Reference

 

“Thousands of young innocent children are condemned to a life of immorality and vice, of suffering and disease and finally of death resulting from infections and venereal diseases contracted in the pursuit of their profession as Hindu religious prostitutes.” Dr. M. Reddi.

“The devadasi [child prostitutes]—servants of the gods—who subsist by dancing and music, and the practice of the oldest profession in the world, are partly recruited by admissions and even purchases from other classes. The daughters of the caste who are brought up to follow the caste profession are carefully taught dancing and singing and the art of dressing well.” The Indian Census Report of 1901.

“No respectable person would dedicate his young girl or child to a temple and throw her to the tender mercies of regular prostitutes or put her in such an unfavorable, loathsome environment, except with the object of seeing her turn out as a prostitute.” Sir Maneckji Tadabhoy (Council of State Debates, Simla, September 1927, p. 1138)

 

“Sacredness with allurements, religion with lust, art with sensuousness, have combined.” Santosh Chatterjee, Devadasi.

---

“‘A Hindu must not take life, not even put an end to hopeless animal pain,’ explains one text. The cow, especially, represents all the gods combined and is equal to a high-caste Brahmin. It is a greater sin to kill a cow than to kill a man. (An estimated 230 million cows wander the streets of India, starving, diseased, suffering thirst. If injured, they are left to die.) In unexplainable contrast, it is permitted to inflict pain upon animals. A bull pulling a cart may have his tail twisted until the bones break to make him hurry.

 

“A Hindu man fears his soul may enter hell unless he leaves sons behind him to pray for his speedy reincarnation. Only a son can perform the funeral ritual so the father may possibly have a brief stay in heaven….

“Caste (the word means color) began when the Aryan invaders in the year 2000 B.C. conquered India’s black aborigines and dark-skinned Dravidians. Since the deity determines caste, to break caste is a great sin.

“The temples, thousands upon ten thousands all over India, sometimes carved from one solid mountain of rock, were fabulously wealthy, yet the concept of charity did not exist. The temples never gave to anyone; they took only. Idols and shrines were everywhere.

“Amy Carmichael described one scene of worship. The Hindu crouched over a pond or stream or Place of water which represented to him the sacred Ganges. He bathed, then marked his forehead, arms, or breast with his cult signs. Tying up his hair, he scooped up water in the right hand and poured, it into his mouth for inner purification, calling upon his particular god. Then, the regulation of the breath….

“The goddess Kali stood upon the body of a child, her own black tongue lolling out, wearing a necklace of the skulls of children, a headdress of snakes, holding a bloody severed human head, and brandishing a bloody sword. Kali demanded blood sacrifices. Kali was the wife of Shiva, cruel and revengeful. Because she was most feared, she was most worshiped. (pp.40-41)

“A caste of murderous stranglers called Thugs were once devoted to Kali. Their young sons learned in the home how to throw a kerchief around a neck and slowly suffocate a person. Every year thousands of human beings were thus sacrificed to Kali in the name of religion. …  Indian morality was the caste system with its mighty taboos….

“Ordinary, everyday scenes of animist worship were dark and repellent. ‘Main bookhi hun! I am hungry!’ was the cry of Kali. An outcaste Indian stood by the shrine where kid goats were sacrificed and tore the throat of a living goat with his teeth. Throwing it atop the heap of bodies on one side he seized the next kid—on and on, a practice abhorrent to orthodox Hindus, who do not take life.”

Temple Prostitution

 

“Sacred prostitution was common in the Middle East. The devadasis as a caste began in the ninth and tenth centuries, when most of the temples in South India were built.

“Abbe Dubois, writing in the late 1700s, said the devadasis were originally for the exclusive use of the Brahmans….

“In 1870, a Dr. Shortt wrote a paper on the devadasis, certifying that children of age five were used, and children were often kidnapped. In 1892, a man named Fawcett wrote an article in the Anthropological Society of Bombay’s Journal describing children dedicated to a god even before their birth….[p.43]

“The duties of the temple girls were to carry the kumbarti (the sacred light); to fan the idol with chamaras (fans); to dance and sing before the god. They were the only women who could read and write, play an instrument, and sing and dance. Their presence was believed to bring good luck to a wedding, and they had power to avert the ‘evil eye.’

“Indian dancing was a form of storytelling, religious in nature. The position of hands, arms, fingers, the flick of a finger or the subtle movements of eyes, all were significant to the watcher.

 

“Indian music is hypnotic. Tight, tense little taps on a drum, then faster, doubling each drum beat, tripling each thrum, harder and faster. A dancer begins to tap her foot to the rhythm, then her hips sway, her hands undulate until, leaping into the center like an uncoiling spring, she and the drum merge and are one. Today the classical dances of the devadasis are performed as entertainment on stages of the world…. p.44

“A converted temple woman confirmed the rumors of a secret underground traffic in children. The child, age eight or nine, was dressed like a bride and taken with another girl of the same community dressed like a boy in the garb of a bridegroom. They both went to the temple to worship the idol. The girl sat facing the god, and the priest gave her flowers and a sandal. He recited mantras and lighted the sacred fire. The tali—marriage symbol—was… a necklace of black beads with a golden disc hanging from it. The garland was put over the idol, after which it was put around the girl’s neck. She was now married to the god, without her knowledge, knowing nothing of the implications. [p.44-45]

“The one who was to dance before the gods was given to the life when very young, otherwise she could not be trained properly. Many babies were given to temple women because it was very meritorious to give a child to the gods. If the child was old enough to miss her mother, she was very carefully watched until she had forgotten her. Sometimes she was shut up in the back part of the temple house and punished if she ran out into the street. Sometimes a child was branded with a hot iron under the arm where it did not show. Sometimes she got just a whipping.

“She was taught to read and learn a great deal of poetry, which was almost entirely debased. The child’s mind was familiarized with sin, and before she knew how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the instinct that would have been her guide was perverted, until the mind was incapable of choice. [p.45]

 

Every temple had a garbha-griha — a womb house—where an idol stood, representing the god, and behind the god the power of Satan.

“This was the environment for countless thousands of little children in India. Amy Carmichael, still not knowing of those children, faced the deadness and corruption of the Christian church; the power of Hinduism, caste and customs; the enervating climate; and the lack of sympathy from Christians in both India and Britain.

Killing for ‘Mother’ Kali

Of a sudden, a piercing outburst of shrill bleating. We turn the corner of the edifice to reach the open courtyard at the end opposite the shrine. Here stand two priests, one with a cutlass in his hand, the other holding a young goat. The goat shrieks, for in the air is that smell that all beasts fear. A crash of sound, as before the goddess drums thunder. The priest who holds the goat swings it up and drops it, stretched by the legs, its screaming head held fast in a cleft post. The second priest with a single blow of his cutlass decapitates the little creature. The blood gushes forth on the pavement, the drums and the gongs before the goddess burst out wildly. “Kali! Kali! Kali!” shout all the priests and the suppliants together, some flinging themselves face downward on the temple floor.

Meantime, and instantly, a woman who waited behind the killers of the goat has rushed forward and fallen on all fours to lap up the blood with her tongue–“in the hope of having a child.” And now a second woman, stooping, sops at the blood with a cloth, and thrusts the cloth into her bosom, while half a dozen sick, sore dogs, horribly misshapen by nameless diseases, stick their hungry muzzles into the lengthening pool of gore.

“In this manner we kill here from one hundred and fifty to two hundred kids each day,” says Mr. Haldar with some pride. “The worshipers supply the kids.”

From Mother India by Katherine Mayo

Reference

Title:      Mother India
Author:     Katherine Mayo
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.:  0300811h.html
Edition:    1
Language:   English
Character set encoding:     Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)--8 bit (html)
Date first posted:          May 2003
Date most recently updated: March 2009

 

By ALEX PERRY ATAPUR Monday, July 22, 2002

Human sacrifice has always been an anomaly in India. Even 200 years ago, when a boy was killed every day at a Kali temple in Calcutta, blood cults were at odds with a benign Hindu spiritualism that celebrates abstinence and vegetarianism. But Kali is different. A ferocious slayer of evil in Hindu mythology, the goddess is said to have an insatiable appetite for blood. With the law on killing people more strictly enforced today, ersatz substitutes now stand in for humans when sacrifice is required. Most Kali temples have settled on large pumpkins to represent a human body; other followers slit the throats of two-meter-tall human effigies made of flour, or of animals such as goats.

 

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In secret ceremonies, however, the grizzly practice lives on. Quite simply, say the faithful known as tantrics Kali looks after those who look after her, bringing riches to the poor, revenge to the oppressed and newborn joy to the childless. So far this year, police have recorded at least one case of ritual killing a month. In January, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, a 24-year-old woman hacked her three-year-old son to death after a tantric sorcerer supposedly promised unlimited earthly riches. In February, two men in the eastern state of Tripura beheaded a woman on the instructions of a deity they said appeared in their dreams promising hidden treasures. Karmakar killed Manju in Atapur village in Jharkhand state in April. The following month, police dug up the remains of two sisters, aged 18 and 13, in Bihar, dismembered with a ceremonial sword and offered to Kali by their father. Last week on the outskirts of Bombay, maize seller Anil Lakshmikant Singh, 33, beheaded his neighbor’s nine-year-old son to save his marriage on the advice of a tantric. Said Singh: “He promised that a human sacrifice would end all my miseries.”

Far from ancient barbarisms that refuse to die, sacrifice and sorcery are making a comeback. Sociologists explain the millions who now throng the two main Kali centers in eastern India, at Kamakhya and Tarapith, as what happens when the rat race that is India’s future meets the superstitions of its past. Sociologist Ashis Nandy says: “You see your neighbor doing well, above his caste and position, and someone tells you to get a child and do a secret ritual and you can catch up.” Adds mysticism expert Ipsita Roy Chakaraverti: “It’s got nothing to do with real mysticism or with spiritualism. It comes down to pure and simple greed.” Tarapith in particular is a giant building site of new hotels, restaurants and stalls selling plastic swords and postcards of Kali’s severed feet. Judging by the visitors here, Kali appeals to both rich and poor: the rows of SUVs parked outside four-star hotels belong to the ranks of businessmen and politicians lining up with their goats behind penniless pilgrims. (“The blood never dries at Tarapith,” whispers one villager.)

There are no human sacrifices at the temple these days. But the mystique of ritual killing is so powerful that even those who actually don’t perform it claim to do so. In their camp in the cremation grounds beside the temple, a throng of tantrics tout for business by competing to be as spooky as possible, lining their mud-walled temples with human skulls and telling tall tales of human sacrifice. “I cut off her head,” says 64-year-old Baba Swami Vivekanand of a girl he says he raised from birth. “We buried the body and brought the head back, cooked it and ate it.” He pauses to demand a $2 donation. “Good story, no?” While most of this is innocent, some followers, like Karmakar, are inevitably emboldened to take their quest for power to the extreme. Karmakar, like many others, was caught. But in the dust-bowl villages of India, where superstition reigns and blood has a dark authority, the question is how many other “holy men” have found that ultimate power still rests in the murderous magic of a virgin sacrifice.

