Courtright responds

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Comment

By Paul Courtright

 

I have two brief notes to offer on Krishnan Ramaswamy's

critique of my comments in the last issue of Little India.

 

First. Ramaswamy is correct. The Linga Purana does not

specifically say that humans were created from the divine

anus. I stand corrected. As best I can remember from the

time I was writing the book, I was struck by the larger

notion of the cosmos as an all-inclusive digestive and

circulatory system in which all beings are emitted by the

divine purusha. There are, of course, many creation stories

in the puranas and a full answer to the question of the

variety of ways human beings are created would require

further research. I should have been more careful. It was an

error.

 

Second. The question is whether the Devibhagavata Purana

asserts that Daksa raped his daughter. Here the issue is more

complex, and will require a bit of background. Most of the

many versions of Daksa's sacrifice in the Puranas say that

Daksa does not invite Siva, his son-in-law, to the sacrifice

because Siva is a kapalin or kapalika - one who belongs to a

sect of radical ascetic practitioners who meditate in

cremation grounds and reject the authority of the Vedas and

their ritual traditions. Daksa has other objections as well:

Siva has no lineage, he does not treat Daksa with proper

respect. Why does Daksa emphasize Siva being a kapalin,

and that being one disqualifies him from inclusion in the

sacrifice?

 

Here there is a 'back story' that has to be kept in mind. Why

did Siva become a kapalin? At a prior time Siva cut off

Brahma's head (or, in earlier texts, Prajapati's head) and

carries it on the end of his trident. Why did Siva cut off

Brahma's head? Because Brahma raped his daughter,

Sandhya. The gods asked Siva (or, in earlier texts, Rudra) to

punish Brahma. In the Siva Purana the story of Daksa is told

right after the story of Brahma and Sandhya. In a temple

pamphlet in Hindi that I collected in Kankhal, just next to

Haridwar, at the Daksheshwar Temple, the place believed to

be where the sacrificed took place, the story is told in the

same sequence. Why are these two stories linked?

 

So, when Sati confronts her father about why Siva was

excluded from the sacrifice and says that she is going to

abandon the body she received from him and proceeds to

immolate herself in the sacrificial fire, or in her yogic fire,

as some versions tell it, it seems to me a plausible reading

that the story of Daksa is a transformed retelling of the story

of Brahma's incest. What does Siva do when he learns of

Sati's immolation? He comes to the sacrifice, in some

versions in his form as Bhairava, and beheads Daksa, just as

he had beheaded Brahma in the other story.

 

Whether the term, pashukarma, " acting like a beast " means

" rape " or something else, whether the other person in the

Devibhagavata Purana story is Sati or someone else

(Ramaswamy supplied a Hindi gloss indicating it was

Daksa's wife, but the Sanskrit does not specify. Is the Hindi

commentator simply clarifying the matter, or is he steering

the reader from the less palatable reading that the

Devibhagavata version left ambiguous?), these are areas

where readers might disagree. Clearly, Ramaswamy and I

do interpret the text differently.

 

So, where does this leave us? As to the first point, I made a

mistake. I misread the text. As to the second text, I did what

all translators must do: interpret a particular passage in the

light of the larger framework of the narrative. Here there is

room for multiple readings and meanings. A story as

complex and multi-layered as the Daksa story must be read,

in my view, with the possibility of a number of meanings.

The linkage between the story of Daksa and Shiva and

Brahma/Prajapati and Siva/Rudra led me to the

interpretation I offered in the book.

 

[....] On further research I might draw

different conclusions. But, for the moment, I'll stand by my

reading.

 

[....]

My best hope is that people who take an interest in these

issues will read the book for themselves and draw their own

conclusions.

 

 

, " msbauju " <msbauju wrote:

>

> Parsing the Sacred

> Little India

> Oct. 17, 2007

> By: Achal Mehra

> http://www.littleindia.com/news/135/ARTICLE/1914/2007-

> 10-02.html

> or

> http://tinyurl.com/224t57

>