Apologetics in the Guise of A "Hindu" Response to Criticism of Puranic Personalities

 

 

Apologetics in the Guise of A "Hindu" Response to Criticism of Puranic Personalities

 

Shrikant Talageri

 

There was an article uploaded on Firstpost (firstpost.com) just a few days ago, 21-12-2021, entitled "Why it's right time to throw West-inspired Indology into dustbin of history", written by Dr. Prashant Kumar Singh and Sreejit Datta, of the Rashtram School of Public Leadership, Rishihood University. The subtitle says: "The purpose is to avoid the myopic vision inherited by many modern Indologists trained in the West and immerse oneself in the pool of wisdom bequeathed to us by our ancestors":

 

https://www.firstpost.com/india/why-its-right-time-to-throw-west-inspired-indology-into-dustbin-of-history-10226301.html

 

And the basic premise of the article is: "Whenever we talk about ancient texts like Ramayana or Mahabharata, the sticking point of contemporary discussion always remains the supposed inequality between the characters and the various injustices (albeit perceived through modern sensibilities) meted out to them without ever realising that this hyper-literal mode of reading, which hides more than it reveals about the text, is a very modern phenomenon. We, the moderns, forget that the Itihasa-Purana texts, the Arthashastras and the Dharmashastras do not operate in the limited framework of rights and social justice or even the watertight notions of right and wrong, rather they attempt to solve problems contemporary (but by no means unique) to their era, and are often presented as dramatised interactions between heroes and anti-heroes in a grander world of uncontrollable forces and passions."

 

The article (among other generalities which we need not go into here) also pronounces as follows:

"As a result of this modern (or shall we say postmodern?) practice, our general understanding of the ancient texts of our culture is more often than not coloured by our contemporary political milieu, which tries to retrospectively fit in such notions of human rights as are prevalent in our own times rather than the time-space complex in which our forebears lived, breathed, and reflected.

The current legal-juridical ideas about individuals and societies have sensitised us in such a manner that any contrary arrangement appears controversial. No doubt that all texts are composed for posterity in addition to the era in which they are composed, and therefore they are subject to interpretations and modifications; and yet, the relationship of the present that inherits those texts, with the past that has composed those texts, should not be that of a public prosecutor holding a public trial for the excesses of the past made on modern sensibilities.

These one-sided, asymmetrical trials that we are very adept in conducting every now and then, have ensured that we forever lose access to the wisdom of our past, the amniotic fluid that has nurtured our previous generations. Thus, all we have now is our ‘rights’, and we have lost our ‘vision’."

 

When one sets out to present the truth, one must always be prepared to meet opposition from various quarters. And therefore I cannot cavil at the tendency of many myopic "Hindus" — and here the word "myopic", which the above article uses to characterize such as myself (since the article is definitely a reaction to my recent blogs like Karṇa and Yudhiṣṭhira in the Mahābhārata 13/10/2021, and Śambuka-Bashing — or The Confluence of Brown Racism and Casteism among the Hate-Rightists Masquerading as Hindus or Hindutvites 4/12/202) is really fitting — to decide that critical studies which seem to be "attacking" Epic Hindu personalities are either outright anti-Hindu, or, at the least, "misguided" in some way; and therefore fit only to be criticized, condemned and rejected. Such attacks were expected. But the illogicalness and truly misguided thought processes and ir-rationalizations behind such attacks have to be pointed out.

 

The main two arguments which the critics (of the criticism of Hindu Epic personalities and events) always make, as we can see above, are:

1. That such criticisms of Hindu Epic personalities and events are based on "western" or "foreign" influence and ideas, and are not rooted in an Indian or Hindu way of thinking.

2. That these criticisms fail to take into consideration the fact that those were different times with different value-systems, and that we cannot judge those events and personalities on the basis of our present-day values and ideas.

