There's a case for burning all the holy books
Published: Wednesday, Sep 15, 2010, 3:06 IST
By Venkatesan Vembu | Place: Mumbai
There's an unintended irony about the (eventually aborted) campaign
last week by Terry Jones, the pastor of a fringe church in Florida, to
make a bonfire of copies of the Koran on the grounds that it was an
"evil book". Jones isn't the first man of Christian faith who was
broadcasting to the world his loathing of the Koran and, more broadly,
of Islam. Since the 8th century, when Islam spread across Europe, that
religion and its Holy Book have served as objects of hatred — and, on
occasion, fear — for Christians.
Christian clergymen and scholars branded the Koran the "work of the
devil" that was dangerous to Christian souls, and this revulsion was
immortalised in popular Christian
literature and hymns down the ages.
The "clash of civilisations" continued right up until the 16th
century, when the Ottoman Empire, expanding through conquest, was at
its apex. In the 16th century, however, German theologian Martin
Luther advanced an effort to publish Latin translations of the Koran —
in the belief that free dissemination of Koranic ideas among
Christians would refute "the abomination of Mohammed" and do "grievous
harm" to the Turks. Fighting efforts to censor and prevent the
translation and dissemination of the Koran, Luther wrote: "To honour
Christ, to do good for Christians, to harm the Turks, to vex the
devil, set (the Koran) free…"
In other words, the Florida pastor Jones' campaign against the Koran
only marks the continuation of a medieval-era Crusade mindset, except
that the denunciation of the Koran today finds expression in vastly
different ways. Where once Christian clergymen campaigned to have the
Koran translated and distributed in the belief that dissemination of
its ideas would damn it, today's 'man of the cloth' would rather
organise a bonfire of the scriptures!
There are countless precedents in history for calls to burn the holy
books — even in India, where it happened as part of a process of
'religious reformation' from within. For instance, when Dalits'
historic campaign in Vaikom in the early 20th century for the right to
enter temples met with opposition from orthodox Brahmins who cited the
Hindu scriptures in their defence, Dalit leader BR Ambedkar said that
if, indeed, the scriptures defended the practice of untouchability,
they ought to be burned.
At a later satyagraha led by Ambedkar for Dalits' access to public
water, the Manusmriti, which codified a caste-based social order, was
publicly burnt.
The Zen philosophical tradition exhorts practitioners to "burn the
scriptures" and "kill the Buddha". But this isn't a call to religious
war; it is, rather, an inspiration to reject tradition and the
"fundamentalism" of "doctrines" and, indeed, all external sources of
divinity — and instead make the inner journey into one's one
consciousness, which lies at the core of the Buddhist spiritual order.
An overly faithful abidance by the hardcore fundamentals of
established religious orders lies at the root of most religious
conflicts today. Not only is it building walls and hardening attitudes
all around, it also interferes with the process of interactions based
on humanistic principles.
To the extent that moving away from "ordained" and "revealed"
principles of religious orders can perhaps enable people to interact,
even if only occasionally, in the secular space of humanism, there may
well be a case for symbolically 'burning' all the scriptures by
breaking the constricting bonds of religious fundamentalism.
------------------------------------
----
INFORMATION OVERLOAD?
Get all ZESTCaste mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to ZESTMedia-digest@yahoogroups.com, OR, if you have a Yahoo! Id, change your settings at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/join/
PARTICIPATE:-
On this list you can share caste news, discuss caste issues and network with like-minded anti-caste people from across India and the world. Just write to zestcaste@yahoogroups.com
TELL FRIENDS TO SIGN UP:-
If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a blank mail to ZESTCaste-subscribe@yahoogroups.com OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join/
Also have a look at our sister list, ZESTMedia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
ZESTCaste-digest@yahoogroups.com
ZESTCaste-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ZESTCaste-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
No comments:
Post a Comment