
War and Peace in the Bhagavad Gita - benbreen
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/dec/04/war-and-peace-bhagavad-gita
======
ubasu
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...](http://creative.sulekha.com/risa-lila-1-wendy-s-child-
syndrome_103338_blog) [2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War#Krishna.27s_pea...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War#Krishna.27s_peace_mission)
[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pralaya](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pralaya)

~~~
srean
> 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...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War#Rules_of_engagement)

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

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

~~~
vishnugupta
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

~~~
srean
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](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.

~~~
ubasu
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.

------
ankushnarula
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.

~~~
sandGorgon
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).

~~~
srean
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.

~~~
sandGorgon
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.

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

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

Quite a thoughtful assessment.

~~~
tn13
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.

~~~
selimthegrim
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)

~~~
srean
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]

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

------
Jacky800
dont waste time.

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

------
tn13
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](http://www.bartleby.com/45/4/11.html#44)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikhandi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikhandi)
[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihannala](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihannala)
[4] [http://bit.ly/1uXWxTr](http://bit.ly/1uXWxTr)

------
machineage
Sure... religious/political discussion forum

~~~
dang
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.

~~~
jblow
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.

~~~
dang
> 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.

------
xx223
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/](http://www.tehelka.com/the-
sting-in-the-story/)

~~~
rajdevar
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.

~~~
ameen
59 people were killed, not 200.

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

~~~
vaishaksuresh
59 makes it alright?

~~~
ameen
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?

~~~
dang
Please stop, all of you.

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