 

I will deal with these two arguments in detail in the two sections of this article. But before going into those two arguments, I must point out that the very idea — that criticism of the wrong/bad things in our Hindu texts is in some way "anti-Hindu" or something to be avoided or opposed (and that people who indulge in such criticism are essentially wrong and must be countered) while people who defend these things in our texts are in some way more "Hindu" — is itself a fundamentally self-destructive stand for Hindus to take, for two reasons:

 

1. I have always pointed out that all religious texts are written by human beings and contain their personal prejudices and biases to different extents. But while Hindu texts and history contain a few molehills of wrong/bad things, the texts and history of Christianity and Islam contain veritable mountains of wrong/bad things. This is an immutable fact.

 

Hindus have cultivated the habit of saying "nice" things about religions in general ("no religion teaches you to hate/rob/kill", etc.) or about Christianity and Islam in particular. From Mahatma Gandhi, our Shankaracharyas, the RSS leadership and Hindu philosophical Gurus down to the common lay Hindu person, almost one and all (but of course there are exceptions) are unanimous in praise of the Bible, the Quran, Jesus, Mohammad, and the Religions of Love and Peace: if anything, it is some of the followers of those religions who are accused of misunderstanding or misrepresenting the noble values of their own religions and bringing them into disrepute. And these saintly Hindus believe with childlike faith that the spokespersons, followers and propagators of other religions will follow suit and say "nice" things about Hinduism. No amount of experience in these matters seems to make these Hindus see sense.

 

Christian and Muslim spokespersons, followers and propagators, on the other hand, follow a duplicitous policy: they pick up every molehill of wrongdoing in other religions for sharp criticism, while they ignore, defend or justify every mountain of wrongdoing within their own individual religion. The wonder of the whole thing is that this policy has worked like magic. Thus while the whole world is permanently abuzz with the evils of Hinduism ("Brahminism", Hindu misogyny, and, of course, the perennial favorite, casteism), any reference to the evils of Islam are shouted down as "Islamophobia"! In this respect, Islamic propagandists have scored over Christian propagandists in that even the "Christian" West is bending over backwards to avoid being branded Islamophobic.

 

In respect of Hinduism, we find that while it is not politically correct (in fact, it is "Islamophobia") to cite the case of millions of Hindu temples deliberately and openly destroyed by Muslims, it is perfectly politically correct, and even politically mandatory, to permanently condemn Hindus for the destruction of one mosque in Ayodhya — even when it was not even really a mosque but a demolished-Hindu-temple-turned-mosque! The decks are permanently mandatorily loaded against Hinduism, even when Hindus are not at fault.

So, obviously, when there is indeed something to be criticized in Hinduism — when examining the molehill of wrong/bad things in Hinduism, for example — it need not be pointed out how much easier it is to paint Hinduism as the black sheep among religions while completely whitewashing Christianity and Islam. And facts be damned!

 

In these circumstances what should be the policy followed by Hindus?

a) Should they continue to follow the common Hindu policy of whitewashing other religions — while allowing other religions to blacken Hinduism or at the most protesting (even while knowing it to be an exercise in futility) against such blackening? [Strangely, this is indeed the stance adopted by most Hindus: "you whitewash or ignore our molehill, we will whitewash or ignore your mountains". Sadly for them, their enemies refuse to oblige, and Hindus end up (like the proverbial prisoner) getting both the hundred lashes as well as the hundred onions].

b) Should they instead adopt the Christian/Muslim policy of exposing other religions while at the same time defending and justifying the wrong things in one's own religion?

c) Should they take the path of Truth and look objectively at all religions, secure in the knowledge that in the final analysis an honest look at all religions will show Hinduism shining bright against the black record of Christianity and Islam, firstly because, as already pointed out, while Hindu texts and history contain a few molehills of wrong/bad things, the texts and history of Christianity and Islam contain veritable mountains of wrong/bad things, but secondly also because the bad aspects in Christianity and Islam are fundamental and basic to the central ethos and identity of those two religions, while the bad aspects of Hinduism are really peripheral and incidental in Hinduism.

