War and Peace in the Bhagavad Gita | Hacker News Reader

War and Peace in the Bhagavad Gita

nybooks.com

88 pointsbenbreen67 comments

Wendy Doniger is known to have an interpretation of Hindu texts that is hostile to traditional understanding of the texts [1]. Some specific examples in this particular article are:

1. The Bhagvad Gita is commonly understood to be a discussion of appropriate duty. In this case, Krishna's argument was it is Arjuna's duty to go to war, considering that all other peaceful solutions had been explored and rejected by the Kauravas (Arjuna's opponents)[2]. In fact, Krishna himself had acted as peacemaker, and asked Arjuna to take take up arms only when that failed. The use of the Gita by Indian Nationalists fighting for Indian independence from the British has to be understood in this context.

2. Doniger says that the war was "lawless", but the Mahabharata war was an attempt at a "just" war, as understood in its contemporary context. Deviations from just behaviour are noted and held up as examples of unjust behaviour.

3. The so-called "Doomsday" manifestation of Krishna is in fact him showing his universal form, which is supposed to be beyond the capacity of ordinary humans to visualize, which is why Krishna had to grant Arjuna divine vision to be able to comprehend it. Doniger's use of the Abrahamic term "Doomsday" is loaded, because the understanding of comprehensive destruction or "Pralay" [3] in Hinduism is very different. Sure Doniger understands the difference, since she is a professor of Religious Studies.

4. She seems to be applying guilt-by-association by tying the Gita to the RSS and the assassination of Gandhi, and she criticizes Richard Davis for being too respectful of Hindu understanding of the Gita. Overall, the impression is that her anti-Hindutva agenda is spilling over into being an anti-Hindu agenda.

[1] http://creative.sulekha.com/risa-lila-1-wendy-s-child-syndro... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War#Krishna.27s_pea... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pralaya

being christian fundamentalist, her stance is obvious.

She is Jew.

It's nice to know you've raised it to the status of a collective noun. I suppose you figure you're doing a favor by not calling her a Jewess.

Yours comment have added the great value to a discussion for which I thanks you.

My bad, should have checked. All hate mongers may not be fundamentalist.

Congratulations, for aptly demonstrating how ad hominem attacks work.

I recently asked a similar question on the larger historiography of India and its relative lack of clarity, here on HN [1]

  Is India's history and the study of that history,
  really so murky that it is uniquely mired in so 
  much debate, that any form of consensus, at least
  among objective outsiders and non-stakeholders, 
  cannot be arrived at?

  Surely the Indian subcontinent could not be the only
  place where scant archaeological evidence and written 
  records remain. Historians do construct rudimentary 
  historical narratives - albeit however poor and 
  discontinuous - from similarly poor records, elsewhere. 

  Don't they?

  This leads to the more troubling question of the state 
  of historiography at large.

  Is the writing of history largely political, even in 
  this day?

  Is it groomed by the prevailing norms, mores and 
  sentiments of society?

  Is academia - whether in the West or elsewhere - still a
  forbidding place for contrarians and detractors ?

  If enough institutional power is brought to bear on the
  historical study of a certain region, people of that
  region and the culture of that region, could the history
  of that region be - for all intents and purposes - be
  whitewashed?

  I know historical revisionism and self-censorship - in
  some quarters of Western academia - has been in full 
  vogue for quite some time.

  If a relatively secular and democratic India, poses 
  these problems for scholars, I can easily imagine whole
  departments & institutes at prestigious academies of
  higher learning, engaged in the study of even more
  problematic places like the Middle East (for reasons of
  hurting Islamic sentiments), China (for reasons of risking
  bristling a rising economic power) and Africa (for reasons
  of regret, for the ravaging the continent has endured at
  the hands of Western powers), being persuaded to cast
  their findings in a more positive light - or at least in
  less negative light - should they want their research be
  continually well funded through grants and bequests, from
  benefactors both public and private.

  It greatly saddens and irks me at the same time, to ask
  this because I fear that my thoughts and suspicions, might
  actually be validated.
  Are we still living through the effects of a post-colonial
  interpretation of historiography ?
  In 2014 ? Really ?

[1] Did The Harappan Civilization Avoid War for 2,000 Years?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8627192

edit:Formatting

You do realize that all that you said, and all that Wendy Doniger says can be simultaneously true?

