly Pythagorean), horse trainers (one winning an Olympic medal) and even wise advisors to their husbands. Spartan girls prayed to Artemis for many gifts. They were expected to have physical prowess and they trained and competed, naked like the boys, in athletics. During the gymnopaedia (the festival of naked youths) they exhibited their abilities in dance and athletics. There is a suggestion that up until puberty they would even compete with and against boys. There is also a strong suggestion that women would desire girls in the same way that Athenian males desired boys—in a homoerotic mentoring system.

In other words, Sparta emphasized the Artemis archetype and the women were proud and independent, somewhat like the legendary Amazons. Sparta, incidentally, was named after the wife of its legendary founder.

In regard to the corrupting affect of the market, I agree wholeheartedly. In fact it has often amused me that the moralistic Christian right has accepted capitalism and turned its attention to liberal secularists. Yet many liberals would agree that commercial interests are corrupting the moral standards of society. To give just one example. The cartoon series Bratz is targeted at 6-10 year old girls. It emphasizes celebrity and fashion. One birthday card for a 9 year old has a cartoon Bratz character standing in a provocative pose with the words ‘Flaunt it’. And what precisely should a 9 year old girl flaunt? The idea behind this product line is to train girls to consume fashion. This is the same demographic for which some idiot has designed a padded bra so that pre-pubescent girls can pretend to have breasts. This is the opposite idea of the archetype of Artemis with athletic girls running naked in the games. Many liberals are appalled at this commercial sexualization of children. Yet, the religious right will not attack capitalism and the corrupting effect of the market. In marketing it is well known that sex sells—and in fact I would argue that Eros, in its spiritual and human essence, has been rather successfully transferred to the consumption of material goods. So material objects become substitutes for the wise expression of Eros.

I also agree with you that there is a great resilience in Indian culture. I have the feeling that India is facing a renaissance. It is my feeling that conservative moralists become more vocal when there are murmurings of radical change in the zeitgeist. In the end what they are protecting is their conservative vision of society (and women). It is no surprise that the Christian right are very active in the areas of evolutionary theory and sexuality, because these are the two areas in which modernity has challenged the ‘truth’ of the tradition. Human sexuality is far more complex and intricate than the Judeo-Christian tradition has allowed. It has only been a few generations since many Western women didn’t even know what an orgasm was. The patriarchal, ascenders have been very successful at disempowering the feminine archetypes.

Ray

[Reply to Sumita’s post (Dec 03, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3724]

Helen of Troy—for Sumita

From: Ray Harris

Date: Sat Dec 3, 2005; 6:02 pm

Hi Sumita,

I forgot to add that the historian Bettany Hughes has written a fascinating book called ‘Helen of Troy’. Helen was originally a Spartan queen. Archaeological research has suggested that Helen may have had her head shaved and gone bare breasted—and may have been a trained warrior. There is also the suggestion that Helen may have been a version of a nature goddess who is closely linked to Artemis.

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/news/article318223.ece

This following link has some interesting snippets but I have to apologise for the author’s description of Bettany Hughes as ‘tasty’. I don’t endorse this comment.

http://home.freeuk.net/webbuk/helenoftroy.htm

I also forgot to add that I am attempting a novel tentatively called ‘Navaratri’. The major theme of the book is the treatment of eros and the feminine in Greek, Judeo-Christian, and Indian culture. So the idea of the triple goddess is central to the thematic structure of the book—although it’s main narrative is about a young photographer who inherits a small fortune from a mysterious great aunt who had lived in India. His journey is to discover who she was, and his journey takes him from materialistic, hedonistic Sydney to strife torm Israel and then to India.

Ray

[Rest of this thread at Ray’s post (Dec 03, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3722]

You might want to take a look at my post (July 06, 2004)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/2078

“Indo-Greek parallels as reflected in Homer’s Iliad—Helen, the Trojan horse and the (inner) conflict of civilizations”

Sunthar

P.S. If Helen’s appearance had conformed to the Spartan athletic model (which is quite unlike how Aphrodite, as opposed to Athena, was depicted elsewhere), how come she was so desirable across all the Greek city-states, including the Trojan Paris whom one may suppose to have shared ‘Oriental’ tastes of Asia Minor?

Subject: [Abhinava msg #2078 – order of thread reversed]

[Indo-Greek] Light

From: Sreeram W.

Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 4:37 AM

To: [email protected]

Hi,

When I watched Troy I was quite surprised to see that Greeks used to cremate their people by using fire and also had 12 days ceremony after death. Did India and Greek share a common culture thousands of years ago. Can anybody throw some light on this?

Subject:

Indo-Greek parallels as reflected in Homer’s Iliad—Helen, the Trojan horse and the (inner) conflict of civilizations

From: Sunthar Visuvalingam

Date: Tue Jul 6, 2004; 11:35 am

“Desire is War“

(Subtitle on the Helen of [Troy] DVD of the USA Networks series)

Helen of Sparta was perhaps the most inspired character in all literature, ancient or modern. A whole war, one which lasted for ten years, was fought over her. Not only that, nearly all the myths of the heroic age were threaded together in such a way that this most idealized of all wars was the culmination of various exploits, including the Argonaut, the Theban wars, and the Calydonian boar hunt. It is as though this event was in the destiny of every dynasty formed from the beginning of things. Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships, was a tantalizing enigma from the very first. She was flesh and blood certainly, but she was also immortal, since her father was none other than Zeus. [...] The most fascinating thing about Helen was her story. It was far better than she was. We do not see any real character development in her and have to regard her as a pawn of the gods. The larger story is involved with the people around her, their rise and fall. She herself seemed almost oblivious to the horrors that surrounded her. She displayed very little emotion and no remorse. She seemed removed and largely unaffected by the outcome of the war. In most accounts of her final years she was not even made to pay for her part in the calamity that touched virtually every family in Greece. It is small wonder some writers contrived alternative versions in which she was made to pay a debt to society.

Robert E. Bell, “About Helen of Troy,” Modern American Poetry

(Companion to Literary Myths, Heroes, and Archetypes. Ed. Pierre Brunel. Copyright � 1996 by Routledge)

Hello Sri Ram,

The long documentary on Helen of Troy that aired recently on the History Channel was interspersed with preview scenes from the movie that was just appearing in cinemas across the United States. As I watched parts of the narrative, it occurred to me that, more than just thematic resemblances between the Greek and Indian epics, there were striking structural and ideological (as Dum�zil would put it) parallels that could only be attributed to a common culture that had been reworked divergently, over time, at the two extremities of the Indo-Mediterranean belt.

Troy was unsuccessfully besieged by the Achaeans despite enormous losses of life on both sides. The deadlock is ultimately overcome by the subterfuge of the Trojan horse that hid those very Greek heroes, who had earlier been competing for the hand of Helen in marriage. The Achaean suitors would have fought themselves to death for her possession had they not been obliged to dip themselves in the blood of a sacrificed stallion so as to solemnly swear to defend the honor of whomever (Menelaus) she was bestowed upon in marriage. This is why they subsequently follow the lead of (Menelaus’ ruthless brother) Agamemnon (married to her sister Clytemnestra, but himself secretly in love with Helen) in their armada against this most Oriental of Greek cities located on the coast of Asia Minor. More than just a narrative and dramatic device, a trope that has since been immortalized even in the form of these computer viruses that are breaching the security walls of our computer-fortresses, the Trojan horse ultimately symbolizes of the larger ‘national’ unity of the constantly bickering Achaean Greeks. Homer is simply saying that if the Greeks eventually defeated Troy, this was because they had remained united through their shared faithfulness to their sacrificial religion. They immolated the cousin of the Indo-Aryan horse of the imperial Azvamedha sacrifice that reestablished the disrupted ‘national’ unity when performed by YudhiSThira after the Mah�bh�rata war and by R�ma on his triumphant return after slaying the demon R�vaNa in Lanka.

