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Siva: The Erotic Ascetic
Originally published under the title Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva, this book traces the development of an Indian approach to an enduring human dilemma: the conflict between spiritual aspirations and human desires. The work examines hundreds of related myths and a wide range of Indian texts--Vedic, Puranic, classical, modern, and tribal--centering on the stories of the great ascetic, Siva, and his erotic alter ego, Kama.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 2, 2019
I think Wendy is the only woman with the third eye. Her rendition and interpretation of various Saiva myths and her mastery over a vast compendium of Sanskrit literature are outstanding and impressive.
The book includes episodes from Puranas and Vedas, where Siva (sometimes even Bharma and Vishnu) lasciviously indulge in erotic acts of sex and masquerade; bringing upon themselves the wrath of Gods and Sages, routing means through which they achieve release or make an atonement for the excessive and lecherous acts.
But Shiva, in particular, indulges in long periods of an excess of both eroticism and asceticism. Reaching a point of overindulgence. The gods fear both his erotic and ascetic feats and devise means to interrupt his extremities for the sake of the Human world or for the sake of the Gods themselves.
Shiva, an eternal ascetic, who is without desire and fear - forever meditates and will burn anyone who disturbs his tapas (meditation). For he is the enemy of Kama and the pillar of chastity and creative ascetic powers. The Gods constantly remind him of his duties when he is in deep meditation or deep inside Parvati.
The author has a far more enlightened view on the polarities of both asceticism and eroticism; pointing out that both have roots in each other. Siva's ascetic powers are drawn from his inherent erotic nature and his fascinating erotic feats are a result of his ascetic character.
The unmatched ascetic supremacy of Siva is a result of his erotic desires and his very nature being, to gather tapas (inner heat) through asceticism and use it to kill demons or drain it by making love to Parvati for thousands of years without spelling his seed. This sexual feat is made possible by his yogic powers of chastity.
But the Gods fearing Siva's inactivity as an ascetic for long periods or unceasingly making love to Parvati for longer periods, interrupt his act (meditation or sex) and remind him of his duties as creator (and destroyer) pointing his attributes of both a yogi and a householder. The Puranas through Siva attempt to unite the polarities of the ascetic and the erotic householder.
The book includes episodes from Puranas and Vedas, where Siva (sometimes even Bharma and Vishnu) lasciviously indulge in erotic acts of sex and masquerade; bringing upon themselves the wrath of Gods and Sages, routing means through which they achieve release or make an atonement for the excessive and lecherous acts.
But Shiva, in particular, indulges in long periods of an excess of both eroticism and asceticism. Reaching a point of overindulgence. The gods fear both his erotic and ascetic feats and devise means to interrupt his extremities for the sake of the Human world or for the sake of the Gods themselves.
Shiva, an eternal ascetic, who is without desire and fear - forever meditates and will burn anyone who disturbs his tapas (meditation). For he is the enemy of Kama and the pillar of chastity and creative ascetic powers. The Gods constantly remind him of his duties when he is in deep meditation or deep inside Parvati.
The author has a far more enlightened view on the polarities of both asceticism and eroticism; pointing out that both have roots in each other. Siva's ascetic powers are drawn from his inherent erotic nature and his fascinating erotic feats are a result of his ascetic character.
The unmatched ascetic supremacy of Siva is a result of his erotic desires and his very nature being, to gather tapas (inner heat) through asceticism and use it to kill demons or drain it by making love to Parvati for thousands of years without spelling his seed. This sexual feat is made possible by his yogic powers of chastity.
But the Gods fearing Siva's inactivity as an ascetic for long periods or unceasingly making love to Parvati for longer periods, interrupt his act (meditation or sex) and remind him of his duties as creator (and destroyer) pointing his attributes of both a yogi and a householder. The Puranas through Siva attempt to unite the polarities of the ascetic and the erotic householder.
October 8, 2024
How depraved were the dudes (and I'm pretty sure they were dudes) who wrote these Puranas? Do you really want to waste your time reading densely written tales of incest, semen-swallowing gods, and lustful sages? Don't you want to invest your precious time in something far far superior by Wendy Doniger entitled The Hindus?
June 4, 2022
A pendulum of extremes, forever in one form or another, that never attains a perfect balance because the universe is never in a perfect balance. It is a constant motion of forces, that exist in opposition to each other. One lets the rise of the second while keeping it always in control.
Siva is two things - a creator and a destroyer. Siva is an ascetic and he is erotic. He claims sainthood while he tries to woo the wives of the sages. He talks of brahmacharya while he marries Parvati. He is childless and still has sons. He is full of tejas and tapas and kama, all at the same time, and yet they never co-exist. His tapas leads to extreme kama, which in turn leads to more tapas for the energy has now been expended. For Siva, tejas and kama happen one after another in a cyclic motion, and yet they never come together and intermingle. He smears himself with ashes and then goes in to Parvati. While he is the god of the ascetics, his linga is worshipped in the yoni of the Devi. He ridicules other Gods for their households and still runs after Parvati when desire conquers him and yet he burns kama only to revive him when his wife asks him to.
Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty has successfully drawn the beauties and treasures of Indian mythology. She starts with a simple argument that in Indian myth the divine intermingles with the mundane. The problems of everyday life are the problems of the Gods, they too struggle like humans. However, the solutions differ in the cosmic world and in human. While a man when conquered with desire would become a householder, Siva can constantly keep moving between the cycles of a householder and an ascetic. For him, the two phases never co-exist, one does not create an obstacle in the path of the other but instead one leads to another. Indian Hindu myth does not neglect the mundane everyday problems but instead tackles them in the mythical world. The myth-maker makes it possible for the solutions to happen in as logical a manner as can be imagined.
Flaherty studies a vast corpus of literature to write this text. It is a magnificent research work, with details, references, and cross-notes. Never have the myths been studied in such a coherent and logical fashion to draw meaning out of them. