Subject: [world-vedic] Correspondence with Dr Kealey-A British Bigot & 'Scholar' From: Vrndavan Parker Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 02:51:38 +0200 (CEST) To: vediculture@yahoogroups.com --- In HinduThought@yahoogroups.com, "Ashok Chowgule" wrote: I am enclosing a correspondence I have had with Dr Terence Kealey, Vice Chancellor of Buckingham University. He had written an article with the title "Why is a Hindu temple like a Soho phone box? Must I draw you a picture?" and was published in The Times, and is available at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2362622,00.html The subject line of the correspondence was: "RE: A BIGOTED PIECE OF WRITING....... BY TIMES,UK". This was the line used by the person who forwarded the article to me and other Hindutvavadis. I decided to keep it as it was. The article is enclosed at the end of the correspondence, which ends with a 'request' that there be no further correspondence on the subject. I have not responded to that message. The reason for sending the correspondence is to give another example of what the Hindus are confronted with in academic circles. Obviously, I think that the fault lies with people like Dr Kealey. The blurb on Dr Kealey from the university website is enclosed after the article. Namaste. Ashok Chowgule ------------------- One To: Dr Terence Kealey Email: terence.kealey@... cc: Colleen Carter (PA to the Vice-Chancellor) Tel: (01280) 820207 Fax: (01280) 820373 Email: colleen.carter@... Dear Dr Kealey, With reference to your article enclosed. Could you tell your readers how many Hindu temples exist in central and southern India which are what you call startingly erotic? And how many of them did you visit before writing your piece? Furthermore, you say: "...we scientists are materialists and we distrust spiritual accounts." Have you applied this principle generally and have written your views about the virgin birth of Jesus Christ and the journey to heaven by Mohammed on a winged horse? I eagerly await your reply. I have cced this message to a friend of mine who resides in the UK. Namaste. Ashok Chowgule, Goa, India. ================ Two Thank you for your e mail. My article made it clear that I was startled by the eroticism of the Indian temples I saw, that I believe in material explanations for natural and human events, and that India is only representative of many pre-free-market societies, many of which engaged in temple prostitution. Why do you call this bigoted? Yrs Terence Kealey ================== Three Dear Dr Kelly, It is bigoted because you have given an impression that in ALL the Hindu tempes in South and Central India are 'startlingly erotic'. And in your response you are giving an impression that temple prostitution is a rule and not an exception. Is it a requirement of being a vice-chancellor not to understand such basic things? Furhtermore, in your response you have not provided me with information about your writings on Christianity and Islam on the issues that I had posed. Your rsponse also talks about 'many pre-free-market societies', and that of these 'many' are engaged in temple prostitution. Can you please list out the other such societies? Namaste. Ashok Chowgule ===================== Four Dear Ashok Chowgule, Thank you for your e mail. The first sentence of my article read:- "The Hindu temples of central and southern India can be startlingly erotic" which is not compatible with the first sentence of your e mail:- "...you have given an impression that in ALL the Hindu tempes in South and Central India are 'startlingly erotic'". Moreover, I have explained that I believe in material explanations for natural and human events, which encompases all religions, and I have explained that I used India only as a representative of many pre-free-market societies (basically because its temples' erotic statues survive and they are so remarkable). As for the evidence of widespread temple prostitution in many cultures, that is the stuff of schools textbooks, it is so well known. Look it up on Wikipedia. I am puzzled by your e mail. Are you denying the existence of erotic statues on Indian temples? Are you denying the existence of temple prostitution in India? Are you suggesting I'm targeting Hinduism because, in a short article where I describe my responses to erotic sculptures in India, I do not engage in a description of Jesus or Mohammed? So, you please answer my questions. And let me add one more to them. How do YOU explain the erotic statues on Hindu temples in India? And if you haven't seen them, look up the reference on Khajuraho on Wikipedia. yrs Terence Kealey PS I do not invoke Wikipedia because I think it's perfect but because it's an on-line encyclopedia that anyone can reference and that is common to you and me in terms of access. ===================== Five Dear Dr Kealey, Let a person from the Third World, and a Hindu to boot, give his understanding of English. You are correct that I interpreted your statement ("The Hindu temples of central and southern India can be startlingly erotic") to mean that you contend that ALL temples are of this type. Now, for a simple person like me, if