Casteism and the broken apologetic of Puranic fairy tale allegoryism

 I meant to do this earlier but will convey my belated acknowledgement to Nirmukta, its editors and moderators in getting my post "Upanishads and the Poor Calibre of Hindu Apologists" to a wider audience and generating more reactions and debate.

One of the unintended but nevertheless effective consequences of that article, judging from the reactions, has been to hit the Hindu conservative sensibility on casteism ‘below the belt’ so to say.

Nothing rankles and deflates the typical Hindu cultural pride and jingoism more than the almost never-ending critical refrain on caste discrimination. The guilty squirming of its qualms gets more intense when its scriptures are led through the ‘trail by fire’ of skeptical attacks.

Since Hindu conservatives have no way to defend the stigma of Casteism, they resort to the standard escapism of absolving their scriptures from any blame.

The hollow and bogus argument that Hindu scriptures disapprove and denounce casteism is not going to cut any ice in a debate, because all the arguments made so far are shallow and dubious.

I had challenged in one of my earlier comments  that Hindu religious brigade show verses from scriptures that disapprove/condemn/denounce casteism. That challenge has so far gone a begging.

The only diversionary tactic that has had some dubious success is to beat around the bush on Bhagavad Gita (BG) verses using new and revisionist allegory.

The BG is a slippery, slimy and duplicitous work of Brahminism. To expose its duplicity on casteism requires critical and skeptical analysis which has been attempted but usually falls on the deaf ears of Hindu conservatism.

For example on Varna Samkara (destruction of varna/caste), the BG makes Arjuna the fall guy or sucker by putting almost all Varna Samkara verses into his mouth. It makes Krishna neatly side-step and evade answering the Varna Samkara concerns of Arjuna by resorting to metaphysical nonsense on soul and selfless action.

But Krishna or BG comes back to justifying Varna Dharma in the next chapters by twisting and corrupting the Sankhya’s triguna doctrine and adding Karma to this cocktail mix.

The shrewd tactic of the BG is to never make or reveal its position on caste perpetuation in a single verse or chapter, but to strew and sprinkle it all over the first main chapters. 

Whether intentional or not BG does a classic act of hedging by this verse-scattering tactic, where the divine ordination of caste is thrown in a later chapter while the call to carrying out one’s caste duty is placed in an earlier chapter. 

In a similar way the demotion of lower castes, vilification of women and the glorification of top 2 castes (9.32 and 9.33) is placed in a section of BG that is supposed to elaborate Gnana/Bhakti Yoga, setting it up for a escape hatch of spiritual allegory whenever any unfavorable mention or attack is made on it.

Let’s look at another typical tactic of Hindu conservative flag bearers, which is to use the fictional characters of Puranas who have supposedly risen out of the Caste hierarchy even though they were born Sudras.

Do these names sound familiar to the skeptics:

• Veda Vyasa
• Valmiki
• Vishwamitra
• Satyakama

Now compare the above names with this grand claim and favorite escape clause of Hindu defense:
"You can find a lot of incidents in ancient texts where a Brahman by birth was not considered as a Brahman by virtue of what he was supposed to do or possess. Our texts did never hide any fact."

with the above examples. Are those a lot of examples?. It is not even a handful. And the height of Hindu apologetic pretence is that not one of this is a real world example.

We are not even sure that one real Valmiki who was an illiterate forest brigand indeed himself wrote a huge work of Ramayana in Panini or Patanjali Style Sanskrit. Even the Ramayana legend says that Valmiki became a scholar due to a boon of Narada who took pity on him. 

How does a condescending favor and supernatural act by the Brahminic Narada on a tribal person serve as a testimony that tribals were accepted as sages by a Brahmin dominated society?!. 

Transcending caste induced penury and discrimination by a boon does not show the scripture in a good light unless the dreaded allegory come to the rescue of bumbling Hindu apology.

Veda Vyasa is an excellent testimony/illustration of the debauchery of the Mahabharata age which the savage Aryas has no qualms parading and chronicling, since they must have had the prescience to know that Hindu conservative fools of the 21st century will unite in the defence and apology of the immorality of their arrogant and savage royal ancestors!!.

If the Mahabharata chronicle of the promiscuous orgies of the Brahmins/Kshatriyas are to be believed, Veda Vyasa is not really a Sudra but of mixed Brahmin birth, since he is the product of a ‘spiritual’ sage’s escapade with a foster-child of a fisherman. Even animals were not spared by the lust of our spiritual seers. Just because the irresponsible father could not own up to his sins and crimes, that orphaned state does not necessarily make Vyasa a sudra. Royal shame and obligation also accounts for Vyasa’s rise in the epic, not his work, merits, or a society that was welcoming of lower castes.

Vyasa’s track record in surrogacy is not something that Hindus can be proud of. But Hindus / Brahmins have this insouciance, thick skin and skills of myth-making jugglery where they can white-wash the pimping and surrogacy blots of Veda Vyasa and elevate him by making him the sole author of ghost-written parables and also the compiler of Vedas!!.

Sorry Hindu conservatives!!! we want real examples and not tainted fairy tale ‘anti-heroes’

Now lets prolong the agony of a broken Hindu apology by examining the case of the unfortunate Vishwamitra. The travails of Vishwamitra is an invalid example of overriding of caste identity. This fairy tale is a very good example of the intellectual rivalry between two already elite castes (Brahmin vs Kshatriya). Vishwamitra did not get his way easily and his graduation to the level to Brahmarishi was filled with thorns of Brahminical foul play including Menaka to which he succumbed for quite a while. 

This tale in fact symbolizes how almost impossible it is to get to the privilege of Brahminhood if one is not born into it. The Trishanku swarga episode shows how determined Brahminical authority is in fiercely guarding its inherited turf. 

If Hinduism truly accepts and reveres Vishwamitra why do Hindus still aspire to the real swarga in their Vedic oblations and prayers, and not the second-hand paradise of Trishanku Swarga?.