There was a big ruckus regarding the Bhagavadgita in Russia recently. The kind that saw protests happening in Bangalore. It is stupid because no small protest in Bangalore will influence the court decision of a little town all the way up in freezing Russia.
The interesting thing is this sudden vehemence against a deeply spiritual text. One that emphasizes on bettering oneself and rarely addresses the society as a whole.
It has been 200 years since the first Russian translation of the Bhagavadgita came out. Millions of people who have read the text for 200 years have found no evidence of anti social or sociopathic teachings in it, and as almost every living Hindu will swear on every one of our large plethora of Gods, nor does it have any.
So there can only be the following explanations for this Russian filing a Russian equivalent of a PIL against the Bhagavadgita
1)India's favourite charge "The Opposition is the culprit" obviously does not hold here. The Russian government is facing enough heat to be worrying about this small event.
2) The man who filed the case is a moron. Doesnt seem so. He is a lawyer.
3)There are actual anti social teachings in the text: Not a chance.\
4) There has been a gross misinterpretation of the text by the interpreter or the translator.
The last point seems the most valid and on some deeper investigation is indeed the culprit.
ISKCON founder Swami Prabhupada has written this "bhashya" and these are some excerpts from his interpretations of the verses of the Gita.
1)A man must always fulfill his karma. i.e. as hateful as it may seem, a brahmin must be ready to kill to save his vedas, a vaishya must cheat, a shudra must obey his master even if his master commands him to do the most vile of deeds.
2)Women are weak and must be protected. They are not trust-worthy and should be content with looking after the affairs inside her husband's house. In the present day, the woman is living a lie by trying to become educated and trying to hold places that should be held by men. This is causing social instability.
3)The social system must be upheld. The shudras should respect and look up to the higher castes.
4) A person is born into a particular family for a reason. He should take up the traditions of his parents. For a Vaishya, it is better to be a poor businessman rather than be an excellent administrator because nobody must deter from the "karma"that has been chosen for him/her.
And there are many more if you continue to flip pages.
I am a firm believer of the rule that one must not comment on something one does not understand. And talking about "Dharma" as such is an extremely unapologetic job.
The biggest problem with Hindu ancient texts is their ridiculous complexity and is obviously prone to misinterpretations. Even then anyone with any sense will see the perversion in the synopsis of the verses given by the Swami. And as such, there is no surprise in this lawyer from the little known town of Tomsk asking for the Gita to be banned.
ISKCON must look into this matter and get together men of renown in this field to correct these mistakes. Hinduism, today does not appeal to a lot of people in the world because of its supposed complexity, but the last thing I would want as a Hindu is for my religion to be tagged extremist.
Advocating the caste system, calling women not trustworthy, asking people to commit crimes in the name of their religion is as extremist as it can go.
Please give us authentic interpretations of the Gita so that posterity can look at us with pride rather than shame.
Dharmo rakshati rakshitah!
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First of all, it is absolutely wrong on the Indian Government's part to diplomatically "intervene" in the matter. When we, as a sovereign country, expect other countries not to meddle in our affairs, it is only fair that we, as a respected member of the international community, do not meddle in another sovereign country's affairs.
ReplyDeleteNot many of us are qualified enough to interpret the Gita ourselves, and it would be wrong of us to base judgements prima facie, as it is likely to be prejudiced. We have been living amidst Hindu teachings for many years now, and as much as we have been taught to embrace our religion, unfortunately sometimes we have also been programmed to distrust another religion, many a times without any basis. There is no one to blame for this, as this bias is systemic. Some supposed instances like the suppression of Christianity in parts of Karnataka is highly regrettable.
The Gita, like many other religious texts is not so easily interpreted. At times, it is so complicated that there are multiple interpretations possible, and probably the only entity qualified to interpret it correctly is Lord Krishna himself. Swami Prabhupada, like all other humans, is only human, and his interpretations are subject to debate and peer review.
This particular case is nothing special; there are scores of frivolous cases filed everywhere. On a personal level, I am happy that the text has not been banned, primarily because it preserves religious freedom in a major country of the world, not to mention, an important partner for India, historically.
Had the Gita been actually banned, though, it would have been nothing but Russia's loss, because they would be losing out on the immense amount of not-necessarily-religious knowledge in the text.