[Advaita-l] true colour of Chameleon

[Dev Babu]

I think people are not getting the basics of Dharma aspect here on these
gay, homos etc.
Principle of Dharma is for Indriya Nigraham,  to channelise desire of any
kind for ultimate control of senses.
Whereas we are asking for dharmic stand on INDRIYA DUSHPRAVAAHAm of Homos
Harih Om
Babu


On Thu, 27 Sep. 2018, 10:37 am Swati Gupta via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Thanks for shedding light on this sensitive topic.
>
> When you say “The experience in the West is that these people are all meek
> and mild pleas for tolerance when they are in the minority but when they
> gain power its a different story”, are there any instances of them coming
> to power and doing something wrong anywhere?
>
> Other than asking temples provide opportunity for gay priests and
> officiate gay wedding at a temple is there anything that the government can
> force our temple/maths to do which you consider Adharmic?
>
>
>
> From: Jaldhar H. Vyas via Advaita-l
> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 11:14 PM
> To: Swati Gupta via Advaita-l
> Cc: Jaldhar H. Vyas
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] true colour of Chameleon
>
> On Thu, 20 Sep 2018, Swati Gupta via Advaita-l wrote:
>
> > After the 377 ruling I was wondering what our scriptures say.
> >
> > One of my friend mentioned this book which supposedly has references to
> > LGBTQ acceptance in our scriptures.
>
> LGBTQ is a foreign political term (and an inconsistent one too.  It's
> currently LGBTQIA in uptodate circles.) so I would not use it when
> discussing our shastras.  But it does go to show that those in this thread
> who say "it doesn't matter" or "what is the relevance." are being
> dangerously naive.  There is an agenda going on.  The experience in the
> West is that these people are all meek and mild pleas for tolerance when
> they are in the minority but when they gain power its a different story.
> Will mandirs and maths be coerced into supporting adharma?  We must be
> vigilant.
>
>
> >
> https://www.amazon.com/Tritiya-Prakriti-People-Amara-Das-Wilhelm/dp/1413435343
> >
>
> I have read this book.  While the author obviously favors one view, I
> think when citing sources he has tried to be fair and accurate and avoid
> propoganda.  The author is an ISKCON devotee so that slants his
> interpretations somewhat.  And he has that annoying tic they have of
> calling everything "Vedic" even though he is mainly citing post-Vedic
> shastras.
>
> But overall I consider this an argument in good faith.  Here are things  I
> remember.
>
> Much of the evidence he cites from dharmashastras deals with two types of
> people.  shaNDha - those who are intersex (i.e have the genitalia of the
> opposite sex or both sexes or neither.) and kilba - those who are impotent
> or infertile. (i.e. unable to procreate.)  Potentially a third type is the
> eunuch.  All these types are referred to as napumsaka "neuter" which is
> also the third grammatical gender in Sanskrit.
>
> Intersex symptoms occur naturally in a very small proportion of births.
> Amaradasa claims shaNDha could also include those who acted effeminately
> as well as the truly intersex.
>
> Impotence was a much bigger deal as one fulfills the rna to the pitrs by
> having a son who can perform shraddha and carry on the family line.  They
> do not have adhikara to perform yajnas or other rites.  Though they could
> do bhakti I suppose.  Also a kliba is not fit for marriage.  This is an
> important point for the author as apparently many homosexuals are forced
> into marriages against their will.  Not only is this unjust he says but it
> is actually contrary to dharma.  However I think historically more people
> who were attracted to the same sex chose to get married than you might
> think.  "Love" was not the most important factor in a marriage, succession
> and property rights, the need for support in old age etc. were also
> factors.
>
> Amaradasa claims that many who would be in the shastraic category of kliba
> were in fact gay or lesbian.  This seems plausible but there isn't any
> real way of telling and it would make no difference for their adhikara
> anyway.
>
> An interpretive problem is that words in Sanskrit are often used
> figuratively.  For example dvija in theory means any man, Brahmana,
> Kshatriya, or Vaishya who has undergone upanayana.  However it is often
> merely a synonym for Brahmana.  In the same way shaNDha, kliba, napumsaka
> etc. are often used imprecisely or interchangably.  This means that some
> of the authors interpretations could be legitimate but we cannot be
> certain.  (This applies to the negative interpretations too of course.)
>
> Amaradasa also claims that the custom of castrating men to make them
> eunuchs is a post-Muslim tradition and early references to them should be
> understood as to homosexuals instead.  I find this to be dubious.  Eunuchs
> existed in many pre-Islamic cultures.
>
> The Kamasutra and its tika Jayamangala explicitly mention homosexual acts.
> It is said that certain men resort to male prostitutes for pleasure or
> sexual relief.  The impression I get is that this is viewed as a bad
> habit more than anything. A fact of life but certainly nothing to be
> "proud" about.  A more interesting passage says that there are some men
> who form more formal and long-term relationships with their male lovers.
> The word used is panigraha.  There is the interpretive ambiguity again.
> This ("clasping hands") can mean marriage. The central rite of the
> vivaha samskara is when the groom takes the brides hand and they do agni
> pradakshina.  However the Kamasutra also does use the word vivaha so
> it seems to me this particular panigraha is something different.  How
> different?  We don't have any historical or literary evidence to say for
> sure. It is known in the literatures of many culture of deep and abiding
> friendships between men. (and women too though less so perhaps because
> less is recorded about women in general.)  Were they all "gay?"  To say
> yes is stretching the evidence too far.
>
> The episode in Mahabharata is analyzed where during the Pandavas exile,
> Arjuna, having rebuffed the advances of the Apsara Urvashi is transformed
> into a Shanda by her curse.  Under the name Brhannala he goes to the court
> of King Virata where he becomes a dancer and attendant in the womens
> quarters.  Brhannala is described as being dressed and ornamented as a
> woman, having a feminine voice and gait etc.  The author says this shows
> that the term Shanda was not restricted to intersexed people alone but
> also transgender.
>
> So far the book has been pretty even-handed but unfortunately in part two
> it goes off the rails.  There is a bunch of stuff about Prabhupada
> which is irrelevant for those who aren't in ISKCON.  He tries to show that
> "Vaishnavism is very liberal" but the quotes display quite the opposite to
> this reader.  And what is important is "Krishna consciousness" not
> "fundamentalist" attachment to the shastras which contradicts the
> earlier chapters of the book and again is opposite of what Vaishnava
> teachers teach.
>
> Examples are given of devatas and practices in various parts of India are
> given as evidence of the tritiya prakrti. In most cases this just amounts
> to cross-dressing.  For example many North Indian Vaishnava sampradayas
> believe bhaktas are reincarnations of the Gopis and Sakhis of Krshna
> Bhagavans time in Vrndavana.  Some devotees identify so strongly that they
> dress up in womens clothing either for utsavas or in rarer cases all the
> time.  But atleast from my personal observations of such people they are
> completely supportive of traditional gender roles in society at large.
> This is a theological issue for them.
>
> So overall this book is a mixed success.  All in all what we can say
> is that dharma has more than zero but less than 100% acceptance of
> non-heterosexual behavior and that's it.
>
> --
> Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
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