Daughter of Zeus, fair Helen herself is but the epic transposition—like Draupad� in the Mah�bh�rata and S�t� in the R�m�yana—of Aphrodite the Greek goddess of Love and War. Her voluntary ‘kidnapping’ (Stockholm syndrome?) by Paris from Sparta to Troy amounts to competition between the Western and Oriental Greeks for the special favor of their tutelary goddess. The R�m�yana is likewise the battle between R�ma and R�vana for the hand of (the violated?) S�t�, just as the P�NDava-Kaurava Mah�bh�rata war may be read as the resolution, through an Indian holocaust, of the violation (and rape?) of the (ever menstruating...) Draupad�. The Indian epics have largely borrowed the preexisting Vedic theme of the ‘auspicious’ goddess Zr� (= V�c-Sarasvat�) vacillating between the gods (deva) and demons (asura), who attempt to lure her to their own side. This supposedly ‘Indo-European’ ideology has itself largely borrowed the politico-religious role of the Mesopotamian cult of the goddess Inanna, who was adopted, as a proto-form of Durg�, by the increasingly aggressive ‘proto-Indo-Aryan’ BMAC civilization developing around the northern reaches of Afghanistan from around 2100 BC. Between 1800 and 1300 BC, Indo-Aryan warrior elites had extended their sway over the entire Middle East, penetrating well into Egypt (Hyksos) and the Greek mainland (Achaeans), absorbing even more of Middle Eastern religious elements. The mythico-ritual origin and continuing psychic hold of this cruel Goddess of Love does not necessarily imply that Helen and the Trojan war amount to no more than epic fiction. When the Elamite king Kudur-Nankhundi sacked Erech in 2280 BC., he ‘kidnapped’ the famed icon of Inanna; when the Assyrian Assurbanipal eventually conquered Elam, and in 645 BC sacked Susa, now the capital of the ancient Persians, his foremost attention was on returning the image to its original and rightful temple in Erech. Sparta and Troy may have been fighting for the same goddess.

The Greek and Hindu epics are more than just legendary stories of love-and-war that have come to inform the underlying ethos of a people. They offer a shared diagnosis of the unconscious motivations of human endeavor and the impending fate of civilizations that have grown too big for their boots. When unbridled ambition, aggressive behavior and eros unleashed begin to dissolve the precarious bonds that hold together human society, we begin to witness the sort of politico-cultural polarization dramatized between the P�NDava and Kaurava cousins, between the ‘Aryan’ R�ma and the ‘Dravidian’ (but brahmin!) R�vaNa, the ‘westernizing’ Greeks and their ‘orientalizing’ Trojan cousins. After having endured, for almost a century, a global confrontation between the capitalist and the communist blocs, both ardent devotees of the goddess ‘Progress’, we are now being swallowed up by a reconfiguration of the archaic dualistic schema around this ‘phony war’ between ‘Western’ and ‘Islamic’ civilizations. But where is the indifferent, blood-thirsty and irresistible Helen in all this? She is adored on TV screens around the world as the fair and (more than just) ‘nude’ (and provocative) Madonna, who wags her finger at US bellicosity even while exuding an all-too-American eros! She is the Anglo-Saxon ‘Feminist’ writ-large, who was collecting petitions for the invasion of Afghanistan long before 9/11, and whose Arabo-Muslim honor has found its champion in Osama ben Laden. She finds her castrating caricature in the ‘camaraderie’ of GI-Jane ‘England’ caught in the photogenic act of aiming her ‘trigger-happy’ finger at the humiliated genitals of the male Iraqi prisoner (Muslim descendent of a priest of Attis?).

If you look carefully at an anthropological map of the globe, it would become obvious that there has been an expansion of patriarchy across the whole Eurasian landmass with women continuing to enjoy high status only in South India (and more so in South-East Asia) and in the British Isles. What our American ‘Amazons’ are attempting, even if only unconsciously (like Wendy Doniger in her ‘hermeneutics’ of Hindu myth...?), seems to be nothing less than the reversal of what has been the civilizational status quo for the last 5000 years at least (the Sumerian urbanites were themselves already goddess-worshipping but male-centered society).

Fair or not, Helen, it would seem, has at long last descended from her divine pedestal—multiplying herself like Durg�—to join the fray in person...

Sunthar

P.S. Perhaps I might have more to add once I get around to seeing the movie, alone....Elizabeth, unlike Helen, abhors violent scenes!

[Rest of this thread at Sunthar V.

Beauty of the fortified triple-city (Tripurasundar�)—on the Bactrian warrior-dimension of Durg� and Z�kta tantrism (Apr 18, 2003)

National culture, family structure and personality type—a Hindu approach to ‘transcendental psychoanalysis’? (June 28, 2004)]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3728]

Re: [Ind-Arch] Hot News : First ever discovered labeled portraiture of king As

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Mon Dec 5, 2005; 10:31 am

Ram wrote:

Thereupon, the Pandavas take off their upper garments, uttareeyas.

Yes, upper garments existed but there is no evidence they were incumbent on women.

The Jataka real-life scenes at Ajanta show women wearing upper garments and going topless, sometimes in the same scene.

Even in 19th century Punjab there were areas where women still went topless.

This quote from Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India from the traveler Mrs. Colin MacKenzie in Ludhiana:

You may imagine the degraded condition of the here, when I tell you we constantly pass women in the open street bare down to the hips, little children have generally no clothing at all, and many of the men have the smallest possible quantity.

Of course, northern India can get cold and is would be natural for women and men to cover up during winter.

Some clothing like the “Vedic” breast-band was meant more for support than covering.

Stanapatta breast bands

The Uttariya was usually a sheer or diaphanous garment.

Image of Gupta princess with sheer uttariya

2. Slave girls may not have worn upper garments, as in the famous “dancing girl” of M’Dharo. I can recall only one small statue of a woman in the Harappan collection, and it may be dangerous to generalize based on that one piece of artifact.

I’ve posted at Abhinavagupta, images from Ajanta and Sri Lanka that nobility commonly went bare-breasted.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3668

A quote from Richard Burton’s translation of the Kamasutra on the Kanchukiyas:

“A name given to the maid servants of the zenana of the kings in ancient times, on account of their always keeping their breasts covered with a cloth called Kanchuki. It was customary in the olden time for the maid servants to cover their breasts with a cloth, while the queens kept their breasts uncovered. This custom is distinctly to be seen in the Ajunta cave paintings.

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

[Original post:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaArchaeology/message/2619]

[Rest of this thread at Paul’s post (De 02, 2005)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3714]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3729]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Mon Dec 5, 2005; 9:38 pm

> Do you see desire and respect as mutually exclusive?

In some cases yes. Men desire/lust for starlets who “reveal.” People respect Mother Therasa.

>Is that a factor of women of your own perception of desire not compatible with respect?

Definitely so. I’m a product of a particular environment. In the environment I grew up, there’s simply no respect for a woman who would show off her body. This environment probably applies to a great part of Indian society even today I would think. And was definitely the dominant trend say 30 years back in India.

For example, my sister used to study in a top arts college in Chennai. Apparently one girl once wore a mini skirt to college. In the “ladies special” public bus, other women passengers apparently verbally abused and threatened this girl for dressing that way. So that’s the value system for certain people.

Even men would I guess. Except maybe for men, some things are even more important. [Nandakumar]

Ok, like what? Are you implying women do not value those things? [Sumita]

It is my observation that appearance is of greater importance to the average woman than substance. At least so it seems to me. For example how many times have I heard my sisters trash some politician or leader, because he didn’t “look good.” No, not because they’re crooks or selfish or corrupt, etc, but because they didn’t look good! I was commenting on this once to one of my British friends when I lived in London—a liberal who BTW didn’t accept my generalizations on women. But even he laughingly conceded that was pretty much his mother’s reaction to politicians.

That I think can be directly traced to the dominant categories of the average woman’s self-perception.

Nandakumar

[In response to Sumita’s post (Dec 3, 2005) at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3713]

Hello Nandakumar,

These are perceptions I shared myself from my childhood, from sheer observations of women around, for a long time (including the conviction that they were less intelligent and ‘serious’ than men...).

But I really wonder how much all this has to do with a certain upbringing, social expectations (on the part of men in particular), and the areas to which their interests had been ‘traditionally’ channeled?

Sunthar

P.S. My thoughts on this issue have evolved a great deal since...

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3730]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3729]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Tue Dec 6, 2005; 6:32 am

A cow is only the cow I’ve experienced. If a cow can fly in some other world, I do not know of it.

Likewise if women can react differently based on different environments, I’ve not been exposed to it.

But the world is the world as it is. It is not some idealistic utopia which exists only in our mind where we can speculate on what could or might have been.

We can only talk of things as they exist.

Other than India, I’ve lived in Singapore, London, and many parts of the USA. I’ve also travelled to other parts of the world. I’m also a voracious reader and have read literature from many parts of the world. Can’t say that my observations in this regard are very different in all these places.

It is my opinion that to be desired by men is amongst that strongest instincts in women. So ...

P.S. My thoughts on this issue have evolved a great deal since... [Sunthar]

Mine is constantly evolving. But sometimes there’re fundamental truths which cannot be swayed by any amount of argument.

Nandakumar

[In response to Sunthar’s comment on Nandakumar’s post (Dec, 06, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3733]

Desired devis

From: Sumita Ambasta

Date: Tue Dec 6, 2005; 11:40 am

Ray,

As is evident from how the discussion progresses, women, desire, respect are entwined with goddess archetypes.

Did Shiva desire Shakti? Did Shiva worship (respect) Shakti? What is Saraswat�’s role? Is Lakshm� the form they talk about when they talk about the fickle women, who focus on the material (as Nandakumar probably suggests)?

What forms did goddesses take that combined male-female principles, which forms the basis for Eros, or desire, to use a simpler concept?