 

I personally feel it is the third policy which should be followed by Hindus: Honesty is always the best policy, and if someone is unable to understand this, it is totally beyond my powers to explain why this is so.

However, most Hindus, like the writers of the above Firstpost article (and my innumerable "Hindu" critics), would probably claim that they prefer to adopt the second policy, which is like a joke: among Hindus, it is only the Voice of India family of writers (and now a few individuals on the internet) who have to this day made the greatest contribution in analyzing and exposing the evils of Christianity and Islam: most active Hindus are nowhere on that scene, and concentrate all their energies only on "defending" Hinduism from even legitimate criticism.

 

2. But there is an even greater reason why "defending" the misdeeds of Puranic characters is self-destructive to Hindu interests:

The fact is that, unlike in the religious texts of Christianity and Islam, where there is a fundamental distinction between "believers" (Jews, Christians, Muslims, respectively) and "non-believers" (Gentiles, Heathens, Kafirs, respectively) — although strictly speaking, the distinction between Jews and Gentiles is somewhat different from the other two divisions — there is no such fundamental distinction in any of the Hindu scriptures, teachings or doctrines. In the case of Christianity and Islam, most of the bad aspects pertain to this difference, but in Hindu texts, everyone, strictly speaking, is "Hindu" (even if this particular term came to be first used only after the advent of the Persians in ancient times, and more specifically of the Muslims in the mediaeval period), and all the rights and wrongs are a purely internal matter, pertaining mainly (though not exclusively) either to caste or gender.

 

So while defending the misdeeds of the principal doctrines and personalities of Christianity or Islam, Christians and Muslims do not face the prospect of internal schisms (the sectional differences between Shias and Sunnis, etc. are a different matter): defending the slaughter of the ancient Pagan tribes of Palestine by the Jews, or of other Pagans and Heathens by the Christians, or of various Kafirs and Kafir tribes by the Islamic founders, cannot generate schisms or resentment among the followers of these Abrahamic religions now.

 

But defending the misdeeds of Hindu Epic-Puranic personalities is a different matter. Many of the misdeeds pertain to caste: the Śambuka story is a case in point, and it definitely does not promote unity between different Hindu groups. It is difficult to imagine any self-respecting Hindu belonging to what would traditionally be described as a "Shudra" caste listening fondly and adoringly to the story of Rāma apparently killing Śambuka for the sin of causing the death of a Brahmin boy merely by performing an act of penance so as to attain heaven (to which he as a Shudra is not entitled!), or taking kindly to rationalizations and justifications of this act.

[Let me add: it is not impossible that there can be many Hindus belonging to what would traditionally be described as a "Shudra" caste who would, for personal political reasons, concur in this process of apologetics: after all, do we not see massive crowds of burqa-clad Muslim women protesting against interference in the triple-talaq laws? But that is an illogical circumstance, not the logical one.]

 

One can understand anti-Hindus raking up such stories, insisting that they are true incidents in the life of Rāma, and instigating present-day members of the traditionally "Shudra" castes against Hinduism, Hindutva and ideas of Hindu Unity. But it is truly myopic in the extreme of people claiming to be standing for Hinduism and/or Hindutva to be justifying these deeds. Hinduism is under siege, and its upper-caste echelons cannot afford the Satanic luxury of having such hate-acts justified or glorified in the name of "the pool of wisdom bequeathed to us by our ancestors".

 

Indeed there is no shortage of Hindus even in this day and age, and in spite of the burning need for Hindu Unity, who are more than ready to "immerse oneself in the pool of wisdom bequeathed to us by our ancestors", if that is what these stories represent. Even at the height of the Ramajanmabhoomi movement (of which I was very much a part), there were press reports about dalits being beaten up for daring to enter temples in Marathwada. I remember taking up with VHP leaders at the time the total failure of the VHP to react in any way to these reports, and asked them how they expected Hindu "dalits" to support the move to replace a mosque structure (where they would probably be freely allowed to enter and pray) with the structure of a temple to Rāma, whose killing of Śambuka (for daring to perform "penance") was at that very point of time being justified in an RSS booklet (see my article on Śambuka for this reference).