Attempts at a singular interpretation of the Indian epics will always be incomplete. As the late University of Chicago scholar, AK Ramanujan pointed out in his essay 'Three Hundred Ramayanas', these texts were written and rewritten in several historical, political, and geographic contexts. One can think of these different 're-writes' and 'edits' as an inseparable intertwining of threads. It is almost impossible to identify which epoch and political context each part of the Indian epics emerged from.

In short, no single mass of 'traditional understanding' can be considered as benchmarks.

[1] 'The Collected Essays of AK Ramanujan,' Ed. Vinay Dharwadker, Oxford University Press, 2004. http://trans-techresearch.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/thr...

Are there alternate versions of the Mahabharat where Krishna does not go to the Kauravas with a peace treaty and where the war happens before such a peace effort?

To whoever downvoted this: note that I was trying to highlight the logical fallacy in the parent comment, which was using the existence of different versions of the Ramayana to make a sweeping generalization about the Mahabharata without providing proof specific about the latter.

> 2. Doniger says that the war was "lawless", but the Mahabharata war was an attempt at a "just" war, as understood in its contemporary context. Deviations from just behaviour are noted and held up as examples of unjust behaviour.

I dont think you are being fair here. Yes you correctly observe that deviations were noted. But it really is in the lines of recognition of horror that by the end of 18 days almost every single edict of a 'just' war had been ground to the dust with Krishna himself instigating / provoking many such acts, bending laws of nature so that those he favors come out unscathed even if the opponents reaction was justified. Several times had it not been for Krishna's divine intervention, the opponents would have prevailed. If I were to count all the violations I would soon lose track, they accumulate a momentum of a relentless avalanche, both sides participating in equal measure, culminating in a night attack on women and children.

So "rules of fair engagement be damned" is certainly not a mischaracterization of what transpired. Yepp! laws were there and agreed upon [0], but once things got rolling they mattered little in the execution.

Deceit, violation of rules and gaming the system, ruled supreme in _every_freaking_single_ contest among the (significant) warriors. Rarely was a contest won solely by mastery of weapons.

So I am unfortunately forced to file this under "some guy on the internet bristling at the thought of a non-hindu commenting on hindu text". I honestly fail to see what is so anti-Hindu in the article.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War#Rules_of_engage...

> Doniger's use of the Abrahamic term "Doomsday" is loaded,

what is your point here, seems a desperate act of clutching at straws.

The war had laws. That few were broken does not mean the war was lawless. The rules of engagement in the Wikipedia article is a mere summary. The original critical edition of Mahabharata published by BORI has even more details. For example how the wounded had to be moved and what is to be done with dead bodies of men and animals etc. The laws mattered and were followed.

Wendy's summary of Mahabharata was as merely "lawless war" is thus completely false.

Hi tn13 I agree with every bit of what you said except the last bit, I think you are over scrutinizing. A situation where I break the law whenever it is advantageous for me to break them is pretty 'lawless' to me.

A murderer is still a murderer even if there are thousands of people he / she did not murder. Whether something is lawful or lawless matters only when it flies against convenience / dominance (much like free speech). The laws might, in such a situation, exist on paper but in practice that is not how things got executed.

So if the execution of the war was being described, it would not be an unfair adjective to use. More so because the fact that all fair use rules were dropped plays an important narrative role in the epic. The reader is supposed to shudder that this happened, it is a deliberate plot point, if you will, to show the fall from grace of humanity.

This! You are my hero for putting it so eloquently and clearly in no uncertain terms!

I was deeply confused and disturbed, as a growing up child, when I watched the grand old Bheeshma getting riddled with arrows that Arjuna fired from behind Shikhandi in Mahabharata serial. And then there was Krishna egging him on. I tried my best but there was no way I could reconcile with "Pandavas + Krishna" being just with Bheeshma getting killed in such a brutal manner. For those who don't know; Bheeshma is a central figure in Mahabharata, who lives through the entire period (more or less) and greatly suffers as a result. In the end he dies a brutal death.

When I grew up I did read Bhagawadgeeta, various interpretations of it. It vaguely made sense; that everyone on Kaurava's side had accumulated bad karmas so they needed to be punished and so on. But still there was some void, all the justifications advanced for war seemed eerily familiar to that of Iraq war. It was at this point that I started reading Ambedkar's literature and all of a sudden lot of things made sense. Be it Karma theory to justify lower casts, violence on minority and a bunch of other atrocities; or the institution of "war is justified IF....".