Reference

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,322673,00.html#ixzz1w6kzrIH0

Lingam

“Linga” redirects here. For other uses, see Linga (disambiguation).

“Shivling” redirects here. For the mountain, see Shivling (Garhwal Himalaya).

Traditional flower offering to a lingam inVaranasi

The lingam (also, linga, ling, Shiva linga, Shiv ling, Sanskrit लिङ्गं liṅgaṃ, Tamil லிங்கம் , meaning “mark”, “sign”, “gender”, “phallus”, “inference” or “eternal procreative germ”^[1][2]) is a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva used for worship intemples.^[3] Whether the lingam symbolizes the physical body of the god or something purely spiritual is the topic of a many century-old debate within Hinduism.^[4] The Hindu scripture Shiva Purana describes the worship of the lingam as originating in the loss and recovery of Shiva’s penis^[5], though the Shiva Purana also describes the origin of the Linga as a great column^[6] . Today most Hindus view the linga as a symbol of divine energy rather than as a sexual symbol.^{[7][8][9][10][11][citation needed]}

The lingam has also been interpreted as a symbol of male creative energy or of the phallus,^[12][13] though many Saivite Hindus deny this and do not view the lingam as a phallus.^[8][14] The lingam is often represented with the yoni, a symbol of the goddess or of Shakti, female creative energy.^[12] The union of lingam and yoni represents the “indivisible two-in-oneness of male and female, the passive space and active time from which all life originates”.^[15] The lingam and the yoni have been interpreted as the male and female sexual organs since the end of the 19th century by some scholars, while to practising Hindus they stand for the inseparability of the male and female principles and the totality of creation.^[9]

The lingam is described in the Linga Purana as a representation of the beginningless and endless Stambha pillar, symbolizing the infinite nature of Shiva.^[16][17][18]

Definition

Linga-yoni at the Cat Tien sanctuary,Lam Dong province, Vietnam

Sivalingam at the Sri Meenakshi temple in Madurai

The Sanskrit term लिङ्गं liṅgaṃ, transliterated as linga, has diverse meaning ranging from gender and sex to philosophic and religions to uses in common language, such as a mark, sign or characteristic. Vaman Shivram Apte’s Sanskrit^[19]dictionary provides many definitions:

• A mark, sign, token, an emblem, a badge, symbol, distinguishing mark, characteristic;
• A false or unreal mark, a guise, disguise, a deceptive badge;
• A symptom, mark of disease
• A means of proof, a proof, evidence
• In logic, the hetu or middle term in a syllogism
• The sign of gender or sex
• In grammar, gender
• The genital organ of Shiva worshiped in the form of a Phallus
• The image of a god, an idol
• One of the relations or indications which serve to fix the meaning of a word in any particular passage
• In Vedānta philosophy, the subtle frame or body, the indestructible original of the gross or visible body
• A spot or stain
• The nominal base, the crude form of a noun
• In Sāk philosophy, Pradhāna or Prakriti
• The effect or product of evolution from a primary cause and also as the producer
• Inference, conclusion

History

Origin

Lingobhava Shiva: God Shiva appears as in an infinite Linga fire-pillar, as Vishnu as Varaha tries to find the bottom of the Linga while Brahma tries to find its top. This infinite pillar conveys the infinite nature of Shiva.^[20]

Anthropologist Christopher John Fuller conveys that although most sculpted images (murtis) are anthropomorphic, the aniconic Shiva Linga is an important exception.^[21] Some believe that linga-worship was a feature of indigenous Indian religion.^[22]

There is a hymn in the Atharvaveda which praises a pillar (Sanskrit: stambha), and this is one possible origin of linga-worship.^[22] Some associate Shiva-Linga with this Yupa-Stambha, the sacrificial post. In that hymn a description is found of the beginningless and endless Stambha or Skambha and it is shown that the said Skambha is put in place of the eternal Brahman. As afterwards the Yajna (sacrificial) fire, its smoke, ashes and flames, the soma plant and the ox that used to carry on its back the wood for the Vedic sacrifice gave place to the conceptions of the brightness of Shiva’s body, his tawny matted-hair, his blue throat and the riding on the bull of the Shiva. The Yupa-Skambha gave place in time to the Shiva-Linga.^[17][18] In the Linga Purana the same hymn is expanded in the shape of stories, meant to establish the glory of the great Stambha and the supreme nature of Mahâdeva (the Great God, Shiva).^[18]

Historical period

A Shiva lingam worshipped at Jambukesvara temple inThiruvanaikaval (Thiruaanaikaa)

Shaiva siddhanta

A 10th century four-headed stone lingam from Nepal

According to Saiva Siddhanta, which was for many centuries the dominant school of Shaiva theology and liturgy across the Indian subcontinent (and beyond it in Cambodia), the linga is the ideal substrate in which the worshipper should install and worship the five-faced and ten-armed Sadāśiva, the form of Shiva who is the focal divinity of that school of Shaivism.^[23]

Sculpture

The oldest example of a lingam which is still used for worship is in Gudimallam. According to Klaus Klostermaier, it is clearly a phallic object, and dates to the 2nd century BC.^[24] A figure of Shiva is carved into the front of the lingam.^[25]

1008 Lingas carved on a rock surface at the shore of the river Tungabhadra, Hampi, India

Modern period

British missionary William Ward criticized the worship of the lingam (along with virtually all other Indian religious rituals) in his influential 1815 book A View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos, calling it “the last state of degradation to which human nature can be driven”, and stating that its symbolism was “too gross, even when refined as much as possible, to meet the public eye.” According to Brian Pennington, Ward’s book “became a centerpiece in the British construction of Hinduism and in the political and economic domination of the subcontinent.”^[26] In 1825, however, Horace Hayman Wilson‘s work on the lingayat sect of South India attempted to refute popular British notions that the lingam graphically represented a human organ and that it aroused erotic emotions in its devotees.^[26]