And the situation has not changed even today. Here is a report in the recent news (23-12-2021):

 

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/upper-caste-students-boycott-midday-meal-cooked-by-dalit-woman-in-uttarakhand-s-champawat-101640025089951.html   

 

As I said about the first point: if someone is unable to understand this, it is totally beyond my powers to explain why this is so.

 

All this while, I have been talking about the "wrong/bad things" or "misdeeds" in the acts of Epic/Puranic personalities, even at the risk of sounding a bit childish in my use of words. But the problem is that these "Hindu" visionaries are not willing to accept at all that those are "wrong/bad things" or "misdeeds" in our Epics in the first place. So let us examine the two main arguments of the apologists:

 

I. Indian Issues Through Western Lenses.

II. Past Issues Through Modern Lenses.

 

 

I. Indian Issues Through Western Lenses

 

Needless to say, this kind of criticism is very regularly bandied about by "Hindus" who can think of nothing more concrete or sensible to say. I have been accused countless times of basing not just my views on the misdeeds or foolish acts of Epic/Puranic characters, but even my analysis of the Rigveda which has sent AIT academicians running for cover (even if this sounds egotistic, it is true), on a "Western", "de-Indianized", "Protestant", "foreign", etc. etc.  perspective.

 

The first thing is that I have never been able to understand on what basis these people, most of whom speak and write in English, live very modern and westernized lives (in India or even in foreign countries), use the latest western gadgets and technology in every aspect of their daily lives, send their children to study and work in the "West", etc., decide that my analysis is based on anything "western" and is therefore to be criticized on that ground: all my work is based on a direct analysis of the data, facts, logic, and on scientific techniques of analysis (much of which may not even have been known to ancient Indians, such as the concept of language families, etc.) which cannot be "eastern" or "western" in any way.

 

Further:

 

1. An analysis of the accusations of "western" perspective brings up a funny picture. According to these self-appointed judges of the difference between "Indian" and "Western" perspectives, anything to do with logic, rationality, humanitarianism, concepts of Right and Wrong and of Justice and Injustice, etc. are by definition  all "western". And anything to do with Blind Acceptance of Traditional Authority (primarily texts) is by definition "Indian"!

 

The article under review also states this, even calling it a "hyper-liberal" and "the myopic vision inherited by many modern Indologists trained in the West", and therefore presumably automatically "Un-Hindu": "the Itihasa-Purana texts, the Arthashastras and the Dharmashastras do not operate in the limited framework of rights and social justice or even the watertight notions of right and wrong".

 

In actual fact, the case is exactly the opposite. Blind Acceptance of Traditional Authority (primarily texts) is the hallmark of the "western", the Christian or Islamic, attitude; and Rational Inquiry is the hallmark of the ancient Indian attitude. No serious Hindu scholar or religious authority (except in the rarest of rare cases, as the legal phrase puts it) quotes texts and scriptures to put across his point about what is Right or Wrong in matters other than, for example,  the exact procedures to be followed in conducting rituals of any kind.

However, quoting texts and scriptures as authorities for everything is the central obsession of Evangelist and Islamic scholars and Christian and Muslim religious authorities.

 

All this does not show that these critics of "the limited framework of rights and social justice or even the watertight notions of right and wrong" are really great admirers of the Indian or Hindu perspective of which they claim to be advocates, or are aware of the breath-taking depth and range of Indian critical thought.

 

2. Criticism of the contents of traditional texts, or of Epic-Puranic personalities, did not start with the arrival of "Western" thought processes and perspectives in India. There was a very rich, great and flourishing intellectual tradition of criticism in ancient India.