Did Eros eradicate certain archetypes, or did this selection occur through historical forces.

These are my questions. It’s interesting to me, many men find not much to respect in a real woman form, and the forms they desire, they feel are not worthy of respect. This dichotomy is very very interesting to me. It’s at contrast with archetypes, and is more in line with conservative morality. Your book concept sounds very fascinating. For now, it seems to me, there are things to observe about these topics that come up in these discussions. Even as most remain silent. These conflicts take many forms, in art, social relations, models of family, role models for women, etc.,...

Nandakumar, Sunthar,

What is conditioning? Is it not role models we inherit from cultural history? And if we inherit them, doesn’t experience hint at distortions in these models. (Sunthar, you hinted at these changes. Nandakumar, I understand that experence can only be limited to an extent.)

Do women choose what models they follow? Can one who is now empowered have freedom to choose, or to follow what is expected. Somewhere, then, do not expectations have something to do with these models? That they feel compelled to follow. Then, isn’t the label of “limited views” equally apply to both men and women?

I am not sure what these issues stem from... But I hope we all are equally interested in exploring them. For now, maybe we are digressing from the issues that are central to this board. But these are related to what is aesthetic, or beautiful?

Regards

Sumita

[In response to Ray’s post (Dec 2, 2005)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3716

and Nandakumar’s post (Dec 5, 2005) and Sunthar’s comments at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3729]

---------------

Hello Sumita,

It seems to me that the questions you are raising all point us in the right directions, and your caution that we keep returning to the original topic of (the Hindu) eros in relation to (the Bollywood) aesthetics is most timely.

Here, I would ask whether men’s ‘traditional’ treatment of women as ‘sex-objects’, which seems to be as old as the Vedas and is perhaps even more in force today in ‘enlightened’ America, is a detriment to their overall social upliftment (in the sense of gender ‘equality’) or whether the judicious celebration of female eroticism could instead result in some form of ‘emancipation’ even for males. Why is it that (only?) courtesans were so highly literate and artistically refined in post-Vedic India?

Regards,

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3737]

Re: Desired dev�s

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Tue Dec 6, 2005; 10:13 pm

What is conditioning? Is it not role models we inherit from cultural history? And if we inherit them, doesn’t experience hint at distortions in these models. [Sumita]

I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at here.

In my mind, most things happen in the world because of certain dynamics surrounding the inherent nature—dharma—of a thing. Most things which happen to men or women happen because of some fundamental characteristic/nature within them to aid such process. Else such cannot last.

But it is possible that such characteristics can be due to the environment and can also be changed.

Do women choose what models they follow? Can one who is now empowered have freedom to choose, or to follow what is expected.

In modern India I think that’s reasonably true.

Somewhere, then, do not expectations have something to do with these models? That they feel compelled to follow. Then, [doesn’t] the label of “limited views” equally apply to both men and women?

Sure, no denying it. The society holds the members within it like puppets on a string. But that’s the existing dynamics and such dynamics have evolved along with the society due to certain reasons. Sure such dynamics can be changed effecting in the change of behavioral patterns of the members within the society.

Again I’m lost as to what you’re trying to get at here.

Nandakumar

[In response to Sumita’s post (Dec 06, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3733]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3738]

Intelligent Women

From: Radhakrishna Warrier

Date: Tue Dec 6, 2005; 5:18 pm

--- In [email protected], Nandakumar Chandran wrote:

... For example, my sister used to study in a top arts college in Chennai. ... It is my observation that appearance is of greater importance to the average woman than substance. At least so it seems to me. For example how many times have I heard my sisters trash some politician or leader, because he didn’t “look good.” No, not because they’re crooks or selfish or corrupt, etc, but because they didn’t look good! [Nandakumar]

Translator the traitor strikes again :-). But this time I don’t have anything to translate :-)

Regarding women, I have a different story to tell. I don’t deny that dull women inhabit the earth, just as Taliban-type men, whether Islamic, Christian or even Hindu do. There are women interested in things we consider inconsequential just as there are men who can talk nothing but cricket and coitus or hockey and cars. But this world is home to smart, intelligent women in no insignificant numbers.

I was influenced quite a lot by my mother and older sisters in my formative years. They kindled my interest in subjects as varied as languages and mathematics, or philosophy and physics. They helped me find my strong moorings in our own culture and tradition but with modern sensibilities. In short, they were very instrumental in making me what I am today. My parents are no more now; my sisters continue to remain successful housewives at the same time making contributions in their chosen fields as PhDs and medical doctors. By the way, all my sisters, like me, studied in government institutions not “top”, high brow convent schools.

Thanks and regards,

Radhakrishna Warrier

[In response to Nandakumar Chandran’s post dated 6 Dec 2005

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3729]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3739]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3729]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Wed Dec 7, 2005; 6:31 am

It is my observation that appearance is of greater importance to the average woman than substance. [Nandakumar]

Actually I wanted to make this note a day after my initial comments.

I personally think that the older generation had higher values than the present generation. For example, I can’t imagine my mother or aunt approving of a politician just because he “looked good.” They had more substantial categories to evaluate such.

My mother taught me a lot of valuable things: the basics of Upanishadic philosophy, the patience to look at the “other perspective,” to appreciate art, music etc.

In my mind the higher points of all cultures is the product of the efforts of uncommon (wo)men. Such substance has to be preserved and propagated carefully so that the common (wo)man can benefit by it. Common (wo)man if left to themselves will fritter their lives away.

Would Bhaarathiaar, the idealist that he was who could see only the brighter side, who dreamed of the “pudhumei penn” (the modern woman), because he felt that tradition stifled a woman’s potential, approve of Aishwarya Rai?

But that’s pretty much what people are capable of, if left to themselves.

Freedom—boon or bane?

Nandakumar

[In continuation of Nandakumar’s own earlier post (Dec 06, 2005) at

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3741]

Responding to Nandakumar

From: Sugrutha

Date: Thu Dec 8, 2005; 1:05 pm

Some very interesting posts from Nandakumar. I have some responses.

[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3711]

Yes, clothing is very much a statement—a personal definition—an identification. A woman who wears revealing clothes is often considered by men as "wanting it."

Ray, let us suppose you want to buy apples. Who would you go to? A vendor who keeps his wares covered or the one who's displaying it?

Likewise those who "want it" approach those who too seem to "want to give it."

How do you compare some woman walking on the roads/riding a train/buying groceries at a super-market/standing in line for movie tickets, to apples on sale on a vendor's stand? Does a woman go on sale as soon as she steps out of her house?

You have used both 'wanting it' and 'wanting to give it' about women. Very confusing. What is on sale? Who is giving and who is taking? Who is 'selling' and who is ‘buying’? Is it all free or is there some bartering? And what is the barter?

And where exactly does one draw the line for speculating between a woman who is out 'wanting it/wanting to give it' and out 'doing her chores’? Display of legs, display of face, display of ankles, display of palms, wearing lip-stick, wearing kohl, wearing flowers in the hair, chiffon saris ? Where?

Growing up, I knew cousins (male, late teens) going to the local temple very religiously on Fridays, to look (or drool ?) at all the young girls/women who would turn up in pattu pavadai-dhavani-pudavai (silk attire) and thalai niriya poo (flowers in the hair). 'Nothing to beat the sexiness in that style of dressing,' they would comment.

[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3729]

Men desire/lust for starlets who "reveal." People respect Mother Therasa.

What about all those 'real women' one meets in daily life who fall in between Screen starlets and Saint Theresa?

It is my observation that appearance is of greater importance to the average woman than substance. At least so it seems to me. For example how many times have I heard my sisters trash some politician or leader, because he didn't "look good." No, not because they're crooks or selfish or corrupt, etc, but because they didn't look good! I was commenting on this once to one of my British friends when I lived in London—a liberal who BTW didn't accept my generalizations on women. But even he laughingly conceded that was pretty much his mother's reaction to politicians.

That I think can be directly traced to the dominant categories of the average woman's self-perception.

Very simple, yes. But what I see in the above women is a clear disinterest in politics, and making some facetious comments based on looks. If you ask a man about women saints, and if he is someone not interested in saints or sainthood or what they are all about, he will probably say 'oh I like that one, she looks very pretty'.

[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3730]

A cow is only the cow I've experienced. If a cow can fly in some other world, I do not know of it.

Likewise if women can react differently based on different environments, I've not been exposed to it.

But the world is the world as it is. It is not some idealistic utopia which exists only in our mind where we can speculate on what could or might have been.

We can only talk of things as they exist.

If what we see is what is there, will our uncorrected eye-sight play a role in our comparative realities ? With my vision, I won't know whether it is a cow or a giant bird flying above my head. Oh, I won't even spot them if they are more than 50 yards away. In a dimly lit room, how do we know if that curled up thingy is a coiled rope or a sleeping snake? Often times do eyes play on our minds such that we are required to take a closer and more informed second look at things? For example, when my younger son was a child, I often could not make out whether he was laughing or crying when he squealed from another room, I always had to walk over to 'see' and check out.

