[Advaita-l] Tantric Acts

[D.V.N.Sarma డి.వి.ఎన్.శర్మ]

I have already stated in my earlier posting that the concept of dharma is
not static and hindu
dharma has gone through different stages. Hindus admit that dharma depends
on desa, kala
and dehadharma. Any attempt to project a rigid structure for dharma is
futile. It was never there
in the hindu society.

regards,
Sarma.

On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 11:10 AM, Ramesh Krishnamurthy
<rkmurthy at gmail.com>wrote:

> I am a little amused by this discussion. All this has very little to do
> with
> anything being "granted" or "sanctioned" by tradition. Rather the point
> very
> simply is that the institution of marriage signifying a long-term and
> exclusive pair bond and the corresponding concept of family centred around
> the married couple is one of the most important innovations of a settled
> agrarian society. An agricultural economy is characterized by a single
> extremely prized economic resource viz., fertile land, and therefore
> promotes settled communities, territorial identities and (in the long run)
> the development of a state to defend the territory along with a system of
> taxation. The greater an individual's control over fertile land, the
> greater
> his power & influence in society.
>
> Pre-agrarian societies were very different in this regard. As they survived
> through hunting and gathering, there was no single resource that sustained
> the community. There was nothing much (in terms of a finite extremely
> valuable resource) that a father would seek to pass on to his son. There
> was
> also no incentive to postpone consumption and store things for a bad day
> (on
> the contrary, farmers will try to store grains for later consumption in
> case
> of a drought). In such a society, the sheer value of a long term exclusive
> pair bond (marriage) is much lesser, and society tends to revolve around
> looser groups of individuals who cooperate in hunting and gathering.
>
> Even today one finds that traditional institutions of marriage & family,
> and
> corresponding conventions regarding the longevity and exclusivity of the
> marital bond, are much weaker in communities that do not have a strong
> agrarian history, such as many tribal groups worldwide. It may also seem
> that the modern world is turning a full circle. Again, the modern world is
> not centred around any single resource, and technological change has meant
> that women no longer need to spend much of their adult lives tending to
> children. In fact, women have become resource controllers themselves
> (something that was not the case even in hunter-gatherer societies). So
> again, one finds that the institutions family and marriage are gradually
> weakening.
>
> Statements such as those of Pandu in the Mahabharata as quoted by DVN Sarma
> are simply reminiscences of a pre-agrarian or semi-agrarian past when the
> institutions of family and marriage were (quite naturally) weaker. In fact,
> it is instructive that Pandu himself is simply recounting an even more
> ancient past. Such reminiscences are found in many cultures worldwide, with
> the development of strict marital rules being ascribed to some respected
> legendary figure (Shvetaketu in this case). The ground reality quite simply
> is that, irrespective of what Shvetaketu said or did, the strict
> conventions
> of marriage & family would anyhow have come into being by virtue of a
> settled agrarian society.
>
> 2011/1/14 D.V.N.Sarma డి.వి.ఎన్.శర్మ <dvnsarma at gmail.com>
>
> > I read it in another place though I am not able to give reference right
> > now.
> > There is no reference to gandhrva vivaha here.
> >
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