 

To begin with India has a very great variety and range of philosophical thoughts and ideologies since ancient times. Orthodox Vedic tradition encapsulated some of these many systems of thought within six categories of official orthodox schools of philosophy: Pūrva Mīmāṁsā, Uttara Mīmāṁsā (Vedānta), Sāṅkhya, Yoga, Nyāya and Vaiśeśika, which were only required to pay lip service to the Vedas as the fount of all wisdom. The texts of each of these six systems taught ideas which often contradicted each other (as well as the ideas of all the other systems of thought not included in these six categories, including numerous and often conflicting systems of Buddhist, Jain, Cārvāka and numerous other philosophies), and the numerous commentators of all the basic texts of these various systems were extremely sharp in their criticisms of all systems other than the ones they were arguing for. Even within any one of the orthodox schools (e.g. Vedānta) there were numerous schools (Dvaita, Advaita, Viśiśtādvaita, Śuddhādvaita, etc.) which all criticized each others' texts and doctrines.

But it was not just criticism of each others' doctrines, but even of the Vedic texts themselves, and even abuse of the Vedic composers, in the Buddhist and Jain texts, and in the texts of various writers like Charvaka, etc.  There was quite an impressive list of such writers

Even apart from these, there were numerous other thinkers who rejected the authority of the Vedas. As Dr. Ambedkar puts it in his book "Riddles in Hinduism" (published by the Government of Maharashtra in 1987): "If the opinions of the Charvaka and Brahaspati are not accepted there is plenty of other evidence. That evidence is recorded in the books of the various schools of philosophy such as the Nyaya, Vaishashikha, Purva and Uttar Mimamsa. It must be said to the credit of the authors of the text-books of these philosophies that before proceeding to defend the authority of the Vedas they have been very careful to set out the case of their opponents who were opposed to the authority of the Vedas. This fact enables us to prove two things: (1) That there was a school of thought which was opposed to recognize the Vedas as books of authority; (2) That they were a respectable group of people whose opinions the defenders of the authority of the Vedas were bound to consider." (AMBEDKAR 1987:39).

Dr Ambedkar, in his above book (AMBEDKAR 1987:59-60), points out that many texts dismiss the special importance of the Vedas, and many discuss the "errors" in the Vedic texts, and this is not just in the texts of the Buddhists, Jains and Charvakas, but even in other more expressly Hindu religious texts: thus various Puranas insist that the Puranas are equal to the Vedas in importance, and even that they were created first by Brahma and that the Vedas were created after them. The Brahma Vaivarta Purana claims to be refuting the errors of the (other) Puranas and Upa-Puranas and of the Vedas. The Tantrik texts are even more dismissive of the Vedic texts, and according to Ambedkar, "they claimed that the Vedas, the Shastras, and the Puranas are like a common woman, but the Tantras are like a highborn woman" (AMBEDKAR 1987:60). The Upanishads also declare their philosophies to be superior to the Karma Kanda of the Vedic texts. And the truly Wisdom books like the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesa did not hesitate to make fun even of the more pious homilies in the Vedic texts (such as vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam), as pointed out by me in my earlier articles.  

So far as the heroes and important personalities of the Epics and Puranas are concerned, there are numerous Jain texts which present sharply different versions, but, more to the point here, many Jain texts sharply criticize many of these personalities for acts which go against Jain principles of morality or ethics, and even consign some of them (e.g. Lakṣmaṇa) to "hell" for long periods.

All these above things may be debatable, but one thing is certain: none of these writers were influenced by "Western" perspectives, since most of them wrote long before the birth of even Christianity: they were writing from their own points of view and their own purely Indian (and therefore purely Hindu) "perspectives".

Unfortunately, these apologists who protest against the criticism of ancient Hindu texts and personalities, and brand all such criticism as "Western"-influenced, are themselves influenced by the Western/Abrahamic principle of classifying certain texts as canonical and above criticism (with the usually unspoken assumption that texts which go against them are heretical, and therefore somehow un-Indian and un-Hindu): usually the texts chosen as canonical are general broad categories that can be clubbed as "the Vedas" or "the Shastras"; but the Puranic texts, and most specifically and particularly the Two Great Epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, constitute their most central Canon.

