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Apr. 10th, 2004 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
novapsycheWrath over a Hindu God
Folklore has it that elephants never forget, and Paul Courtright has reason to believe it. A professor of religion at Emory University, he immersed himself in the story of Ganesha, the beloved Hindu god with the head of an elephant. Detecting provocative Oedipal overtones in Ganesha's story -- and phallic symbolism in his trunk -- he wrote a book setting out his theories in 1985.
Nineteen years later, thanks to an Internet campaign, the world has rediscovered Courtright's book. After a scathing posting on a popular Indian Web site, he has received threats from Hindu militants who want him dead.
[...] New Jersey entrepreneur Rajiv Malhotra argued that Doniger and her students had eroticized and denigrated Hinduism, which was part of the reason "the American mainstream misunderstands India so pathologically."
Folklore has it that elephants never forget, and Paul Courtright has reason to believe it. A professor of religion at Emory University, he immersed himself in the story of Ganesha, the beloved Hindu god with the head of an elephant. Detecting provocative Oedipal overtones in Ganesha's story -- and phallic symbolism in his trunk -- he wrote a book setting out his theories in 1985.
Nineteen years later, thanks to an Internet campaign, the world has rediscovered Courtright's book. After a scathing posting on a popular Indian Web site, he has received threats from Hindu militants who want him dead.
[...] New Jersey entrepreneur Rajiv Malhotra argued that Doniger and her students had eroticized and denigrated Hinduism, which was part of the reason "the American mainstream misunderstands India so pathologically."
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elephants never forget
Gods are masks that humans put on ourselves and/or the things we feel very strongly about. We are the puppetmasters. Gods aren't trademarked, either, so I could say things like "Jesus built my hotrod" and "Kali's the best I've ever danced with", and it doesn't kill your idea of Kali-Ma or Jesus.
Words lie. People don't own ideas.
A.