Isn't that why we have a Tamil saying which means 'It is a lie what you see, it is a lie what you hear, the truth of it all is what your mind tells you after due analysis.' ?

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3730

I personally think that the older generation had higher values than the present generation. For example, I can't imagine my mother or aunt approving of a politician just because he "looked good." They had more substantial categories to evaluate such.

Did we know them when they were younger? I mean, when they were young women we were after all not there or too young :-) Many times we all get more serious about certain things and less serious about certain things as we grow older, depending on our perception of what really affects/influences/is relevant to our lives.

Would Bhaarathiaar, the idealist that he was who could see only the brighter side, who dreamed of the pudhumei penn (the modern woman), because he felt that tradition stifled a woman's potential, approve of Aishwarya Rai?

Ah, that, we will never know :-) From what I have heard of Bharathiyar, and what I have read of his poems, I think he also had a fun/lighter side to himself, and I am not sure he would not have enjoyed watching Aishwarya Rai in 'hum dil de chuke sanam' :-)

Sugrutha

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3742]

Why no nude goddesses or queens today?

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Thu Dec 8, 2005; 3:40 pm

There is a line of reasoning given here that the nude sculptures of ancient India were not meant to display actual dress customs but only the beauty of the human body (as in a modern nude study).

If that is the case, when did this change? How many modern nude images do we see of the gods for instance. The cartoon-like family pictures with Parvati or Sita sold on the streets all over India.

Obviously these well-dressed goddesses are simply complying with modern norms that were entirely absent in ancient India.

If one does a portrait of the queen of Nepal today, will it be in the nude? No, because mores have changed.

Goddesses in newly-built temples are so often fully-dressed because they will be seen by eyes conditioned differently than those hundreds or thousands of years ago.

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

This line of reasoning not only exaggerates the male tension between ascetic inclination and sexual desire (as in the traditional image of Shankar�ch�rya that I presented earlier...) into an outright opposition but also seeks to give the impression that the religious and the erotic were irreconcilable spheres of value in ancient India. This is all the more curious because the very first sensual allusion to the female breast is already found in Rig Veda 1.92.4, where the poet-priest describes the brightly attired goddess Dawn (Ushas) as exposing her breast (as a cow would her udder!), like a (seductive) danseuse. And this too within a ritual context as is evidenced by the reference in the following verse to the (activity of the) 'sacrificer' (yajam�na, who offers oblations of milk during the Agnihotra performed at dawn). Within this Aryan social circle, at least, a woman's erotic display of her breast was considered a 'natural' metaphor for the expression of (ritual as opposed to moral?) 'piety'!

Despite (our arch-?) 'conservative' Nandakumar here, the above verse is frequently cited as indicative of the sublime aesthetic taste of the 'seers' (Rishis) and the primordial source of their inspiration in so many orthodox Hindu websites celebrating our Vedic heritage...

Regards,

Sunthar

P.S. This Rig-Vedic testimony suggests that whereas some women covered themselves out of modesty, the audience to whom these poems were addressed were familiar with (disreputable?) ones who took (and gave?) pleasure in exceeding these bounds, and were probably also familar with other social circles and surrounding peoples whose women went naturally bare-breasted.

[Rest of this thread at Paul's post (Nov 29, 2005) with Sunthar's comments at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3672

and Paulraj's post (Nov 29, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3673]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3744]

Reply to Sugrutha

From: Ray Harris

Date: Fri Dec 9, 2005; 4:10 pm

Hi Sugrutha,

I haven't bothered to respond to Nandakumar's posts because they are too far from my views for me to be interested. I believe he has a very prejudiced view of women—a view that does not correspond to my experience. Sure, there are superficial women—and there are superficial men in equal amount.

My view is that women should be free to express themselves as they wish without being condemned by moralists. Clothing signifies many things. A conservative moralist will read things into clothing that the wearer does not. What a conservative moralist regards as 'provocative' clothing may not be regarded by others as such. (Conservative moralists also make a large number of assumptions about the nudist movement that nudists themselves find hilarious—and disturbing).

The joke behind the conservative moralist's stance is that modest clothing does not, in any way, quell the erotic glance. Instead the erotic glance makes a fetish of certain parts of the body or certain items of clothing. An accidental glimpse of an ankle, the nape of the neck, the hand—the Chinese bound a woman's feet, Western women wore corsets (such that there is now a corset fetish) and some tribal men and women modify other parts of the body, extend the neck, enlarge the earlobes. All of these can be erotic signifiers, so your point about your cousins going to the temple to drool is apt.

I would argue that the idea of woman as seductress and temptress is a device used to control women. It is most evident in patriarchal cultures and sub-cultures. Indeed, both single (and some married) men and women are in a constant game of looking for partners. Clothing may or may not be a part of the game. However, unlike apples, which are available to any person with the right amount of money, a woman who is 'looking for it' (whatever 'it' is) is only looking for it from the right man and not every man. If we are to carry Nandakumar's analogy into reality then the purchaser has to actually negotiate with the apple, not the apple vendor. The apple might consent to being purchased, but this does not then mean it consents to being eaten. So even if a woman is wearing clothing that she agrees means she is making herself available there are still several stages of negotiation before she will consent to sex.

Moral conservatives tend to live in a simple world of generalisations. The real world is a complex world of overt and subtle moral negotiations that may or may not use clothing (or lack thereof) as signifiers. I would suggest that body language is the most important signifier of erotic intent. Clothing is more about expressing personality and one's position in society—as in, I'm part of this group, or, I'm not a part of that group (as in non-conformist clothing).

Ray

[Response to Sugrutha's post (Dec 08, 2005) at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3741]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3747]

Re: Reply to Sugrutha [female sexuality was viewed as a disaggregating force in traditional society—SV]

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Sat Dec 10, 2005; 6:51 am

I believe he has a very prejudiced view of women—a view that does not correspond to my experience. Sure, there are superficial women—and there are superficial men in equal amount. [Ray]

Without doubt. But my focus is not on that. I'm trying to understand whether there's something inherently natural in such behavior.

Instead the erotic glance makes a fetish of certain parts of the body or certain items of clothing. An accidental glimpse of an ankle, the nape of the neck, the hand... [Ray]

Whatever is of material value to us, we keep it protected—in our houses, in our garage, in our banks, etc. We don't say such protection is useless because people will only desire them more—forbidden fruit etc.

This is not to say that there's no validity to your argument, but that the other side of the argument is more practical and universally accepted.

I would argue that the idea of woman as seductress and temptress is a device used to control women. [Ray]

Prior to the modern development of political correctness, the above was pretty much the traditional view in India—that simply represented civilizational knowledge. From the Panchatantra to the orthodox philosophical literature to Buddhist/Jaina literature—that's the standard view. Not because they were prejudiced against women, but they were frank and genunine in their enquiry of human nature and the acceptance of its limitations—of both men and women.

BTW the ancients had such views because they were in search of a higher ideal—enlightenment, salvation, etc. What ideal do those who advocate contrary theories have apart from empty ones like "freedom to choose," etc.?

The traditional Indian view is based on a hard and serious look at life, which modern Indians having lost their civilizational substance are finding very hard to understand. But at one level you cannot blame them because they're only human. Man is only an animal and therefore adharma comes naturally. Dharma is about man raising himself above his natural animal instincts using his intelligence. But today intelligence stands for too many things.

Nandakumar

[In response to Ray's post (Nov 09, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3744]

Hello Nandakumar,

I would agree that practically all religions have looked upon the sexual urge as a problem, if not a potential menace, for social cohesion and continuity. In the patriarchal traditions, this had however taken the form of control over women (relegated to the domestic sphere) and their reproductive functions. However, just as class divisions (whatever their excesses and injustices) had been necessitated by the sheer necessity of specialization (manual labor, knowledge management, etc.) for survival (now obsolete in our robotic and information age?), so too the woman's 'dharma' was as much determined by forms of production, child-rearing, adaption for group survival, etc., as by 'purely' spiritual pursuits (one could even make the opposite case that the forms the latter assumed were themselves considerably conditioned by such gender relations...).

The contemporary West may be subverting existing power-relations so as to politically 'restore' a gender 'equality' (such as may have existed in certain 'primitive' societies that lived in symbiosis with their natural environment), but it has yet to address the disaggregating force of 'liberated' sexuality. How many of us (whether girls or boys) would like to be raised in the home of a single-parent a large amount of whose energies is still devoted to snaring the next partner (to serve as surrogate mother/father...)?

Regards,

Sunthar

P.S. Any posts to this forum are ipso facto, even when pursuing a conversation with a specific member, addressed to all of us. So I'd recommend that we keep the titles of our posts focused on the subject being discussed rather than the person to whom we are responding (and who is already mentioned in the opening address).