Therefore it is time they understood that it is not Blind Acceptance of Traditional Authority (primarily texts) which is a truly Indian or Hindu perspective: but Rationality, Honesty, and a Sense of Right and Wrong.

 

II. Past Issues Through Modern Lenses

This is the second of the two major arguments made against the criticism of Epic-Puranic personalities. According to this argument, the ancient period of the Vedas and Epics was a different period from the present period, with a different set of morals. We cannot pronounce judgments on the actions of the people of that period based on the perspective of our present-day moral and ethical perspectives (whether derived from the West or not).

This argument is perhaps even less well-thought out than the first argument, since it contains many fundamental flaws:

 

1. Firstly, it is absolutely true that we cannot judge actions and people belonging to one period or one place by the moral and ethical perspectives of another different period or place. But this is not a cover-all piece of logic, so then what exactly are the fields to which this logic can be applied?

It will be seen that this rule applies to the general social-cultural mores of any society. Most often, this applies to the sexual mores in any society: the most common aspect in which people of any period or place are likely to be shocked or outraged, or prompted to criticize, judge or condemn, are the sexual mores of a society in a different period or place. Then there are countless other aspects pertaining to clothing, food and drink, social behavior, family life, etc., of any society which can lend itself to judgment and criticism from people belonging to other societies from other periods and places.

In these respects, yes, it is definitely wrong to issue sweeping judgments and condemnations of other people and societies based on the contours of the moral-ethical mores to which the critic is accustomed being different from the moral-ethical mores to which the other peoples or societies are accustomed.

But there are certain other things where judgment of "right" and "wrong" cannot be based on the moral-ethical "mores" to which anyone is accustomed: robbing and killing people purely for gain and without provocation, raping and gang-raping helpless persons, slavery and exploitation of people, capturing women for sex-slavery, sadistic tortures and mutilation of captured people, and other such blatantly evil acts where there is on the one hand a victim and on the other hand a perpetrator of the acts, cannot be treated as neutral acts whose "rightness" or "wrongness" depends upon period and place. There are definitely things of this kind which are "right" and things which are "wrong" from any perspective, not just from "such notions of human rights as are prevalent in our own times rather than the time-space complex in which our forebears lived, breathed, and reflected".

The opponents of the criticism of the misdeeds and foolish acts of Puranic personalities however want to blur the lines of distinction between the two types of concepts of "right" and "wrong": if it is wrong to condemn the sexual mores or dress habits of people from another time and place, then, they insist, it is also wrong to condemn the criminal, unjust or exploitative acts of people from another time and place. But this is untenable. [But for another angle to this, see point 4 below].

 

2. This becomes even more untenable when we see that Hindu apologists who purport to oppose criticism of the criminal, unjust or exploitative aspects of people from other times and places, are very selective in the application of this principle. [Needless to say, anti-Hindu activists and writers, as pointed out many times in my earlier articles, consistently excuse anything and everything in Islam (or Christianity) regardless of time and place, and equally consistently condemn anything and everything in Hinduism, regardless of time or place. But it is not the venomous anti-Hindus that we are discussing here: it is the Hindu apologists]:

Would these Hindu apologists also agree then that the same principle — of not judging the past, since that past must have had moral and ethical mores different from our own — applies also to the complete destruction (real or imagined, but definitely described in great detail in the Old Testament) of the original people, cities and civilizations of ancient Palestine by the incoming Israelites, the mass massacres of the Pagans of Europe by the early Christians, the complete destruction of the native American civilizations by the Conquistadors, the complete annihilation of the native Tasmanians by European conquerors, the long and ugly history of slavery in the USA, the terrible acts of the Inquisition in Europe (and in Goa) and (on both sides) of the participants in the Crusades, the Nazi concentration camps and gas-chambers, the bloody history of the Islamic conquests of most of North Africa and West Asia (right up to Afghanistan), the blood-soaked history of Islamic invasions and rule in India and of the subsequent history of Islam right up to 1947 (and after it as well), of the ethnic cleansing of Hindus from Pakistan, Bangladesh and even Kashmir? Are all these events to be above and beyond judgment because they took place at some point in the "past"?