Now, I just treat Mahabharatha, and Bhagawadgeeta in particular, as one of the most brilliantly devised propaganda tools ever. It has served and continues to serve its purpose of brainwashing generations after generations of Hindu population; and probably a few other religions as well.

There's a reason Budhism, which originated in India is taught as a footnote in Indian schools. Its philosophy is more or less opposite of Hinduism and is very appealing, logical. If taught right it can have lasting impact on young minds, but no, all you have is Mahabharatha, Ramayana, Bhagawadgeeta and such.

Edit: Hidimba -> Shikhandi

Thanks that you liked my comment. Minor correction, its Shikhandi and she / he had valid grudge against Bhishma. I rather not tell that story lest I hog this entire thread but you can read about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikhandi

Human shield you say, been done and at the suggestion of Krishna.

(sorry HN'ers, I am admittedly bit of a Maharabharat fanboy, please grin and bear)

Bhishma knew about the story so it was sort of self inflicted penance. This is what I find just marvelous about the Mahabharat no one can take a moral high ground. There is no holier than though stand to adopt and every single person got served, Krishna included.

EDIT

I would also take the opportunity to state that ubasu and tn13 are not wrong (framework of laws did exist and both sides did agree to follow them but when push came to shove ...), just that they are scrutinizing every word and projecting too much on the choice of words. The piece could have been worded better, written better but I dont see any evidence of bad faith or bad intentions in the article.

It is the subtext that is anti-Hindu here (i.e. you have to read between the lines). Doniger seems to be forwarding the narrative that Hindus are violent Others, driven by their holy text. This is similar to the established(?) narrative that Muslims are terrorists, being motivated by the Quran, never mind that it is not true. You may say that it is only my interpretation here, but this sort of narrative-building is all too common - in the past, the word "savages" would have been used.

Words are the tools of Doniger's trade. It is extremely unlikely that her choice of words is inadvertent.

Let me qualify that I'm an American Born Confused Desi (born of Hindu parents). I never quite understand why ANY Hindus should get upset when our religious/philosophical texts are scrutinized and contextualized. Of course, all interpretations are subjective. But if nothing else we should all embrace the notion that there is no such thing as a Hindu heretic or apostate. What matters (and has always mattered) is how we live and act. As such, I would emphasize that it is also important to keep an open respectful dialogue without alienating people from the discussion.

While such generic calls to decorum are always welcome, the specific issue here is that Doniger seems to be selectively and willfully misinterpreting the text to advance her own agenda. Most prominently, she declaims the Gita as a warlike-text, ignoring the clear context of the Mahabharata that war is inevitable in this situation when all attempts at a peaceful resolution have been rebuffed. (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8664662)

One may adopt a position of Gandhian non-violence and say that war is not justified even in that context, thus disagreeing with the philosophy of the Mahabharata, and that is OK, but misrepresenting the text is not.

Upvoted your comment it was grayed out by downvotes at that time. You raise important questions and that gladdens my heart enormously. It is surprising how rare this is. Usually I see most fall for the Hindu supremacist narrative cloaked in various shades of PC (I say this as an athiest hindu, I am not religious and yes that is not a contradiction once you dig into hinduism). I understand why this happens, the expat generation wants to be in touch with their roots and want their kids to be aware of those roots. A perfectly noble emotion, but what happens is that groups with vested political interest barge in to make a make a killing out of this opportunity. A section of the Hindu right has been trying for years to churchify Hinduism, organize it into a centralized political power. Thankfully this has not happened but not for lack of concerted effort and resources. They are quite livid because the Muslim right got an upper hand over their own country, Pakistan, whereas they themselves got saddled with the moderates who dont want their country to be based on a religious identity. This grates at them continuously.

I wont impose one view or the other about the nature of the religion and the discourse because I trust skeptical curiosity more than anything else. Be skeptical, be questioning you will find a fascinating story built around deep human thought originating almost from the birth of civilization, organization, politics and propaganda.