Monier-Williams wrote in Brahmanism and Hinduism that the symbol of linga is “never in the mind of a Saiva (or Siva-worshipper) connected with indecent ideas, nor with sexual love.”^[27] According to Jeaneane Fowler, the linga is “a phallic symbol which represents the potent energy which is manifest in the cosmos.”^[3] Some scholars, such as David James Smith, believe that throughout its history the lingam has represented the phallus; others, such as N. Ramachandra Bhatt, believe the phallic interpretation to be a later addition.^[28] M. K. V. Narayan distinguishes the Siva-linga from anthropomorphic representations of Siva, and notes its absence from Vedic literature, and its interpretation as a phallus in Tantric sources.^[29]

Ramakrishna practiced Jivanta-linga-puja, or “worship of the living lingam”.^[30][31] At the Paris Congress of the History of Religions in 1900, Ramakrishna’s follower Swami Vivekananda argued that the Shiva-Linga had its origin in the idea of theYupa-Stambha or Skambha—the sacrificial post, idealized in Vedic ritual as the symbol of the Eternal Brahman.^[17][18][32] This was in response to a paper read by Gustav Oppert, a German Orientalist, who traced the origin of the Shalagrama-Shila and theShiva-Linga to phallicism.^[33] According to Vivekananda, the explanation of the Shalagrama-Shila as a phallic emblem was an imaginary invention. Vivekananda argued that the explanation of the Shiva-Linga as a phallic emblem was brought forward by the most thoughtless, and was forthcoming in India in her most degraded times, those of the downfall of Buddhism.^[18]

According to Swami Sivananda, the view that the Shiva lingam represents the phallus is a mistake;^[34] The same sentiments have also been expressed by H. H. Wilson in 1840.^[35] The novelist Christopher Isherwood also addresses the interpretation of thelinga as a sex symbol.^[36] The Britannica encyclopedia entry on lingam also notes that the lingam is not considered to be a phallic symbol;^[9]

Wendy Doniger, an American scholar of the history of religions, states:

For Hindus, the phallus in the background, the archetype (if I may use the word in its Eliadean, indeed Bastianian, and non-Jungian sense) of which their own penises are manifestations, is the phallus (called the lingam) of the god Siva, who inherits much of the mythology of Indra (O’Flaherty, 1973). The lingam appeared, separate from the body of Siva, on several occasions… On each of these occasions, Siva’s wrath was appeased when gods and humans promised to worship his lingam forever after, which, in India they still do. Hindus, for instance, will argue that the lingam has nothing whatsoever to do with the male sexual organ, an assertion blatantly contradicted by the material.^[13]

However, Professor Doniger clarified her viewpoints in a later book, The Hindus: An Alternative History, by noting that some texts treat the linga as an aniconic pillar of light or an as an abstract symbol of God with no sexual reference and comments on the varying interpretations of the linga from phallic to abstract.

According to Hélène Brunner,^[37] the lines traced on the front side of the linga, which are prescribed in medieval manuals about temple foundation and are a feature even of modern sculptures, appear to be intended to suggest a stylised glans, and some features of the installation process seem intended to echo sexual congress. Scholars like S. N.Balagangadhara have disputed the sexual meaning of lingam.^[38]

Lingam in the cave at Amarnath

An ice lingam at Amarnath in the western Himalayas forms every winter from ice dripping on the floor of a cave and freezing like a stalagmite. It is very popular with pilgrims.

Shivling (6543m) is also a mountain in Uttarakhand (the Garwhal region of Himalayas). It arises as a sheer pyramid above the snout of the Gangotri Glacier. The mountain resembles a Shiva linga when viewed from certain angles, especially when travelling or trekking from Gangotri to Gomukh as a part of a traditional Hindu pilgrimage.

See also

• Axis mundi
• Banalinga
• Danda
• Dhyanalinga
• Hindu iconography
• Lingayatism
• Mukhalingam
• Pancharamas
• Saligram