This is a point that all Hindu apologists must think carefully about: are you willing to give a clean chit to the perpetrators of all these above black crimes on the ground that they belonged to a different time and age and followed different mores of morals and ethics, and therefore should not be judged by us?

 

3. The insistence that the misdeeds and foolish acts of the Epic-Puranic characters (for examples, see my recent articles Karṇa and Yudhiṣṭhira in the Mahābhārata 13/10/2021, and Śambuka-Bashing — or The Confluence of Brown Racism and Casteism among the Hate-Rightists Masquerading as Hindus or Hindutvites 4/12/2021) must not be condemned because they belonged to a different period with different moral-ethical mores reveals another internal anomaly:

In all the examples given by me, not one of the misdeeds or foolish acts of the Epic-Puranic characters seem to be part of a regular practice common to a period different from ours with different moral-ethical mores: in every case, each of these acts is a unique one time act which in fact is cited as a special act uncommon to that period which makes that character stand out distinct and unique from the rest of his contemporaries in heroism, wisdom or virtuousness.

Thus, it is no-one's claim (and certainly no examples are given) that in the period of the Ramayana and as per the common moral-ethical practices of that time, wives who were kidnapped were regularly first tried by fire and then abandoned in the jungle after being rescued, or that Shudras performing penance automatically led to the death of Brahmin boys and therefore such Shudras were regularly beheaded. Nor that in the time of the Mahabharata and as per the common moral-ethical practices of that time, many brothers regularly married one woman so as to prevent conflict among themselves, or that dharmik people regularly gambled away their wives and sat by quietly while watching them about to be stripped, or that gurus regularly demanded the severed thumbs of their pupils and that pupils gladly fulfilled such demands, or that warriors readily gave away their divine armor to ill-intentioned people on request knowing well both the intentions behind the request and its consequences, or that Brahmin guests demanding the flesh of the child of the house as their food regularly had their requests granted, etc. etc. In each of these cases the acts are unique, and cannot be justified on the grounds that they were according to the regular moral-ethical mores of that period..

So in fact, the defenders of these acts have to indulge in double-speak: on the one hand they plead that these acts should not be condemned because they were as per the moral-ethical mores prevalent at that time, and, on the other hand, they glorify the characters performing these acts claiming these acts stood out for their heroism, sacrifice, wisdom or virtue from the general commonly prevalent mores of that period and were unique to the characters concerned.

 

4. Finally to return back to point one above: I wrote that the opponents of the criticism of the misdeeds and foolish acts of Puranic personalities want to blur the lines of distinction between the two types of concepts of "right" and "wrong": if it is not correct to condemn the sexual mores or dress habits of people from another time and place, then, they insist, it is also not correct to condemn the criminal, unjust or exploitative acts of people from another time and place. This, I said, is untenable.

But then perhaps, a person belonging to a certain time or place, and accustomed from his birth or early formative childhood to the particular moral-ethical mores of his period and place, will naturally act according to those mores even if they are "wrong" because as per his ingrained upbringing it is not "wrong" although it would be "wrong" from an objective viewpoint. Thus a cannibal child born in a cannibal society may not be able to understand why it is wrong to eat captured enemies, or a child born in a society which keeps, exploits and ill-treats slaves or sex-slaves may not be able to understand why that is wrong. While those practices and acts are definitely to be branded as "wrong", that child and the man/woman it grows up into cannot be unqualifiedly branded as "evil" or "wrong", since its whole outlook has been shaped by those societal mores: it has a "wrong" outlook because the outlook of that society is "wrong", and it is the society and not the individual that stands indicted.