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3750]

Re: Why no nude goddesses or queens today?

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Sat Dec 10, 2005; 7:15 am

This line of reasoning not only exaggerates the male tension between ascetic inclination and sexual desire (as in the traditional image of Shankar�ch�rya that I presented earlier...) [Sunthar]

Without doubt. All those seriously/naturally inclined towards spirituality are those with a higher level of awareness than normal people—their self-identity due to karma is grounded more in consciousness than the psycho-physical faculties.

Sexual organs by nature are capable of greater awareness than the other parts of the body—that's the reason they're more pleasurable.

So the spiritually inclined will naturally possess greater awareness of such instincts and the struggle to conquer such instincts will definitely reflect on their views on such issues.

…into an outright opposition but also seeks to give the impression >that the religious and the erotic were irreconcilable spheres of value in ancient India. [Sunthar]

Eroticism and sexuality is justified in a marital context—between a man and wife.

But not outside of it, especially not in spirituality.

From Baadaraayana to Patanjali to Gautama Siddhaartha to Vardhamaana to Naagaarjuna to Shankara to the other bhakti philosophers/saints the message is clear—spirituality requires you to subdue your sexual instincts.

Ramana Maharishi when questioned whether repeated sex would tire people out of it is supposed to have said : when ghee is added to fire, will it go down?

Show me clear, unambiguous examples Sunthar where sexuality is not considered as in conflict with the spiritual pursuit—from standard texts not obscure tantric texts which historically show no proof of having enjoyed popular support.

Shankara in Saundaryalahari (if it is really his work) might have sung paens to the female anotomy—but still in his Bhajagovindam he asks spiritual aspirants not to be seduced by the female form. Such sentiment necessarily needs to be reconciled while interpreting ancient views towards sexuality.

Nandakumar

[In response to Sunthar's comments on Paul's post (Dec 10, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3742]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3752]

Female sexuality

From: Ray Harris

Date: Sat Dec 10, 2005; 6:04 pm

I do not accept the analogy of a woman's body as being like a house or bank. Clothing is not a security system. It does not prevent lascivious intent in any way. If this analogy were correct then the incidence of sexual assault would be demonstrably higher in unclothed communities than in highly clothed communities. What I've been trying to suggest is that the state of dress or undress is actually unrelated to the erotic gaze. Of course, if there is a belief in a certain community that a certain type of clothing signifies immorality then that is another matter. In which case it is the belief that is the cause and not the state of dress or undress.

This leaves us to consider the justification for the belief.

It seems you rely on your understanding of Hindu dharma to justify the belief. Whereas I take a more universal, cross-cultural view. It is my personal experience that enlightenment can happen outside the confines of a narrow Hindu dharma and that many of the conventions of Hindu dharma are concerned solely with the maintenance of a tradition.

In this sense I am no traditionalist. I believe that the past can be wrong and that new knowledge is possible. The past must be reconsidered in the light of new information. I do not believe that the sages of ancient India were possessed of the cross-cultural knowledge we possess today. In fact, they did not possess a great deal of knowledge we now possess.

What I am interested in is separating the core ingrediants for enlightenment from cultural and traditional beliefs that attach themselves like leeches. Religion is often about the continuation of tradition for tradition's sake. Mysticism can be radical, even revolutionary, and opposed to mindless tradition. There is a point at which dharma/tradition becomes a barrier to enlightenment.

Frankly, I'm interested in subverting and questioning tradition.

Ray

[Response to Nandakumar's post (Dec 10, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3747]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3753]

Re: Why no nude goddesses or queens today?

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Sat Dec 10, 2005; 6:59 pm

The smrithis say that one who "keeps it in" will enjoy great health, clarity, awareness, etc.

In Indian philosophy it is normally said that if one "keeps it in", it will be converted into ojas—which is almost spirit in material form.

Actually in each of his praakarna granthaas, Shankara lists the necessary qualifications required of a spiritual aspirant: the ability to control one's desires/sexual organs, is a clear requirement.

The dangers of flirting with sexuality while on the spiritual pursuit is actually very well documented in Indian philosophical literature.

In Vivekachoodaamani, Shankara says that one who indulges in sexual gratification and still aspires to know the truth, is like somebody who when crossing a river grasps a crocodile thinking it is a log—he'll be destroyed.

Aurobindo too has remarked on the dangers of those who indulge in sexual desire when on spiritual pursuit—according to him the most likely result is that the person will go raving mad.

Vivekananda actually ascribes this result to Prophet Mohammed, saying that the Arabs lacked a civilizational discipline like yoga!

Spirituality is about the spirit—which 90% of Indian philosophy keeps hammering it in as "not the body, senses, mind, etc." Whereby will pleasuring of the psycho-physical faculties aid in the realization of the spirit?

Nandakumar

[Continuation of Nandakumar's earlier post (Dec 10, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3750]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3754]

Female sexuality

From: Ray Harris

Date: Sat Dec 10, 2005; 7:03 pm

I forgot to add that there are a number of successful naturist colonies and resorts in the world where men, women, and children can and do go about unclothed safely. This is because naturists have a belief that clothing invites a prurient gaze and that being naked allows a freedom from a range of cultural and false beliefs about sex and nudity and bodies.

It should be no secret that I am a naturist of sorts, but not formally so. My life experience has allowed me to experience both nudism and living in an ashram that observed a conservative dress code. I can assure everyone that living in the ashram did not quieten the erotic gaze, it was simply transferred to a face, a walk, or what the clothing revealed about the figure (and this applied to both sexes). Attractions and romances still formed. Whereas, in naturist surroundings the erotic gaze tends to be subverted because nothing is hidden. Of course, to begin with, one is curious, but after a while it becomes unremarkable and ordinary. Naturist colonies and resorts are not hot beds of immorality and are often family oriented.

But after years of living in an ashram and finding out that there had been a degree of sexual misconduct in the ashram despite the strict segregation of the sexes and the emphasis on celibacy and modesty, I had my most profound spiritual experience (nirvikalpa samadhi) on a naturist beach.

It is my experience that what is forbidden causes temptation and that the struggle between the two is a major distraction in meditation. It is best to acknowledge the natural drives and turn them toward the task of enlightenment. One way to quell a curiosity is to satisfy it. It is not true that another curiosity always arises to replace it.

I can recall one fine day on a Sydney 'free' beach. Someone had brought a cricket bat and ball. As the day progressed the bat and ball passed from person to person, from child to child and adult to adult. Who was the original owner? It didn't matter. Then someone arrived with a guitar and a small group gathered to listen. Everyone had smiles that day and a great deal of fun was had. No-one was self-conscious or acting suspiciously or inappropriately. In fact I've generally found such beaches to be friendlier than 'textile' beaches.

It's not the state of dress or undress that is important but the beliefs about the state of dress or undress. It's those beliefs that need to change.

In fact I believe that the reason conservative moralists are so concerned about libertarians/libertines is not because they corrupt and destroy society but because they prove the fears and prejudices of the moralists to be unfounded, thus undermining their authority. In the US the Christian fundamentalists are primarily concerned with issues of morality and creationism because it is these two areas in which they are the most vulnerable to being proved wrong. Society will not collapse if homosexuals marry or if people go naked on beaches (society collapses when civility collapses and factions use violence).

Which brings me back to the gymnosophists, the naked sages, who apparently understood that many of the norms of society were arbitrary and obstacles to enlightenment.

Ray

[Continuation of Ray's post (Dec 10, 2005) at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3752]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3757]

Please repost your preceding message—my apologies!

From: Sunthar Visuvalingam

Date: Sun Dec 11, 2005; 12:15 am

Dear Chitra,

My apologies to Nandakumar, yourself, and other members. In replacing your email address (synektix) with your name while approving your post, I absent-mindedly (past midnight here...) ended up selecting Nandakumar's name instead from the dropdown list.

I'd suggest that you repost the entire email, after which I'll delete the existing copy.

Regards,

Sunthar

P.S. I couldn't agree more with your observations about men arguing for women being subservient to dharma or crusading to liberate them, without encouraging them speak as individuals for themselves...but then even the Tantric texts are largely by men speaking about women:

http://www.svabhinava.org/goddess/default.htm

Even 'Arya' Abhinava, being (more than) an integral part of the tradition, is not entirely exempt from this cultural framework...

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3758]

Re: Why no nude goddesses or queens today?

From: Chitra Raman

Date: Sun Dec 11, 2005; 8:12 am

--- In [email protected], Nandakumar Chandran wrote:

The smrithis say that one who "keeps it in" will enjoy great health, clarity, awareness, etc.

In Indian philosophy it is normally said that if one "keeps it in,” it will be converted into ojas—which is almost spirit in material form.