Notes

1. ^ Spoken Sanskrit Dictionary
2. ^ A Practical Sanskrit Dictionary
3. ^ ^{a b} Hinduism: Beliefs and Practices, by Jeanne Fowler, pgs. 42–43, at Books.Google.com
4. ^ Wendy Doniger, “God’s Body, or, The Lingam Made Flesh: Conflicts over the Representation of the Sexual Body of the Hindu God Shiva” Social Research: An International Quarterly Volume 78, Number 2 / Summer 2011 p 485-508
5. ^ Peter Heehs, Indian Religions: A Historical Reader of Spiritual Expression and Experience 210-213 NYU Press, Sep, 2002[1]
6. ^ Chaturvedi. Shiv Purana (2006 ed.). Diamond Pocket Books. pp. 11. ISBN 978-81-7182-721-3.
7. ^ Blurton, Richsrd (16 Nov 1992). Hindu Art (Art History). British Museum Press. pp. 164. ISBN 978-0-7141-1442-2. “… an enshrined linga today will be lovingly garlanded and attended by young women and elderly matrons alike, but without any overt suggestions of sexuality. In traditional Indian society, the linga is rather seen as a symbol of the energy and potentiality of the God.”
8. ^ ^{a b} Mudaliyar, Sabaratna. “Lecture on the Shiva Linga”. Malaysia Hindu Dharma Mamandram. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
9. ^ ^{a b c} “lingam”. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. “Since the late 19th century some scholars have interpreted the lingam and the yoni to be representations of the male and female sexual organs. To practicing Hindus, however, the two together are a reminder that the male and female principles are inseparable and that they represent the totality of all existence.”
10. ^ Isherwood, Christopher (1983). Ramakrishna and His Disciples. Early days at Dakshineswar: Vedanta Press,U.S.. pp. 48. ISBN 978-0-87481-037-0.
11. ^ Sivananda (1996 (web edn. 2000)). Lord Siva and His Worship. Worship of Siva Linga: The Divine Life Trust Society.ISBN 81-7052-025-8. “The popular belief is that the Siva Lingam represents the phallus or the virile organ, the emblem of the generative power or principle in nature. This is not only a serious mistake, but also a grave blunder. In the post-Vedic period, the Linga became symbolical of the generative power of the Lord Siva. Linga is the differentiating mark. It is certainly not the sex-mark.”
12. ^ ^{a b} Zimmer, Heinrich Robert (1946). Campbell, Joseph. ed. Myths and symbols in Indian art and civilization. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 126. ISBN 0-691-01778-6. “But the basic and most common object of worship in Shiva shrines is the phallus or lingam.”
13. ^ ^{a b} Doniger, Wendy (1993). Boyer, L. Bryce; Boyer, Ruth M.; Sonnenburg, Stephen M. ed. When a Lingam is Just a Good Cigar: Psychoanalysis and Hindu Sexual Fantasies. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-88163-161-6. Retrieved 2009-06-22
14. ^ Subramuniyaswami, Sivaya. “Satguru”. Dancing With Shiva. Himalayan Academy. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
15. ^ Jansen, Eva Rudy (2003) [1993]. The book of Hindu imagery: gods, manifestations and their meaning. Binkey Kok Publications. pp. 46, 119. ISBN 90-74597-07-6.
16. ^ “The linga Purana”. astrojyoti. Retrieved 10 April 2012. “. It was almost as if the linga had emerged to settle Brahma and Vishnu’s dispute. The linga rose way up into the sky and it seemed to have no beginning or end.”
17. ^ ^{a b c} Harding, Elizabeth U. (1998). “God, the Father”. Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 156–157. ISBN 978-81-208-1450-9.
18. ^ ^{a b c d e} Vivekananda, Swami. “The Paris Congress of the History of Religions”. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Vol.4.
19. ^ Apte, Vaman Shivaram (1957-59). The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Revised and enlarged ed.). Poona: Prasad Prakashan. pp. 1366.
20. ^ Blurton, T. R. (1992). “Stone statue of Shiva as Lingodbhava”. Extract from Hindu art (London, The British Museum Press). British Museum site. Retrieved 2 July 2010.
21. ^ The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism and society in India, pg. 58 at Books.Google.com
22. ^ ^{a b} N. K. Singh, Encyclopaedia of Hinduism p. 1567
23. ^ Dominic Goodall, Nibedita Rout, R. Sathyanarayanan, S.A.S. Sarma, T. Ganesan and S. Sambandhasivacarya, The Pañcāvaraṇastava of Aghoraśivācārya: A twelfth-century South Indian prescription for the visualisation of Sadāśiva and his retinue, Pondicherry, French Institute of Pondicherry and Ecole française d’Extréme-Orient, 2005, p.12.
24. ^ Klaus Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism 2007 SUNY Press p111
25. ^ Hinduism and the Religious Arts By Heather Elgood p. 47
26. ^ ^{a b} p132
27. ^ Carus, Paul (1969). The History of the Devil. Forgotten Books. pp. 82. ISBN 978-1-60506-556-4.
28. ^ Hinduism and Modernity By David James Smith p. 119 [2]>
29. ^ Flipside of Hindu symbolism, by M. K. V. Narayan, pp. 86–87, Books.Google.com
30. ^ Ramakrishna Kathamrita Section XV Chapter II [kathamrita.org http://www.kathamrita.org/kathamrita4/k4SectionXV.htm]
31. ^ Jeffrey Kripal, Kali’s Child 159–163
32. ^ Nathaniel Schmidt (Dec, 1900). “The Paris Congress of the History of Religion”. The Biblical World 16 (6): 447–450.doi:10.1086/472718. JSTOR 3136952.
33. ^ Sen, Amiya P. (2006). “Editor’s Introduction”. The Indispensable Vivekananda. Orient Blackswan. pp. 25–26. “During September–October 1900, he [Vivekananda] was a delegate to the Religious Congress at Paris, though oddly, the organizers disallowed discussions on any particular religious tradition. It was rumoured that his had come about largely through the pressure of the Catholic Church, which worried over the ‘damaging’ effects of Oriental religion on the Christian mind. Ironically, this did not stop Western scholars from making surreptitious attacks on traditional Hinduism. Here, Vivekananda strongly contested the suggestion made by the German Indologist Gustav Oppert that the Shiva Linga and the Salagram Shila, stone icons representing the gods Shiva and Vishnu respectively, were actually crude remnants of phallic worship.”
34. ^ Sivananda, Swami (1996). “Worship of Siva Linga”. Lord Siva and His Worship. The Divine Life Trust Society.
35. ^ Wilson, HH. “Classification of Puranas”. Vishnu Purana. John Murray, London, 2005. pp. xli–xlii.
36. ^ Isherwood, Christopher. “Early days at Dakshineswar”. Ramakrishna and his disciples. pp. 48.
37. ^ Hélène Brunner, The sexual Aspect of the linga Cult according to the Saiddhāntika Scriptures, pp.87–103 in Gerhard Oberhammer’s Studies in Hinduism II, Miscellanea to the Phenomenon of Tantras, Vienna, Verlag der oesterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1998.
38. ^ Balagangadhara, S. N. (2007). Antonio De Nicholas, Krishnan Ramaswamy, Aditi Banerjee. ed. Invading the Sacred. Rupa & Co. pp. 431–433. ISBN 978-81-291-1182-1.

