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Re: Siva as yogi
>Now let me quote something I read from a book recently. It was a translation of
>Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra (by Alain Danielou). The author seems well read in the
>Sanskrit and various Hindu scriptures and he quotes the following passage of
>Ramanuja. It's quite incredible and if the translation is wrong will the
>experts on Ramanuja speak up (ex. Ken Stuart)? Let's not indulge in mere
>rhetoric or name calling or questioning the parampara and so on.
Well that last bit is interesting coming from someone who indulged in
calling others bigots...
In any case, I do not understand the relevance of Kama Sutra (or
translations thereof) to discussions on spirituality. Since the Kama Sutra
is concerned with mundane material matters, it follows that anyone
interested in translating it will be also, and they he can easily misquote
someone to support his own interpretations. Just keep that in mind... I
certainly don't consider the translator of the Kama Sutra to be an authority
on Ramanuja. Certainly someone who thought it necessary to translate KS must
have an interesting set of biases.
>
>"The womans call is the prelude, lying beside her the hymn, penetrating her sex
>the offertory and ejaculation the final hymn" - from the Chandogya Upanishad.
Notice how no verse number was provided. It's perfect, when you think about
it. In order to verify the above, one would have to read the whole Chandogya
(no easy thing). So, if I were trying to misrepresent a scripture, I guess I
would also avoid printing the original Sanskrit and the verse number; that
way I would be almost assured that no one would find the verse and correct me.
My point is that providing just the English verse by itself is not very
scholarly. The system is that one provides the original Sanskrit and the
verse numbers, so others can easily verify.
>
>In his commentary Ramanuja writes " He who suffers intensely from his
>adulterous desires should consider that they form part of the rites of the Sama
>veda, of the left hand, which does not forbid sleeping with other men's
>wives".
>
>The above is given in Danielou's book. I checked up some of the other
>quotations (from some puranas) and they were correct and didn't seem have been
>quoted out of context. However I don't have Ramanuja's translation and wasn't
>able to verify it. However it's most probably correct. This would totally
>contradict all common notions of what Ramanuja found as acceptable and
>un-acceptable behavior.
It can very easily be taken out of context. It does not sound to me like he
is justifying aldutery - just saying that they are akin to some inauspicious
rites (of the left hand). It could mean anything. By itself, no meaningful
conclusion can be drawn.
-- HKS
