American's Book on Ganesha stirs Hindu outrage: HT

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American's book on Ganesha stirs Hindu outrage

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Indo-Asian News Service

Washington, November 12

 

When an American religion professor wrote a book about Hindu god Ganesha 18

years ago, none outside the academic circles noticed it.

 

However, last month Emory University teacher Paul Courtright's "Ganesha: Lord of

Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings" picked up attention after Internet messages

appeared attacking it as porn and an affront to the god.

 

A section of Hindus in the U.S. is now up in arms against the professor and has

dashed off letters of protest to the publisher and the Atlanta, Georgia-based

Emory University, says a report in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

 

At least 4,500 Hindus in the U.S. and India signed an online petition demanding

that Courtright apologise and remove certain passages from his book.

 

The petition also asked a publishing company to yank the book off shelves in

India. The company obliged and did just that. It also publicly denounced the

book.

 

Nineteen Hindus in Atlanta said in a letter to Courtright's boss in the Emory

religion department that they were "sorely disappointed at the lack of

sensitivity" he had shown.

 

They also sent a letter to Emory's president, saying they were "surprised that

Courtright ... continues to teach courses on Hinduism".

 

All this has shocked Courtright, who specialises in Indian religions. "I have

the highest regard for the Hindu tradition. And I certainly intended no

offence."

 

The book draws parallels to the Greek character of Oedipus, who killed his

father to marry his mother. Courtright raises questions about symbolism: Is

Ganesha's broken tusk a symbol of castration? Are there erotic overtones in the

god's desire to stay close to his mother? What to make of Ganesha's insatiable

appetite for sweets?

 

According to the Journal report, outraged Hindus said those questions are out of

bounds.

 

"We find it deeply offensive and repulsive to our innermost sensibilities that a

member of Emory's faculty should use 'psychoanalysis' for interpreting sacred

symbols of Hinduism in an erotic manner," they wrote in the letter to Emory's

president.

 

"Can you not see that such insensitive analysis of somebody else's faith can

lead to breakdown of tolerance for each other?"

 

One person who signed the letter, Morehouse College chemistry professor K.K.

Vijai, said the book reads like "a crude kind of revolting pornography".

 

Courtright has written several scholarly articles and co-edited a book about

Hindu culture, gender and religion. He said he is dismayed by what he sees as an

attempt to stifle intellectual freedom.

 

"Hinduism is a very broad and diverse religion," he said. "I've received a lot

of e-mails from Hindus who were not offended."

 

Several people objected to the cover of the book's Indian edition, which shows a

photograph of an Indian sculpture showing the elephant god, as a toddler, in the

nude.

 

Courtright said he was not involved in choosing the cover. The U.S. cover, he

said, depicts a clothed Ganesha dancing.

 

Several Indian groups in metro Atlanta have recognised his work, and even people

upset by some passages in his book had praise for other chapters, the Journal

report said.

 

"It's like a mixed salad -- there are some good vegetables mixed with some

dirty, stinky salad dressing," said Dhiru Shah, a Hindu businessman.

 

Courtright said scholarly interpretations of religious myths often differ from

explanations offered by the faithful. He said "a few sentences that appear in a

complex presentation...that I wrote 20 years ago have been lifted out of

context, repackaged and posted on the web."

 

Mention of the book on a website for Indian Americans last year intrigued T.R.

Rao, a Hindu computer science professor at the University of Louisiana in

Lafayette.

 

He started to read it but said he could not get past page 124, the Journal

report said.

 

"It was excruciating for me to read," Rao said. "The god I pray to was made to

look like ... a eunuch. He was competing incestuously with his father for his

mother."

 

http://hindustantimes.com/news/5967_456306,001600060001.htm

 

 

 

 

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