I see Gita as propaganda and persuasion at its finest (I say this as respectful "I am wow'ed" acknowledgement, not as disparagement, it is a masterpiece): how to build a irrefutable logical system that makes people do your bidding out of their own volition. I am yet to see a more refined and subtle tool for mass control: dont question, just do what you are supposed to, but never for the pleasure of doing it. How is one supposed to know what I am supposed to do, there it goes vague. I know I am repeating myself but it is just a masterpiece and so cleverly and persuasively argued. Any form of central governance would love to have something like this. This is certainly not all that is there to Gita, it is a piece that deserves many reads and lots of reflection. For me, some parts resonate.

If you do get a chance I will highly recommend reading Mahabharat and from as close to the source as possible. If you want an English text you cannot go wrong with Rajagopalachari's translation, the English is a tad dated but on purpose. He has a kids version but get the real deal.

Where this epic looms over others (just in my opinion and taste) is that the story is so modern, the characters so realistically gray. There is absolutely no one character there who can claim moral high ground. Likewise, no one is really unmitigated evil, their actions (for the most part) are indeed sensible from their point of view, but their actions come to bite them all, be it Krishna too. [Contrast this with Rama of Ramayan. Rama could do no wrong, whatever he did it was just papered over but from a position of moral superiority. Burned his wife, no problem there is a reason, mutilated a woman who proposed to his brother no problem there is a reason...]

Read Mahabharat first just as a fascinating story, without the religious and historic baggage. After that you can re-read it and you will find layers and layers of abstractions. One such interesting layer is that it is really a contest between two master schemers of the highest order: Shakuni (a member of the Afghan royal family, Kandahar to be precise, and an in-law of the Delhi based Kauravas) and Krishna. Shakuni wants to destroy the Kauravas from the inside (for due reasons), Krishna joins willingly from the outside but wants to protect the Pandavas perhaps to have influence over the Delhi based powerhouse. What would be much harder, and I am not there yet, is to read the sanskrit version. It is said that there is ample evidence that it has been written over years, accumulating new verses on the way (there is nothing controversial about this). This is based on the style of sanskrit in use, for example the verses that talk about Krishna's exploit (for example the Draupadi stripping incident and verses from Gita too) seem to be in much more modern sanskrit, rhyme, meter (relatively speaking) than the rest and many believe that these verses were included later. There is still a lot of Mahabharata that exist in a form that are called srutis (oral tradition: stories, ballads, folk songs, plays) that you wont find in the sanskrit sources.

Thank you so much for posting this. As a diaspora kid of expat Pakistanis it's like absolutely screaming into the wind arguing with people in the "old country" about the blasphemy law and being called a heretic and traitor. It makes it that much less lonely to know that people are doing something about the RSS pracharaks here as well. I had the distinct pleasure of once introducing myself in an RSS run Panun Kashmir meeting in Boston as a Pakistani - not an experience I'll be going for second helpings for.

Well, I dont think most of Hindus are bothered about anyone scrutinizing the texts. In fact most of the Hindu texts themselves are scrutinization of other texts. For example Upanishads are debating Vedas and so on.

The real problem occurs when certain people like Wendy start pretending to be experts spreading falsehood initially as her "subjective opinion" and later cross referenced as "scholarly analysis".

For example Wendy's book "Hindus : An alternative history" is perfectly a find book if she would claim it to be her own understanding of Hindu texts and philosophies. When people in completely civil manner point out to the huge holes in her "scholarly work" she does not defend it but claims that right wingers are out for her head which is not simply true.

actually, there is no such thing as a "Hindu" per se. And it is here that Hinduism (as an overall politico-sociological concept) differs a lot from traditional christianity or islam.

there is no singular book.

South Indian "hindus" dont believe in a lot of texts that the north indian "hindus" do including the mahabharata. The interpretation of the vyas ramayana and the south indian Kamba Ramayanam are different.

In general, the ramayana and the mahabharata are two epics, and thereby occupy a singificant mindshare in popular culture - so you can argue that it is pan-Indian. But if we veer away from them and go into other books, the differences are even more stark.

I actually love this part of "hinduism" - the fact that there is no "one-true-way" has given rise to a whole bunch of fairly conflicting theology that is really interesting. For example, explaining Advaita non-dualism to a conventional "hindu" is really interesting - because the concepts of the Gita are thrown out of the window (a lot of advaita scholars maintain that the original Gita was much smaller).

