05-04-2007, 05:32 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-Hauma Hamiddha+May 4 2007, 04:41 AM-->QUOTE(Hauma Hamiddha @ May 4 2007, 04:41 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->As per the tantra-s women and 4th varNas might receive a tAntric dIkSha of upanayana which makes them eligible perform the rites prescribed in those texts. We have statues and vIrakal-s in south India where there are women shown wearing the upavIta- so at some point this happened in the south. One of these statues is of a great tantric female guru seen in Karnataka not far from where I was born.
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Many great tantras have such gems! Unfortunately many so called tantras are filled with horrors too. It seems at some point some people with a penchant for black-magic wrote a bunch of texts and tried to buy respectability by giving them the form of tantra Agama, i.e. in the form of a dialog between shiva and shakti.
There hasn't been a collective hindu attempt to decide upon the hindu canon. Budhists did it, christians did it, muslims did it. But in hinduism anyone can write up a text and give it a form of Agama or upanishad (e.g. allopanishad) or purAna, and over centuries that starts getting counted as "official" hindu scripture.
There is a need for some house cleaning. Of course it has to be done with care and the principle shouldn't be majority deciding which texts to toss out, but whether any minority within hinduism would care to defend such texts.
This will also have salutary effects on creating a proper "hindu narrative".
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Many great tantras have such gems! Unfortunately many so called tantras are filled with horrors too. It seems at some point some people with a penchant for black-magic wrote a bunch of texts and tried to buy respectability by giving them the form of tantra Agama, i.e. in the form of a dialog between shiva and shakti.
There hasn't been a collective hindu attempt to decide upon the hindu canon. Budhists did it, christians did it, muslims did it. But in hinduism anyone can write up a text and give it a form of Agama or upanishad (e.g. allopanishad) or purAna, and over centuries that starts getting counted as "official" hindu scripture.
There is a need for some house cleaning. Of course it has to be done with care and the principle shouldn't be majority deciding which texts to toss out, but whether any minority within hinduism would care to defend such texts.
This will also have salutary effects on creating a proper "hindu narrative".