References

• Basham, A. L. The Wonder That Was India: A survey of the culture of the Indian Sub-Continent before the coming of the Muslims, Grove Press, Inc., New York (1954; Evergreen Edition 1959).
• Schumacher, Stephan and Woerner, Gert. The encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and religion, Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, Hinduism, Shambhala, Boston, (1994) ISBN 0-87773-980-3
• Ram Karan Sharma. Śivasahasranāmāṣṭakam: Eight Collections of Hymns Containing One Thousand and Eight Names of Śiva. With Introduction and Śivasahasranāmākoṣa (A Dictionary of Names). (Nag Publishers: Delhi, 1996). ISBN 81-7081-350-6. This work compares eight versions of the Śivasahasranāmāstotra. The preface and introduction (English) by Ram Karan Sharma provide an analysis of how the eight versions compare with one another. The text of the eight versions is given in Sanskrit.

Further reading

• Danielou, Alain (1991). The Myths and Gods of India: The Classic Work on Hindu Polytheism. Inner Traditions / Bear & Company. pp. 222–231. ISBN 0-89281-354-7
• Versluis, Arthur (2008), The Secret History of Western Sexual Mysticism: Sacred Practices and Spiritual Marriage, Destiny Books, ISBN 978-1-59477-212-2

Sikh Genocide 1984: Sikh Rights Group Protests Sonia Gandhi’s Presence in the United States

By DALJEET SINGH

Published: March 3, 2012 

SJF submitted memorandum to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Demands Exclusion of Ms. Gandhi

New York, USA (March 3, 2012): As per information available with “Sikh Siyasat” Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), a US based human rights advocacy group, has approached Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding the exclusion of Sonia Gandhi from the United States. Sonia Gandhi, who is currently visiting the U.S., is President of the Indian National Congress party, the ruling political party of India that organized and carried out the genocide of over 30,000 Sikh men, women and children in November 1984, many of whom were burnt alive. The Indian National Congress party had organized the genocide to avenge the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Party’s leader, who was murdered by her two bodyguards who happened to be Sikhs.

According to SFJ’s legal advisor, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who is an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, “Sonia Gandhi’s entry and presence in the U.S. is in violation of section 212(a)(3)(E)(ii) & (iii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and section 604 of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 which prohibit entry into the U.S. of any individual who, outside of the U.S., has ordered, incited, assisted or in any way participated in the commission of any act of torture or extra judicial killing. Sonia Gandhi is ‘inadmissible’ to the U.S. because as President of the Indian National Congress party she has been actively covering up the Sikh genocide and shielding her party leaders who were key players in executing the atrocities of November 1984.”

“SFJ’s demand to exclude Ms. Gandhi is not unique as previously Narendra Modi, a prominent leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat, was denied entry into U.S. due to his role in the 2002 massacre of Muslims”, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun informed Sikh Siyasat.

SFJ’s March 1st memorandum to Ms. Clinton states that since November 1984 the Indian National Congress party has been ruling the country for 23 of the past 28 years and has continually covered up the Sikh genocide and shielded the perpetrators; Sonia Gandhi, who has been President of the Party since 1998, has been actively following the Party’s practice of impunity towards its leaders who were involved in the gross human rights violations committed in November 1984; Ms. Clinton’s duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution and its laws and order the exclusion of Sonia Gandhi is not absolved due to India’s economic status and political relations with the United States.

Ms. Gandhi’s visit to the U.S. happens to coincide with the March 15th, 2012 hearing before Judge Robert W. Sweet of the U.S. Federal Court in which a “default judgment” is sought against the Indian National Congress Party which has failed to respond to charges of conspiring, aiding, abetting, organizing and carrying out attacks on the Sikh population of India in November 1984. A class action law suit {SFJ v. Indian National Congress S.D.N.Y. (10-CV-2940)} has been filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) by the survivors of Sikhs killed in India during November 1984. The plaintiffs will ask the court to enter a judgment in the amount of 17.5 billion U.S. dollars against the Indian National Congress party for rehabilitation of survivors and compensation for the loss of life and property. The plaintiffs’ demand for 17.5 billion is based on records obtained via the Rights to Information Act, according to which a total of more than 35,000 thousand claims for deaths and injuries suffered by Sikhs during November 1984 were filed from the states of Delhi, Bihar, Chhatisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir; Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Uttara Khand, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

Source: BBC News

Congress leader Sajjan Kumar has been accused of “inciting” anti-Sikh riots [Genocide] in 1984 India’s top investigating agency has accused a senior Congress Party leader of being involved in a conspiracy of “terrifying proportion” with the police during anti-Sikh riots in 1984.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) told a Delhi court that Sajjan Kumar incited crowds to kill Sikhs. More than 3,000 Sikhs were killed in 1984 after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Mr Kumar and five others on trial with him have denied all the charges.

‘Not a single Sikh’

In his final arguments, CBI prosecutor RS Cheema told the court that the riots [Genocide] which targeted a particular community were “backed by both the Congress government and police”.

“There was a conspiracy of terrifying proportion with the complicity of police and patronage of local MP Sajjan Kumar,”the prosecutor told Judge JR Aryan, who will eventually pass judgement in the case.