No danger of any "ojas" infusing anyone on this forum ... you gentlemen certainly aren't "keeping it in" ... I haven't encountered this kind of prurience since my kid brother read smuggled paperbacks cunningly camouflaged among his schoolbooks!

I'm no Puritan, but I'm just wondering if I might interrupt the eternal discourse on breasts and the female form to ask if anyone has considered that male attractiveness might be ju..st a tee..ny bit important to analyze as part of a discussion on "Eros" ?

What is it that makes a man attractive to a woman, how come no one is interested in knowing that? Or is it assumed that "Attraction" means male attraction and it is the woman's function to submit meekly to it?

Nandakumar makes the preposterous claim that women are interested only in looks and not substance. Considering that it is the men on this list that have been discussing the female form over the past—what, three weeks?—clothed and unclothed, historical, contemporary, the whys and wherefores, without any glimmer of a reference to a woman's mind, I would say this is a pretty astonishing statement. I think the men on this forum ought to be asking women, rather than presuming these shallow stereotypes.

I think of attraction as a composite phenomenon, of which physical appeal is just one factor. Women like me are repelled by narcissism, egocentricity, and self-absorption—traits that afflict both physically attractive and unattractive men alike.

Of course women are attracted by good looks. Very attracted. "Morality" has nothing to do with one's fundamental response. It is just that we are culturally conditioned to not openly express interest in the same manner that men do, whether or not we decide to act upon that attraction.

Men however have arrogated to themselves a God-given birthright to possess that which they seek. That is why they want women to walk around looking out at the world through a net, clothed in a black shroud like they just decided to take a stroll out of a coffin. That is why Nandakumar talks of women exposing themselves as "wanting it." A man's inability to exercise restraint or better judgment must be the fault of the woman for provoking him. Well—Sure, women who dress well or scantily may "want it" but they may not want the guy who wants it from them!

I greatly appreciated Sugrutha's response on this topic.

Actually in each of his praakarna granthaas, Shankara lists the necessary qualifications required of a spiritual aspirant: the ability to control one's desires/sexual organs, is a clear requirement.

Aurobindo too has remarked on the dangers of those who indulge in sexual desire when on spiritual pursuit—according to him the most likely result is that the person will go raving mad. [Nandakumar]

What these sages advocate, I think, is for an aspirant to commit to the goal of spiritual awakening and have focus, rather than being ambiguous. Simply quelling or suppressing one's physical urges by itself does nothing to automatically heighten spiritual awareness – all it does is promote frustration, perversion and guilt.

When the goal is spiritual awakening and the thirst is ignited, the seeker is no longer a renunciate – you only renounce that which you still want. She/He becomes a voyager and a detached spectator of her/his own life.

[Response to Nandakumar's post (December 10, 2005) at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3753]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3759]

http://www.svabhinava.org/HinduCivilization/Dialogues/TSinHinduTradition-frame.h\ tm

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Sun Dec 11, 2005; 7:13 am

> What I've been trying to suggest is that the state of dress or > undress is actually unrelated to the erotic gaze.

Actually according to Vaatsyaayana, the autor of the k�ma s�tra, every man when he sees a woman and desires her, he wants to mate with her. But it is just that circumstances, cultural conditioning, etc., prevents such a thing happening in most cases.

So yes, what you say about the "erotic gaze" might be true—but whether it would really cause anything physical to follow is the question.

> It seems you rely on your understanding of Hindu dharma to justify > the belief.

Ray, I think I've tried to complement my reading of dharma with as much reasoning as possible I think. This is pretty much the traditional approach—the words of wise men reconciled with reason.

> In this sense I am no traditionalist. I believe that the past can > be wrong and that new knowledge is possible.

Definitely—that's pretty much the approach of the much maligned smrithis like Manu.

> I do not believe that the sages of ancient India were possessed of > the cross-cultural knowledge we possess today. In fact, > they did not possess a great deal of knowledge we now possess.

But how much of such knowledge is actually important and essential to one who seeks meaning in life, is itself highly disputable.

Forms might be different, but the underlying need is often the same. A Levis or veshti is clothing. A mercedes or a bullockcart is a means of mobility. Pasta and sambar rice is food.

>What I am interested in is separating the core ingredients for >enlightenment from cultural and traditional beliefs that attach >themselves like leeches.

> Religion is often about the continuation of tradition for > tradition's sake.

The same argument pretty much applies to those who try to subvert tradition today.

> Mysticism can be radical, even revolutionary, and opposed to > mindless tradition. There is a point at which dharma/tradition > becomes a barrier to enlightenment.

What's your knowledge of 'dharma' for you to be making such a claim? How much have you studied and understood it?

> Frankly, I'm interested in subverting and questioning tradition.

The questioning of a tradition should be about knowledge. You cannot forsake a tradition without fully studying/understanding it. The danger of subverting a tradition as a means and end in itself is immense. Sadly that's what is happening today.

It is probably a good time for you to pose the question to yourself: why is it that you want to subvert something without even really knowing/understanding it in all its dynamics?

Nandakumar

[In response to Ray's post (Dec 11, 2005) at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3752]

Hello Nandakumar,

I had elaborated 'transgressive sacrality' as a means of better understanding (the dynamics of not just Hindu) tradition, and its practice by spiritual giants, like Abhinava, as a means of transcending one's own limited (sense of) identity. Many Anglo-Saxons, particularly American scholars, seem to have latched on to this idea with their own (sometimes diametrically opposed and highly suspect...) agendas:

often underpinned by a naive and uncritical reading of their own 'enlightened' politico-cultural genealogy...

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3760]

http://www.enabling.org/ia/vipassana/vipwomen.html

From: Nandakumar Chandran

Date: Sun Dec 11, 2005; 7:27 am

Ray, a "pleasant" day in the beach is hardly a base to build a societal theory upon.

Add more days, add more people, add more recreational variety—I think your pleasant experience could change for the worse.

Civilizational knowledge/practice is due to a variety of experience.

At some point in time, I'm sure that humans ran around without clothes. But due to experience over a period of time certain things have evolved. This is not to say that every such thing that evolved is right—maybe certain things have alternate remedies or could do with enhancement—but for that you've to first study and understand such practices before condemning them.

Yes, you're questioning and studying such practice—but with the fundamental intent of subvertion because in your mind you've already decided that it is wrong (or so it seems to me).

This is pretty much the case with many Indian "intellectuals" today. Having been raised with a Western education they have been conditioned to criticize/condemn tradition without even subjecting it to an impartial evaluation.

One would think that people would have better sense. My manager is fond of quoting Voltaire: common sense is not so common!

Which brings me back to the gymnosophists, the naked sages, who apparently understood that many of the norms of society were arbitrary and obstacles to enlightenment.

Yes, but you have to understand that at no point in time did they say it was OK for normal people to go in the nude.

Nandakumar

[Response to Ray's post (Dec 11, 2005) at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3754]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3761]

[What is the history of women writers in India?]

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Sun Dec 11, 2005; 9:35 am

--- In [email protected], Sunthar Visuvalingam wrote:

What is the history of women writers in India? Anyone know off-hand.

I know that China had women authors through much of the Imperial period starting in the Han dynasty. Japan had a tradition starting in the 8th century. In these areas, and also Korea, most of the writing I believe was poetic and calligraphic.

There were exceptions though like the annals of the Imperial historian Ban Zhou.

In early modern Europe, women writers often had to use male pen names. Sappho was the noted writer from ancient Greece.

A quick search of the net turned up this page on writings by women in Theravada Buddhism.

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

[Response to Sunthar's post (Dec. 11, 2005)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/messages/3757]

If you consider that women generally were not taught Sanskrit (in the plays they typically speak in Prakrit by prescription), which was the primary language of high discourse and culture that was worth preserving in ancient India, it is not surprising that their opinions on such issues (including those bearing on their own well-being...) have not reached us. Accomplished courtesans, who were supposed to be refined in all the 64 arts of the K�ma S�tra (including calligraphy), could apparently converse with men (as equals?) within a certain milieu, and Vasantasen� is able to switch to Sanskrit with ease (though I've yet to come across any Pillow Book from her hand...). However, even here, the Vid�Saka makes disparaging and ridiculing comments about the bizarre intonations of women attempting to speak Sanskrit!

However, any attempt at cross-cultural comparison with (poetesses, etc.) in ancient Greece, China, Japan, etc., should be seen in the context of the cultural resistance to writing in ancient India and the emphasis on oral transmission (even and especially among the brahmins), rather than attributed to some greater suppression of women. We do know from the example of G�rgi, that there were extremely learned and intellectually independent women in the Upanishadic period, who could take on the top male authorities of their day (like Y�j�avalkya). And, mind you, this was a heated debate about the esoteric meaning of Vedic ritual and its transcendence! Even Mandana Mishra's wife, Bh�rat� (Speech!), challenged Shankara's knowledge of erotics only after having engaged him in debate, on his own ground, about the zruti and related z�stras.