you had said "SOME Hindu temples", I would not have interpreted the staement as I did. I think, not being brought up in a culture of the Queen's English, the lack of the appropriate adjective would most probably make many others interpret your statement as I did. Just as if I had said that the Christian churches in England are very ugly, I would willingly accept that a person reading my statement would have a poor opinion of my aesthetic values. Re your use of "India only as a representative of many pre-free-market societies (basically because its temples' erotic statues survive and they are so remarkable)." Being born in a third world country, and a Hindu to boot, I am not as well versed in academic standards as you appear to be, at least based on your bio-data that has been posted on your university website. I would have thought that an academic would use a subject as a representative of the argument that he is making only when he is well versed in that subject. And the same academic would surely not use one aspect (in this case the fascination for erotic statues in temples) of the society to make a judgement of the whole society. But then we in the third world may well be wrong, and I would like you to educate us all in the high standards of academics, so that we can improve ourselves. Re your statement: "As for the evidence of widespread temple prostitution in many cultures, that is the stuff of schools textbooks, it is so well known." Obviously you think that temple prostitution is the rule in the Hindu culture. Could you please let us Hindus know which other cutlures is this practice 'widespread'? In the third world textbooks this is not 'the stuff' that is taught to us. Re your statement: "I do not invoke Wikipedia because I think it's perfect but because it's an on-line encyclopedia that anyone can reference and that is common to you and me in terms of access." Does this mean that you have based your arguments on information gleaned from Wikipedia, or on the basis of a more thorough investigation? For example, did you yourself see the erotic statues in the temple of Khajurao or saw some pictures in Wikipedia? You have asked me to answer three questions that you pose. But you have not answered the questions that I had posed earlier. Of course, if it is your contention that a Hindu belonging to the third world has no right to ask questions of a high level academic in the first world, then I will stand corrected, and answer your questions without expecting that I will receive answers to my questions. Namaste. Ashok Chowgule, Goa, India. ===================== Six From: "Terence Kealey" To: "Ashok Chowgule" Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 5:09 PM Subject: RE: A BIGOTED PIECE OF WRITING....... BY TIMES,UK Dear Ashok Chowgule, Thank you for your e mail. If you had written:- "the Christian churches in England can be very ugly" (echoing my words) you would find that most of us would agree. I certainly think most modern and Victorian Christian churches in England are ugly. But you didn't. You wrote:- "the Christian Churches in England are very ugly" (as if echoing my words, but choosing a form of words that is inaccurate and, in the context of this correspondence, misleading). Now you are making the point that you are "a person from the Third World." So? And now you seem to be suggesting that I haven't visited India or seen the temples and their erotic statues! And when I invoke Wikipedia as a frame of reference we can both access and therefore jointly discuss, you ask about other sources of reference! This correspondence is not working. I've tried to answer your points courteously, but you're not addressing me with the same spirit. Let us agree to correspond no more, yrs Terence Kealey ============ Why is a Hindu temple like a Soho phone box? Must I draw you a picture? Science Notebook by Terence Kealey http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2362622,00.html THE HINDU temples of central and southern India can be startlingly erotic. The temples of Khajuraho are the most explicit, being encrusted with statues of naked females" big-breasted and narrow waisted" doing naughty things with rampant men (see them on Google images). How can a religion be so pornographic? The standard explanation is that Hinduism harnessed sex in the service of mysticism, but we scientists are materialists and we distrust spiritual accounts. How would anthropologists explain pornographic temples? The first clue was provided by Robert Carneiro in his paper A Theory of the Origin of the State. There, Carneiro noted that the first states were created by despots, who exploited the introduction of agriculture some 10,000 years ago. Human tribes, Carneiro observes, have fought each other for millennia, but when human beings were still hunter- gatherers a battle led only to the dispersal of the defeated, who melted away. After agriculture was invented, some 10,000 years ago, a defeated tribe could not afford to disperse: it had become dependent on the food of its farms. So, if defeated in battle, agricultural tribes would collude with their victors, producing food in exchange for quarter: Ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food (Genesis 47). The first states, therefore, were cruel places, which exploited men and women. In her book Despotism and Differential Reproduction: A Darwinian View of History, Laura Betzig noted how similarly the early emperors whether in Africa, Asia or America behaved, suggesting that traditional empires can best be understood not historically but biologically, having been moulded by coalitions of dominant males to propagate their genes. All the emperors had harems, for example, and the Indian Udayama's 16,000 women were used similarly to the thousands owned by the Inca Sun King or the Chinese Emperor. Consequently, DNA testing has confirmed that upper- caste females in India are genetically indistinguishable from lower-caste females, because pretty hoi polloi girls have always been imported into the palaces. But the upper-caste males of India who are the descendants of the Aryan conquerors of 5,000 years ago have never allowed male proles to marry their daughters, and they remain genetically distinct. They have, therefore, retained the spoils of conquest for themselves and their sons. One aspect of imperial despotism is the restriction of trade. It was Charles Darwin who noted that trade is a human instinct. In Voyage of the Beagle Darwin described the natives of Tierra del Fuego as primitive, yet: They had a fair idea of barter. I gave one man a large nail (a most valuable present) without making any signs for a return; but he immediately picked out two fish, and handed them up on the point of his spear. Traditional empires, being despotic, restricted trade to the palaces and temples, forbidding hoi polloi from trading or travelling. Only priests and princes and certain privileged merchants (who were closely regulated) traded and travelled. And one lucrative trade that the priests and princes often monopolised was the oldest and most despotic of all, prostitution. Temple prostitution was, therefore, a feature of Hinduism and other imperial cultures and a profitable one too. There were, for example, some 400 women on the payroll at the Rajarajesvara temple in Tanjore in the 11th century. They were procured by priests who roamed the land in search of pretty young girls. Doubtless the girls were seduced by a theology of mysticism, just as the widows who, as suttees, threw themselves on their dead husbands funeral pyres believed they were attaining spiritual purity, but the sexual economics of female exploitation provide a candid explanation of what was happening. As do the statues on the temples. Frankly, they are arousing, even in these jaded times, being more explicit than the photos in today's telephone booths. In short, a millennium ago the temples of India were brothels they may have been more than that, but they were brothels too and they advertised their wares as brothels always have. The erotic temple statues of India remind us, therefore, that kings and priests like politicians today have always been despots. ================== On Terence Kealey The Vice-Chancellor Dr Terence Kealey has been Vice-Chancellor at the University since April 2001. He is a well-known academic specialising in Clinical Biochemistry. Dr Kealey received his doctorate from Oxford University in 1982 and worked as the Wellcome Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Science at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Biochemistry, University of Oxford. He then moved to Cambridge University to become a lecturer in the Department of Clinical Biochemistry. He left in 2001 after 13 years to come to Buckingham. Dr Kealey is known for his book The Economic Laws of Scientific Research and for his journalism and scholarship where he has shown that governments need not fund science or higher education. His argument is that the independent sector can provide wider access and deeper scholarship than the state. Dr Kealey wrote a regular column in the Daily Telegraph until very recently which was thought provoking and often controversial. The Vice-Chancellor is a familiar figure to all staff and students and this adds to the feeling of a close knit community. Dr Terence Kealey Email: terence.kealey@... Colleen Carter (PA to the Vice-Chancellor) Tel: (01280) 820207 Fax: (01280) 820373 Email: colleen.carter@... --- End forwarded message --- From: Jan Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 13:27:45 +0200 (CEST) Reply-To: vediculture@yahoogroups.com Hare Krishna Ashok et all, since Dr Kealey is a biochemist he can't be considered an authority on Indian history (see http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Professor_of_Nothing). Again we see this over and over again repeated denigrating focus on marginal aspects of Indian culture and history presented as typical. Cui bono? Are tantric-like Adamites and witch burning typical for Western religion and history? His article couldn't even provide an answer to its original question, i.e. that Khajuraho sculptures reflect views of tantric Chandela dynasty. Your servant, bh. Jan www.vrindavan-dham.com www.veda.harekrsna.cz (Bhakti-yoga, Vedic Encyclopedia, Vedic Library, Connections, Links)