Mr Cheema said that witnesses at the scene heard Sajjan Kumar tell a crowd that “not a single Sikh should survive”.

Sajjan Kumar and five others on trial with him deny charges of being involved in the killing of six people at Delhi Cantonment – or military area – during riots that were sparked by the killing of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.

The trial began after a government inquiry found “credible evidence” that some Congress party leaders incited crowds to attack Sikhs during the riots and that they were not spontaneous.

Courtesy: sikhactivist.net 

of new york

in the house of representatives

Tuesday, June 12, 2001

Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, in June 1984, the Indian government attacked

the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion.

Attacking the Golden Temple is the equivalent of attacking Mecca or the

Vatican. It is a great affront to the Sikh Nation. As the Sikh martyr

Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who was killed in the Golden Temple, said,

“If the Indian government attacks the Golden Temple, it will lay the

foundation of Khalistan,” the name of the independent Sikh homeland

which declared its independence on October 7, 1987.

This attack included the desecration of the Sikh holy scriptures, the

Guru Granth Sahib, which they shot with bullets. Young Sikh boys were

murdered. How can a democratic country commit this atrocity?

On June 2, Sikhs from around the East Coast demonstrated in protest

of the Golden Temple massacre. Sikhs came from Philadelphia, Baltimore,

Miami, and other places on the East Coast. They let it be known that

the Sikhs still remember their martyrs and that the flame of freedom

still burns in their hearts.

This launched a wave of violence which has killed over 250,000 Sikhs

since 1984. In a new report, India is quoted as admitting that it held

over 52,000 Sikh political prisoners without charge or trial. India has

also killed more than 200,000 Christians in Nagaland and engaged in a

wave of terror against them since Christmas 1998. Over 75,000 Kashmiri

Muslims have died at the hands of the Indian government, as well as

thousands of people from Assam, Manipur, and Tamil people, and Dalits

(the dark-skinned “untouchables.”)

America should not accept this kind of activity from a country that

calls itself democratic. We should cut off aid to India until it allows

full human rights for every citizen within its borders and we should

support self-determination for all the peoples and nations of South

Asia, such as the people of Khalistan, Kashmir, Nagalim, and others.

Mr. Speaker, I submit the Council of Khalistan’s very informative

press release on the June 2 demonstration into the Record.

Sikhs Observe Khalistan Martyrs Day

Indian Attack on Golden Temple Laid Foundation of Khalistan

Washington, D.C., June 2, 2001.–Sikhs of the East Coast

gathered in Washington, D.C. today to observe Khalistan

Martyrs Day. This is the anniversary of the Indian

government’s brutal military attack on the Golden Temple, the

Sikh Nation’s holiest shrine, and 38 other Sikh temples

throughout Punjab. More than 20,000 Sikhs were killed in

those attacks, known as Operation Bluestar. These martyrs

laid down their lives to lay the foundation for Khalistan. On

October 7, 1987, the Sikh Nation declared its homeland,

Khalistan, independent.

“We thank all the demonstrators who came to this important

protest,” said Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the

Council Khalistan. “We must remind the Indian government

that Sikhs will never forget or forgive the Golden Temple

desecration and the sacrifice the Sikh martyrs made for our

freedom. These martyrs gave their lives so that the Sikh

Nation could live in freedom,” Dr. Aulakh said. “We salute

them on Khalistan Martyrs’ Day,” he said. “As Sant

Bhindranwale said, the Golden Temple attack laid the

foundation of Khalistan.”

The Golden Temple attack launched a campaign of genocide

against the Sikhs that continues to this day. This genocide

belies India’s claims that it is a democracy. The Golden

Temple attack made it clear that there is no place for Sikhs

in India.

“Without political power nations perish. We must always

remember these martyrs for their sacrifice,” Dr. Aulakh

said. “The best tribute to these martyrs would be the

liberation of the Sikh homeland Punjab, Khalistan, from the

occupying Indian forces,” he said.

Over 50,000 Sikh political prisoners are rotting in Indian

jails without charge or trial. Many have been in illegal

custody since 1984. Since 1984, India has engaged in a

campaign of ethnic cleansing in which thousands of Sikhs are

murdered by Indian police and security forces and secretly

cremated. The Indian Supreme Court described this campaign as

“worse than a genocide.” General Narinder Singh has said,

“Punjab is a police state.” U.S. Congressman Dana

Rohrabacher has said that for Sikhs, Kashmiri Muslims, and

other minorities “India might as well be Nazi Germany.”

A report issued last month by the Movement Against State

Repression (MASR) shows that India admitted that it held

52,268 political prisoners under the repressive “Terrorist

and Disruptive Activities Act” (TADA). These prisoners

continue to be held under TADA even though it expired in

1995. Persons arrested under TADA are routinely re-arrested

upon their release. Cases were routinely registered against

Sikh activists under TADA in states other than Punjab to give

the police an excuse to continue holding them. The MASR

report quotes the Punjab Civil Magistracy as writing “if we

add up the figures of the last few years the number of

[[Page 10497]]

innocent persons killed would run into lakhs [hundreds of

thousands.]” There has been no list published of those who

were acquitted under TADA.

In March 2000, while former President Clinton was visiting

India, the Indian government murdered 35 Sikhs in the village

of Chatti Singhpora in Kashmir and tried to blame the

massacre on alleged militants. Indian security forces have

murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, according to figures

compiled by the Punjab State Magistracy and human-rights

organizations. These figures were published in The Politics

of Genocide by Inderjit Singh Jaijee. India has also killed

over 200,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947, over 75,000

Kashmiris since 1988, and tens of thousands of Untouchables

as well as indigenous tribal peoples in Manipur, Assam and

elsewhere.