Spot on, and this is precisely what I find fascinating about it.

Quoting from an old comment of mine:

To me striking things about its body of thought are its philosophical roots, the fact that they have been thinking deeply about such questions since antiquity,.. and that not believing in any form of god is perfectly acceptable.

... for people coming from an Abrahamic religion, its a difficult thing to grasp. Hinduism is not 'a religion' if one goes by the notion of a religion in Abarahamic religions. It is worse than trying to map git commands to subversion. Its a very different beast, it is a meta religion (or more accurately a diverse collection of a very large body of thought and introspection, originating from a geographical region and built over time, that visitors clubbed into a single pool because they werent sure what to make of it). It is more like a religion factory pattern for building your own religion that includes questions you should keep visiting in that process, and a more fundamental one, why at all (and when) should one even consider building one. It lays down thought processes, questions that one should consider and critique when one is forming ones own parameterized religion. People get confused whether they are talking about the polymorphic class or the object instance.

> a lot of advaita scholars maintain that the original Gita was much smaller

Not only that, you may completely ignore everything that is in the Gita and still be a Hindu. As long as your belief system is not in conflict with the Vedic philosophy you have a perfectly legit claim to be one. And this gives you enormous amounts of personal space to form your own set of rules and live by them. I am sure you would know but for the benfit of those unfamiliar with the details, the 'Bhakti' that the article talks about is very much a post Gita thing, had little to no role in Hinduism prior to it. This "one book" obsession is very much an Abrahamic response to try and map something unfamiliar to something familiar. I find it quite amusing.

having said that, I would like to point out that the "Hindu" word referred to in India's current political climate is indeed a very dangerous thing and does veer fairly close to the "one book" theory.

For all it's faults - I cannot say that Doninger's book ought to have banned for offending sentiments.

Very, very sad.

Most Hindus are very tolerant about religion. Unlike other religions, Hinduism actually teaches freedom and tolerance. It encourages you to question and interpret in your way. This is why there are many interpretations of Bhagvad Gita and Mahabharata.

Most other religions are like "this is the only word of God, every other religion is satan, and questioning is blasphemy".

They are very tolerant about religion until the son introduces his non-Hindu girlfriend to the family. Somehow the tolerance seems to disappear.

We've closed this thread to new accounts to put out an off-topic political-religious flamewar.

"Gandhi ignored the warrior Gita at his peril: the man who killed him was driven by it. "

Quite a thoughtful assessment.

Don't want to prompt unneccesary debate, but her understanding of Gandhi and his assessment of the Gita is incomplete. Gandhi has written explicitly about (what she calls) the "warrior Gita". Moreover, her demarcation of the "Two Gitas" is something not a lot of people would agree with.

Personally, I've read a lot of commentaries and evaluations of the book, including the orignal, and I've found Gandhi's version to be the most powerful.

Again an false assessment. Nathuram Godse was not driven by Gita to kill Gandhi the way ISIS is driven by Koran to kill people. Nathuram Godse and his co-conspiring brother gave elaborate testimony in court and through a book as to why they killed Gandhi. Neither of them driven by religious ideology to kill Gandhi. They goal was political and tied with protecting interests of Hindu community from Gandhi's fundamentalist non-violence.

Geeta is a fairly open ended book. Prior to Gandhiji, Bal Gangadhar Tilak (a philosopher, mathematician and politician) had written his very popular interpretation of Gita where he essentially calls for an armed rebellian agains the British oppressors.

Wendy is being notorious.

I don't seem to recall ISIS citing the sword verses explicitly? How can you say Godse did not take inspiration from Gita?

The other thing I don't get is that how RSS types of Partition time seem to understand that apparently it's OK for _them_ to differ with Gandhi, but Muslims, because of not joining some Congress monolith, are to be punished for...wait for it...differing with Gandhi (say over Quit India)

tn13 is correct actually. I think he is saying the ISIS arent violent because of Koran but because of their political aspirations (at least the way I parsed it, only th13 can clarify that part).

About the rest, the source of the confusion is Hindutva, a political narrative that champions Hindu supremacy started formally by Savarkar (who snitched like canary to the British, excuse my hashed metaphor) and Hinduism the religion. The Godses were motivated by the former. [I am going to burn some serious karma here, you see Savarkar is a golden hero to the RSS]

I agree with what _you're_ saying, but I think tn13 is saying that they are violent because of the Koran.