Sunthar

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3762]

Re: [What is the history of women writers in India?]

From: Chitra Raman

Date: Sun Dec 11, 2005; 2:00 pm

Sunthar, thank you for these remarks.

Actually, one doesn't have to look too far beyond the West to realize that the intellectual contributions by women in general--not just Indian women—through history were not absent,just anonymous.

I'll give you two instances. These were two brilliant and gifted Western women who would have rocketed to stratospheric acclaim and garnered copious acknowledgment by history books—if only they had been men. Instead, they remained trapped within the umbra cast by their powerful male patrons.

Antonia Maury is my first example. Haven't heard of her? Neither had I, until I researched her life story for an online biography I wrote for Gale Research Group, an organization that specializes in print and electronic research materials for school and college students. Sunthar, I will share that bio with you offline.

In brief – she was an unflagging cartographer of the sky; she suggested the system in use today for measuring the magnitude of stars; she discovered the first eclipsing binary star system; and it was her painstaking documentation, dismissed as inconsequential by her boss, that formed the basis of the Hertzprung-Russell diagram, which is as fundamental to astrophysics as an armature is to sculpture.

And she was just one of a number of women in her day, hired to do the grunt work in obscurity for the men who took it and published their brilliant papers and swaggered about lapping up the heady acclaim, without a shred of remorse that they had not acknowledged that the seminal input (irony intended) came from a woman, or a group of women.

Speaking of sculpture, my next example is Claudel, the young mistress of sculptor Rodin. She matched him—and perhaps even surpassed him in her ability to capture and freeze fire, yearning, bitterness, compassion, lust, and disillusionment into a work of clay made bronze—or stone. The extent of her contribution to his work is not fully realized because she frequently worked on refining and polishing his marble pieces; while there is at least one instance of a work by him which borrows from one of her early ideas executed in terracotta.

Yet while his fame and stature grew, she remained a sidekick, an apprentice, having to be content with the crumbs he occasionally tossed her way. Eventually, when she realized he was not going to leave his first mistress Rose Beuret and marry her, she had the strength and spirit to refuse him access, even though he wrote her impassioned letters and said he would go mad if he couldn't see her.

When I viewed Claudel's work beside Rodin's last week at a local museum and read about the circumstances of her life and death, it was as if a door to a furnace had opened and revealed to me the burning anguish of a woman who felt used and outrageously undervalued. Rodin, as we know, not only did not go mad, but became the toast of France and lived long enough to see a museum opened in his name. He married Rose Beuret one year before she died. Claudel, on the other hand, spent the last THREE DECADES of her life in an insane asylum.

Regards,

Chitra

[Response to Sunthar's comments appended to Paul's post (Dec 11, 2005)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3761]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3763]

[Camille Claudel—victim of a male-dominated culture?—SV]

From: Chitra Raman

Date: Sun Dec 11, 2005; 3:38 pm

There was especially a large intense sculpture of the artist in his Old Age followed by a despairing woman reaching out. It seemed to me to capture very well, in a sublimated mode, her anguished feelings towards Rodin. This was my favorite piece in the whole museum. [Sunthar]

Sunthar, that would be the work titled

" L'Age M�r" in 1895, taken up again in 1898 and 1907: a cruel statement of abandonment, Rodin leaving Camille, on her knees begging him to stay, to go back to Rose. [Sunthar]

(From the webpage you linked in your message)

Beyond the literal depiction of Claudel's lived reality as reflected by that sculpture, her true genius is in how much is conveyed through that sculpture. Old age is symbolized by a grotesquely wrinkled toothless hag, who symbolizes Rose Beuret, solicitously enveloping the man walking forward from above. This suggests the inevitability and inescapable grasp of old age.

The man walks away from the kneeling girl (symbolizing Claudel) letting one hand trail behind as though reaching out to her but not actually touching her, his face set in pain, and his eyes looking blankly ahead. This communicates fatalism, cop-out, ambiguity rather than a willing decision.

Finally, the youthful girl implores with both hands upraised, kneeling; but that is as far as she will go; she does not cling, nor grasp at his wrist, nor cling to his feet to be dragged along like the doormat wife played by Meena Kumari in the Hindi movie "Sahib, Biwi aur Ghulam." There were limits to the lengths to which Claudel would go to secure Rodin's presence in her life—even if that ultimately shattered her. For that she has my utmost respect.

Regards,

Chitra

[Response to Sunthar's comments to Chitra's post (December 11, 2005)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3762]

Actually, I suspect that her relationship between Rodin was more complicated than that of a successful male artist 'exploiting' his talented mistress apprentice (click on Collections|Camille Claudel):

http://www.musee-rodin.fr/welcome.htm

"From 1906 the madness became more pronounced and destructive. The Museum has fifteen of her sculptures and it is here that the most representative selection of Camille’s art can be seen. This is as Rodin wished; we need only quote the words he wrote to his friend Morhardt in 1914 when the museum project was taking shape: “With regard to the H�tel Biron, nothing is settled yet. The idea of including some sculptures by Mlle Say [a phonetic pseudonym for Camille Claudel, Mademoiselle C., based on the French pronunciation of “c”] would please me very much. This house is quite small and I don’t know how the rooms will be arranged. There could be a few buildings for her and for me.” Following the 1951 exhibition Paul Claudel gave the museum the plaster version of Clotho, L’Age M�r in bronze and Vertumne et Pomone in marble. In 1963 the museum acquired the onyx version of Les Causeuses, and it seemed only natural this should be joined in 1995 by La Vague, a masterpiece in bronze and onyx also purchased by the museum. Therefore it is in Rodin’s own house that Camille’s work can best be appreciated in all the power and originality of own individual genius, stripped of the media hype which has tented only to distort it." [closing para]

For the sexual attraction was compounded by the large age difference between a mature artist (43) poised for fame and a teenage (hero-worshipping?) girl (19) in quest of her own identity. This is the sort of (inner) conflict that even a young man (otherwise devoted to his guru) would have in trying to grow out of the dominating influence of an authoritative master (Rudra in the brahmanicide myth cuts off Brahm�'s head because the latter addresses him condescendingly as "my son"...), only it is devilishly compounded by the mutual sexual attraction. A situation possible (inevitable?) only when the masculine and feminine spheres of activity begin to overlap giving rise to competition within a cultural context where the gender bias still remains strong (even more potent because of the erosion of barriers in certain domains). Isn't this competitive sexual dynamics (with the need for 'creative' personal space) now increasingly generalized (regardless of any artistic inclination proper) even within the institution of marriage in the West? Where increasing numbers of women suddenly wake up one day to realize suddenly that they've been 'living in a cage' (even if the husband has been as dutiful as ever in keeping them well-fed and well-dressed)?

To my knowledge, Camille's famous brother (who was close to her), the poet and diplomat Paul Claudel, never went as far as some of Rodin's modern 'feminist' critics...

Regards,

Sunthar

P.S. Yes, I read that notice fully (with the part on L'�ge M�r') only after letting your post through.

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3765]

Re: [Camille Claudel—victim of a male-dominated culture?—SV]

From: Chitra Raman

Date: Sun Dec 11, 2005; 9:43 pm

Actually, I suspect that her relationship between Rodin was more complicated than that of a successful male artist 'exploiting' his talented mistress apprentice. [Sunthar]

Well, Sunthar—I think I said in my last post that she communicated the sense of feeling used and undervalued. Whether or not we can use the word "exploited" in connection with their relationship is open to conjecture … we cannot ask Claudel how she felt. Or what she gave him relative to what she received in return.

If you're suggesting that Rodin's inclusion of her works in his Museum is proof he wasn't all that bad, I must ask – didn't this Museum open fairly late in Rodin's life when Claudel was already well along the path of paranoia? Could the gesture have been born out of equal parts love, regard, and guilt? Yes, he was under no compulsion to extend that gesture – but then on the other hand he wasn't exactly doling out alms. Her work is hands down magnificent and a clear asset to his museum.

For the sexual attraction was compounded by the large age difference between a mature artist (43) poised for fame and a teenage (hero-worshipping?) girl (19) in quest of her own identity. [Sunthar]

Camille Claudel hardly appeared like one groping for her identity. I suspect she was quite sure of her identity well before she met Rodin, and in fact that conviction was what drove her to seek him out.

There is a bust of an older woman that greets one at the very entrance to the exhibition, apparently of one of Claudel's housemaids. It is simply breathtaking in its proportion, detail, and subtlety of expression. And it was crafted by her at age 16.

Eyewitness accounts of her demeanor in the studio describe a young woman ravenous for work and absorbed in its completion, working sometimes for 10 hours straight occasionally pausing to gaze at the visitor who stood before her, before wordlessly returning to her work.

It was the species of passion they shared with respect to their work that drew them together and made the age difference secondary.