The Indian government has also targeted Christians. They

have been victims of a campaign of terror that has been going

on since Christmas 1998. Churches have been burned, Christian

schools and prayer halls have been attacked, nuns have raped,

and priests have been killed. Missionary Graham Staines and

his two sons were burned alive while they slept in their jeep

by militant Hindu members of the RSS, the parent organization

of the ruling BJP. Now his widow is being expelled from

India.

“The Golden Temple massacre reminded us that if Sikhs are

going to live with honor and dignity, we must have a free,

sovereign, and independent Khalistan,” Dr. Aulakh said.

 Additional Readings

Related Articles and Historical Perspectives

Sikh Genocide 1984: India’s ruling Congress Party objects to US jurisdiction in tort suit

Sikh Genocide 1984: Sikh Rights Group demand a “UN Special Commission” to investigate the killing Of Sikhs

AISSF & SFJ Launched “1984 Yes It’s Genocide” Campaign To Collect Signatures In Support of Petition

Sikh Genocide 1984: SJF want CBI to charge Sajjan Kumar seperately for murder in wake of fresh evidence

Sikh genocide 1984: US Court reserves decision regarding plea to re-instate case against Indian minister Kamal Nath

India’s Lovefest with America?

This Video is Dedicated to Mohan Guruswamy

India Awaits Obama

Mohan Guruswamy | November 02, 2010

President Barack Obama’s visit to India on November 6th comes under the best possible circumstances. There are few expectations of any consequence in India. The United States off-course, as it is increasingly wont to these days, has a big wish list. A large part of which is made up of military equipment it wishes India to buy. After for long being on the asking side, India is happy to be on the giving side. India will try its best to oblige. India has several reasons to be gratified to President Obama, for it is his administration that has effectively de-hyphenated India and Pakistan by not visiting Pakistan in the same trip. In other circumstances this should have had the same electrifying effect, as President George Bush’s one line put down of a complaining Pervez Musharaff with the words “You are not India!” But some how it has not, possibly reflecting how much the worlds has changed since the US economy’s near death experience and India’s continued economic buoyancy after the turn of the millennium.

Interestingly, the rise of India is matched by somewhat diminished expectations from the outside world. This newfound confidence coincides with a relatively muted clamoring for the baubles of global power like a permanent seat in an expanded UN Security Council. This also owes a good deal to the increasing realization within India that it needs to put its house in order to win the worlds respect. The untidy run up to the recently concluded Commonwealth Games and the accompanying exposures of huge malfeasances; the fact that in terms of critical human development indices such as infant mortality, malnutrition and poverty India is worse off than many African countries; and that a surging China has widened the gap with India have contributed to temper down India’s expectations for world status.

President Obama came to office with the somewhat premature and mistaken notion that the road to extrication from Afghanistan lay through Kashmir. He immediately appointed Richard Holbrooke as Special Representative for South Asia, only to limit him to Afghanistan and Pakistan after India noisily made known its reservations. Secretary Clinton’s first visit to Asia excluded India and this was also taken note off and interpreted as the USA’s reduced interest in India. Obama compounded these early missteps by suggesting a role for China in South Asia. India was, both, mortified and infuriated. With the United States’ optimism now waning about China playing a helpful and responsible role in the world by refusing to revalue the Yuan, by becoming more assertive in its dealings with its neighbors and in world forums, and by its self centered pursuit of its narrow interests in North Korea, Burma, Sudan and even Iran, India sees a reversal of US policies with a more balanced and nuanced approach towards it. This also now works in Obama’s favor.

What still works against him are his somewhat strident and shrill attacks on “loss of jobs to India” ignoring the somewhat obvious economic imperatives that force American corporations to entrust American workers with less work. The visiting President will hear about this and will also be reminded that India also contributes to the USA’s productivity with its brainpower, to the USA’s economy with its growing investments, and to the USA’s industry by placing orders for aircraft such as the C-17 Globemaster and P-8 Poseidon from Boeing, and C-130 Hercules from Lockheed. These and other orders save thousands of American jobs, given that equivalents can be bought elsewhere.

India has given as much as it can on the civilian nuclear deal but Obama will press for more. But the psychological moment is not right given the shocking realization in India in the wake of the Indian judicial system’s long delayed judgment on the Bhopal disaster that Indian lives and environment were valued so pitifully low while the US valued its coastline and animal life so high in the wake of the BP oil spill. Most Indians will not like to see another US corporation get off as cheaply as Union Carbide did. And with the French and Russians quite willing to accept the conditions of India’s existing law, the USA would be well advised not to dwell too much on this during the visit. India would on the other hand appreciate US ideas on how it could help India improve the quality of its higher education and public administration. Both subjects are high on India’s domestic agenda and its leadership is intently grappling with the issues involved.

But President Obama comes with advantages that the earlier visiting Presidents did not enjoy. Not since John Kennedy has an American President generated as much excitement and interest in India with his personal charisma and his great personal achievements. His oratory and soaring idealism, his optimism in the human spirit, and his transparent decency and goodness have caught the average Indian’s imagination. The President will like what he will see here. Indian public opinion has a way of bucking the American trend. George Bush ruled the rarefied heights of popularity here when he was down in the dumps there. And so will Obama. All this only suggests that India admires America and values its friendship more than it generally admits. The United States is still working on how to reciprocate. India expects that day will soon be at hand. India awaits Obama with this expectation.

Mohan Guruswamy is a Non-resident Senior Fellow of the South Asia Center of the Atlantic Council.This article is part of the Atlantic Council web forum “Obama’s First Tour of India.”