Again, agreeing with you wholeheartedly in every bit except the last part. I am just uncomfortable about endorsing / invoking Tilak. That man was a bit cuckoo when it came to things about Hindu supremacy. In his eagerness to show racial purity he frigging claimed Hindus were Aryans originating from the North frigging pole and backed it up with his 'scientific' reasoning. Honest, I kid you not, wish I had something I could cite, but am pretty sure it wont be too hard to Google the right source.

EDIT: Holy crap wikipedia has a page on it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arctic_Home_in_the_Vedas

dont waste time.

For those interested, I highly recommend "The Difficulty on Being Good: The Subtle Art of Dharma" by Gurcharan Das.

Wendy Doniger is a Jew and not christian. A lot of Hindu right wingers incorrectly associate her with "Christian attempt" to malign Hinduism.

I am born Hindu and atheist. I have studied both Sanskrit and Religious texts like Gita in both religious and completely academic setup. For me, Wendy's interpretations comes as a shoddy work of an incompetent scholar. I do empathize with her attempts to provide a drastically different interpretation of Hindu texts, but I do not think using falsehood is an acceptable way to do it.

I think her understanding of Sanskrit is poor. She probably relies on some sort of dictionary which gives translation of words without context. She linking Krishna's "Vishwarup Darshana" (World encompassing existence view) as doomsday is utterly rubbish.

"Krishna manifests his universal form, the form in which he will destroy the universe at Doomsday"

She is probably too influenced by "Judgement Day" sort of ideas here. The original lines are here [1]. The Hindu worldview believes that world has several starts and several ends, there are million worlds which are born and destroyed a million times. There is no fixed beginning and fixed end.

Krishna is using this argument to tell Arjuna that his attachment to things is pointless because all the existence is far too tiny. To give an appropriate context this might be very similar to what Rose Tyler saw in Doctor Who. The entire time vortex in her head. All existence, all life, destruction and entire vastness of time all in once place. [Just to give a context.]

Also, linking Splendour of thousand suns with Atomic Bomb and destruction is Oppenheimer's own creative liberties and has nothing to do with the interpretation of Gita itself.

The idea of Sun in Hindu philosophy is very different. For Wendy it might seem like "explosion" but Hindu texts use Sun as a symbol of human intelligence (so-hum), these ideas were borrowed and made more popular by Buddhism (om namo amituo fu, om mani padme hum). The thousand suns is not a giant explosion causing destruction but magnificence of the reality. The "thousand suns" analogy is used to convey that what Arjuna is watching is beyond human comprehension and is simply blinding.

See this remarkably notorious translation by Wendy:

"Stop acting like a kliba; stand up!" (Kliba is a catch-all derogatory term for a castrated, cross-dressing, homosexual, or impotent man, here used as a casual slur, “not a real man.”)

This sort of translation makes me question her motive. She is trying to portray Geeta as homo-phobic in some sense and as if Krishna is someone who despises Homosexuals. In reality Krishna invites a certain cross-dresser/transgender to kill an important warrior later as part of his strategy [2]. Arjuna himself was a cross-dresser before the war [3] and Krishna too was a cross-dresser. Krishna's cross-dressing romance with his girlfriend Radha is subject of several songs.

The word Kliba is neither a slur nor has multiple meanings. "Kliba" is a person incapable of having sexual intercourse either because of lack of erection or castration. Kliba is not transgender, it is certainly not homo-sexual and unless you are high on pot it can not be translated to cross-dresser.

The specific usage in Gita is merely a metaphor. It is common even in todays world to use impotence as a metaphor for cowardice.

I am not upset because Wendy is giving negative publicity to my religion. I am upset that her work is not subjected to the same level academic scrutiny as any other academic criticism of religious texts and people who try to do that a summarily rejected as "Right wing Zealots trying to stigmatize a scholar."

[1] http://www.bartleby.com/45/4/11.html#44 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikhandi [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihannala [4] http://bit.ly/1uXWxTr

Sure... religious/political discussion forum

It's easy to see how this post is of intellectual interest and therefore in scope for HN: it's a substantive review of a scholarly work on one of the most influential texts ever written.