In that case it becomes a case for comparison between "that" society and the present day society. And all those who insist that the stories and acts that they are defending are true, and really representative of the moral-ethical mores of that society, land themselves in a moral dilemma (whether they will admit it or not): was that society a better society than the present-day society, or was it a worse one, or are all comparisons to be eschewed?

For example, in internet discussions about the Śambuka incident in the Valmiki Ramayana, some people defended it by pointing out that as per the story, Shudras were not allowed to perform penance in the Treta Yuga (and the punishment for performing penance in that Yuga was death), but that they are allowed to perform it in Kali Yuga. This apparently made the story defensible, but inapplicable to the present period and day! But, if the two Yugas are compared, then which Yuga seems better: Treta Yuga (where Shudras are killed for performing penance) or Kali Yuga (where they apparently have the freedom to do penance)? What does a comparison show, in respect of the Hindu belief in the moral-ethical superiority of earlier Yugas as compared to the present Kali Yuga?

Dr. Ambedkar took this issue (of taking the acts, events and prescriptions in our ancient texts too literally) to the logical conclusion. After describing in detail the state of morals and ethics as described in the ancient texts, Ambedkar concludes: "It is not possible to divide this history into definite Yugas and to say that what state of morals existed in the Krita, what in Treta and what in Dwapara Yuga which closed at the death of Krishna. If, however, we allow the ancient Aryans a spirit of progressive reform it is possible to say that the worst cases of immorality occurred in earliest age i.e. the Krita age, the less revolting in the Treta and the least revolting in the Dwapara and the best in the Kali age. This line of thinking does not rest upon mere general development of human society as we see all over the world. That instead of undergoing a moral decay the ancient Aryan society was engaged in removing social evils by undertaking bold reforms is borne out by its history". (AMBEDKAR 1987:304). Thereby, he not only points out that ancient Hindu society was constantly reforming itself, but contrasts this favorably with the opposite development in the rest of the world in general.

He goes on to add: "it is natural to hold that from the point of view of morality the Kali Yuga was a better age. To call it an age in which morals were declining is not only without foundation but is an utter perversion" (AMBEDKAR 1987:305).

The truth is: no book is written by "God" or by Gods or by any Supreme Being or Beings. All books, including religious books, are written by human beings. And all human beings who write books are not saints. They push in their own biases and prejudices, and push their own personal or class interests, by making up stories and rules in the name of "God" or Gods or ancient holy men and heroes. Therefore, the "society" and the moral-ethical societal mores reflected or depicted in these religious books are not necessarily even of the society of the period of the writers, let alone of the society of the period of the ancient holy men and heroes that they are writing about. It is actually a society based on the biases, prejudices and personal or class interests of the writers and interpolators of the texts.

Therefore it is not right even to indict the society of those ancient periods on the basis of these stories. All these stories must be accepted as part of our rich heritage, but if we must derive lessons from them, we should derive the right lessons from them and not the wrong lessons. It is necessary to separate the grain from the chaff.

However, those who defend (and even glorify) indefensible or foolish acts in such stories in our ancient books, and blindly accept that those acts actually represent the acts of the characters concerned and the moral-ethical mores of the society of those times, and think they are showing themselves to be defenders of our ancient civilization are in fact indicting ancient Indian society rather than defending it.

And the basis on which they are doing this is not the objective ancient Indian perspective of Rational Inquiry, but the Abrahamic Western perspective of Blind Acceptance of Traditional Authority (primarily texts regarded as inviolable).

 

It is probable that in the course of this article I may have failed to put across my points as clearly as I would have wished to do, and even have caused some confusion, but I hope I have not; and I also hope (against hope) that Hindus who really have the interests of our Hindu civilization at heart take the trouble of reading what I have written in a spirit of furthering and strengthening the Hindu Cause rather than in a spirit of hostility.