This is the sort of (inner) conflict that even a young man (otherwise devoted to his guru) would have in trying to grow out of the dominating influence of an authoritative master (Rudra in the brahmanicide myth cuts off Brahm�'s head because the latter addresses him condescendingly as "my son"...), only it is devilishly compounded by the mutual sexual attraction. [Sunthar]

I'm not sure how the Rudra example is relevant here because Claudel had no alternative BUT to rely upon Rodin to give her opportunities and publicity, and have her walk by his side as an artistic equal if not his wife, which he never invited her to do, let's face it. She did try quite courageously to strike out on her own but never received any significant commissions.

A situation possible (inevitable?) only when the masculine and feminine spheres of activity begin to overlap giving rise to competition within a cultural context where the gender bias still remains strong (even more potent because of the erosion of barriers in certain domains).[Sunthar]

I'm not sure I understand you completely here. Let me share a personal anecdote, however—my husband bumped my shoulder affectionately at the exhibition and with a meaningful look pointed out how uniquely progressive and non-resentful he was with respect to my particular achievements --

To which I replied, It's been easier for us because you're not a writer … Else given our strong personalities, we might have experienced some tectonic tangos! He had to agree!

Isn't this competitive sexual dynamics (with the need for 'creative' personal space) now increasingly generalized (regardless of any artistic inclination proper) even within the institution of marriage in the West? [Sunthar]

But what's wrong with that?

<< Where increasing numbers of women suddenly wake up one day to realize suddenly that they've been 'living in a cage' (even if the husband has been as dutiful as ever in keeping them well-fed and well-dressed)? >>[Sunthar]

Mon Dieu ! Et tu, Sunthar? Es tut mir leid, lekin mujhe aap se yeh ummeed nahin thee!!!

Sorry for mixing up my languages here, but honestly – dutiful husbands **keeping them well-fed and well-dressed**—pray would you be talking about the household pet and family heirloom doll or the spouse? I have to say your description of a dutiful husband seems fit for a wife on life-support!

To my knowledge, Camille's famous brother (who was close to her), the poet and diplomat Paul Claudel, never went as far as some of Rodin's modern 'feminist' critics... [Sunthar]

That's because you haven't read excerpts from his personal diary. I did. He makes an anguished observation – I forget the exact phrasing, except for "my poor, poor sister" and "destroyed" by the finality of Rodin's rejection of her in favor of Rose Beuret.

Regards, Chitra

[Response to Sunthar's comment on Chitra's post (December 11, 2005)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3763 ]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3766]

Re: [What is the history of women writers in India?]

From: Paul Kekai Manansala

Date: Sun Dec 11, 2005; 10:49 pm

> --- In [email protected], Sunthar Visuvalingam wrote:

> > However, any attempt at cross-cultural comparison with (poetesses, etc.) in ancient Greece, China, Japan, etc., should be seen in the context of the cultural resistance to writing in ancient India and the emphasis on oral transmission (even and especially among the brahmins), rather than attributed to some greater suppression of women.

In many areas where oral traditions prevail, including the Pacific and Southeast Asia, women quite often chanters and singers as much or more than the men.

Regards,

Paul Kekai Manansala

[Response to Sunthar (Dec. 11, 2005) at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3761]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3767]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3760

From: Ray Harris

Date: Mon Dec 12, 2005; 12:27 am

Nandakumar,

I think we are at a point of repeating ourselves. You should know however that I had been a student of Siddha Yoga for some years, living in ashrams for 5 of those years as a staff member. So I believe I have some knowledge of Hindu dharma and also of yoga theory. Although, that might not satisfy your requirements. It's in fact rather easy to retreat to an argument by authority—that I must necessarily be ignorant and you much more informed.

As I said in an earlier post, my position is informed by a broader knowledge base than just 'dharma'. If we truly want to talk about sexuality and spirituality we should include the Taoist experience, as well as the findings of the modern discipline of sexology. I also have my own personal experiences to inform me.

I agree with Chitra. I understood spiritual practice to be about avoiding distractions and living a moderate life. There are injunctions about food and indulgence in general. In fact there are a number of prohibitions designed to remove distractions. The purpose of the ashram is to provide a space to avoid distractions and focus on spiritual practice. But this is different to making the body or sex bad, or making women out to be temptresses. And again, I agree with Chitra (and my apologies for my part in it, though I am aware of the issue) about the male bias—to which I would add that it is men who have devised these theories and mostly men (and patriarchal religions) who organise themselves into monastic orders with vows of celibacy—even going to the extent, in some instances, of arguing that women, by her nature, cannot reach enlightenment and must wait for a male rebirth.

I believe in a rational and factual examination of traditional beliefs. Some of them are sound and ought to be kept, but many are not and are simply the expression of deeper cultural myths and prejudices. In starting this debate by questioning the current moralistic tone in India I was intentionally using the one example of the breast to show that this current tone is somewhat arbitrary. I am sure there are many other examples we could use to suggest that many moral positions and religious injunctions are also arbitrary and irrational—all organised religions have an elaborate set of do's and dont's akin to the idea of dharma, quite a few of which contradict each other.

Are Hindus who have been scrupulous in following dharma been the only one's to have achieved enlightenment? Is it impossible for someone who has breached the rules of dharma to become enlightened? If they have breached dharma and have become enlightened what does it say about the dharmic rules they've breached? Wouldn't this suggest they are irrelevant and can be discarded?

BTW, do we know whether or not these naked sages made a comment about 'normal' people and nudity? There is an anecdotal story about Nityananda, the root guru of the Siddha Yoga lineage. As a youth he used to go about naked. He was arrested and ordered to put on at least a dhoti. He exclaimed, pointing to his genitals, 'what, you are worried about this little piece of flesh?' Of course, later, he condescended to wearing minimal clothing, but it would seem his message was clear—it doesn't matter, it's just a silly social convention.

Ray

[Response to Nandakumar's posts (Dec 11, 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3761]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3769]

Mars and Venus

From: Radhakrishna Warrier

Date: Sun Dec 11, 2005; 11:47 am

Are men from Mars and women from Venus? I don't really know :-) But they behave a little different. Perhaps nature intended that way and designed their biologies a teeny bit different.

To some degree, we are all slaves of our biologies. Saints and Talibans are poles apart but seem to share their own brands of staunch puritanism. But even they seem to be bound to their sweet, pleasurable flesh by a fine silken thread. Shankara exhorts us not to look at the full, heavy 'stana' or the 'n�bh� desha' of women. Why is this compulsion to mention these parts of the female anatomy? Why does he forget to give an equivalent advice to women not to look at or fantasize about certain things? Sv�tm�r�ma S�ri in his "HaTha Yoga Prad�pik�" says that the knowledge of Yoga is "gopan�yam" (to be kept hidden or secret) like the "suratam" (sex- play) of "kula-str�" (high class or family woman). From a thousand other equally powerful upam�-s (analogies) he couldn't but choose this one.

It is difficult to be in another's shoes and look at the world as he or she does. Still more difficult to be in another's body and feel and respond as he or she does. So it is no wonder that we heard practically only one side of the story in the discussions here on 'stana', 'nabhi' or the covering or uncovering of these parts as the participants were mostly males. Sugrutha's and Chitra's posts were a welcome change. A fresh breeze blew away some stale air. And they opened windows to new perspectives.

Women like me are repelled by narcissism, egocentricity, and self- absorption—traits that afflict both physically attractive and unattractive men alike. [Chitra]

Let me write a few words on a science fiction story that I read decades ago. I am one among those who retain only the big picture in mind and forget all the fine details unless the matter is crucial to earning the daily bread. This is to say that I forgot the author, title and most of the details of the story. In the story, the hero accidentally happens to enter the mind of his girl friend. He sees a desolate landscape there. A giantess of enormous proportions is lying scantily clad on a beach. On closer look, the hero recognizes his girl friend in the giantess. But he finds himself to be of Lilliputian proportions. So are the other people around the giantess-turned-girl-friend. There are of course a few handsome men, movie and sports personalities, who stand considerably taller than the rest. But they too are quite smaller compared to their real life proportions. Much bigger than the Lilliputian people are a few bottles of her favourite cosmetics. I forget the rest of the story.

I have met females with egos more bloated than the one that the science fiction author tried to portray in the story. But I know many other women who are much humbler. So, I don't think that the average woman has a very big ego. Similarly I have met men with far bigger egos. Pompous Lilliputians posturing as Brobdingnangians. Or Mah� Vid�Sakas who can't laugh at themselves. They all make me laugh out loud. But I have met enough humbler men for me to know for sure that the average male is not characterized by "narcissism, egocentricity, and self-absorption."

Thanks and regards,

Radhakrishna Warrier

[In response to Chitra Raman's post (11 Dec 2005) at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavagupta/message/3758]

Subject: [Abhinava msg #3774]