The topic also has religious and political implications, but that doesn't make it off-topic. It does mean that we should be extra careful to post only thoughtful comments and edit out flamebait. Not every such thread degenerates, and HN has penalties for the ones that do.

Is there an underlying presumption that smart hacker-type people do not have spiritual interests?

I think a lot of smart hacker-type people would disagree with that.

> Is there an underlying presumption that smart hacker-type people do not have spiritual interests?

It's unclear to me where you sensed that presumption—in my comment, the community, HN moderation, or some other place.

My comment didn't mean to imply that. I was just writing about garden-variety flamewars—because from experience, there were flammables afoot.

Such a presumption may exist in segments of the community. Personally I think it's wrong. If the corpus of HN discussions counts as evidence, it's almost certainly wrong.

From an HN moderation point of view, there's no reason why spiritual and religious matters should be off-topic. They're part of the great traditions and excite intellectual curiosity just as lots of other things do. They also excite dogmatism, including unconscious dogmatism, and incivility, and those things are problematic here. So while intellectually substantive stories on those subjects are not off-topic (which is why the OP was welcome here), empirically those threads tend to violate the site guidelines more and so get penalized more.

Seems that NYTimes forgot to mention that the Indian PM Modi has unleashed murderous mobs on innocent people in the past.

For those are unaware, Modi and his government of extremist Hindus have murdered thousands of people in his state. Some reference: http://www.tehelka.com/the-sting-in-the-story/

New York Review of Books is unrelated to NYTimes.

xx223, You are doing a disservice to the article by veering away from the thoughtful parts of the article. There is some discussion about "Warrior Gita" and Hindu-right, but nothing to imply about Gujarat riots. I would be more than willing to debate about the whole episode, especially about the initial part where 50 Hindu pilgrims were burnt alive in a train by Muslims, but I am fully aware this is not the forum for that.

There is a clear contrast to what xx223 says and what you imply, and in that unravels a lot that doesn't need to be said. He says extremist Hindus and you said just plain Muslims.

I'm an Indian Muslim and myself and others that I know would never think of such an act, yet I'm being grouped with the miscreants just because of association by religion.

Evil doesn't need a religion, what happened in Godhra was the triumph of evil over not just good, but basic humanity.

If you're really going to talk about semantics, xx223 says 'Modi and his government of extremist Hindus'. There is no evidence to back the point that the entire government is made up of extremist Hindus.

The government is from a party that glorifies and admires Hitler. Their founder praised Hitler for the ethnic cleansing of Semites and wished to replicate that in India. In order to be a member of this party, one has to pass their litmus test, i.e. hate minorities like Muslims and Christians. They have been banned in the past by the fathers of the Indian independence movement for murdering Gandhi and spreading hate. Their party has orchestrated numerous riots after Indian independence.

You cannot deny the fact that Modi and his government are extremists.

That's BS. BJP is a political party, RSS is a non-government organiaztion. Founder of RSS was Dr Keshav Baliram Hegdewar, please show any evidence against him regarding any wrong doing, or any of his contemporaries saying anything negative about him.

Modi's government is democratically elected government. In fact, it won by a clear majority which was not seen in India in decades. Unlike other parties, BJP fought election under Modi and pledge that he will be PM if elected. Given that, your argument is that majority of India is extremist!

BJP obtaining a clear majority is a fallacy [1].

[1] http://www.livemint.com/Politics/3icITaIhURYOiptoaidAhN/BJP-...

Yes, what's wrong in his statement. He just says extremist Hindus. He isn't painting all Hindus as culprits, as sremani does to Muslims.

ameen, but you need to understand too that almost all culprits of bomb blasts in India were muslims, majority of mafia is run by muslims, most riots happened between hindu/muslim, or sikh/muslim, or recently bauddh/muslim. While I agree, majority of muslims are peaceful and just like any other person, Islam in general is failing to corroborate that image. Instead of blaming other about how they perceive islam, time is ripe for muslims to work for cleaning up image of islam.

There was a report recently that most of the prison inmates were Dalits and Muslims, and the reason were mostly socio-economic than anything nefarious.

Illiterate people are an easy target and can be swayed by emotions. The need of the hour is education. And the worst part is our education system is regressing rather than progressing.

A parallel in the US is the case of African American youth. Most of them are of lower socio-economic status.

Also coming to your first point, there have been bomb blasts committed by Hindu extremists, Maoists, Naxalites, etc. Riots still occur in 2014 due to ugly vote-bank politics. So called leaders fan flames and then feign innocence in the media.

Not unless we conquer ignorance and prejudice can peace prevail.

Gandhi assassination :- Hindu extremist (RSS member actually).

Indhira Gandhi assassination :- Sikh.

Rajiv Gandhi assasssination :- Tamilian (who happened to be Hindu).

Never mind the maoists, the naxalites, the RSS, the scores or more assorted seperationist groups (majority of which are non-muslim) operating in the North-east provinces. Statistically speaking I would bet the Maoists and Naxalites killed more people than Pakistani and Kashmiri separatists in the last few years.

Also your statements imply that because muslims were a party in all the conflicts and events you cherry-picked - that makes them responsible for all or most of them. By that logic, Jews were persecuted over millenia, (and are still embroiled in conflict today). So does that make them responsible for all those conflicts? Maybe you should face the fact about your anti-muslim prejudices.

I do agree with your last line about muslims needing to clean up their image. Also we need some serious soul-searching in light of the insanity that is happening in Iraq and Syria(Luckily the 175 million Indian muslims have been practically un-involved in these outside conflicts). But it is a uphill battle because the bad guys always get more ink than the good guys. The media in turn, are just feeding off the public fascination with shock and violence.

It is not my intention to implicate all Muslims. All the conspirators in Godhra which ignited the religious tensions in Gujarat were Muslims and all of the victims are Hindu.

Your use of the word "unleashed" shows your deep hatred for him. Will you say the governor of Missouri unleashed the shooting incident and subsequent riots? Should we sentence him for life?.it was exactly the same situation back then. I agree that modi did not do a good job in controlling the mob as the head of the state but those riots were an immediate reaction to the actions of one religious group that put arsenal in a railway coach and burnt 200 people alive. 3 separate investigative committees headed by supreme court of India couldn't find any evidence that modi instigated these riots.

"Will you say the governor of Missouri unleashed the shooting incident"

Actually, considering his ties to the police, I would.

The riots went on for 3 days with the government actively participating in arsoning, looting and murdering. It is not even close to the current situation in Missouri.

You choose to believe the Supreme court headed "investigation" committees as though they are the gospel of truth. If you're from India, do I need to remind you how the judicial system in India works? Most of the evidences have been destroyed the police and the judiciary in fact has been further victimizing the riot victims. There is video evidence of Modi instigating a mob to cut people up which has been ignored by the judiciary.

Moreover, the riots were not an immediate reaction but they were being planned since years. Thousands of weapons don't land up in the hands of rioting mobs overnight.

59 people were killed, not 200.

Isn't Modi hailed an as administrative genius, are you saying the riots were justified?

59 makes it alright?

The classic bait.

> Give a wrong number.

> Someone corrects.

> So that makes it alright?

This is the only post you've ever commented on. You're either very passionate about this subject or you're just looking to troll. Either way, I am off this thread because like @sremani said, you're doing disservice to the article and this comment thread. This is not the HN I like.

Did I ever say it makes it alright? All I asked for was given how Modi is hailed for his "Administrative skills" should he have swung into action contained the riots and brought the criminals to justice.

Isn't that what we expect from our elected officials than a horrific free-for-all?

Please stop, all of you.

Different levels of India judicial system didn't find any evidence against him or wrongdoing on any sort. In fact, he took steps to prevent riot which was commended by Special Investigation committee. The link you posted is from a magazine run by people who were sworn to malign Modi at any cost (think of republicans who said they'll do anything against Obama). For other side of the story, one can go to http://www.gujaratriots.com

Meta comment: never in history has anyone been found culpable of riots or crimes against humanity when the accused entity was in charge of running the government. Going by history again most of the time the govt was indeed responsible.

It is disingenuous to claim that the govt could not find any evidence when the Gujarat govt has actively blocked access to evidence, harassed / threatened officials in charge of the investigation. Allegation of destruction of evidence is well documented, but this is hardly the forum to discuss that.

Neither Modi not "his" mobs have murdered anyone. Please stop spreading insinuations.

The article reads so convoluted being in English, like reading an article about latest computer technology in pure Hindi.

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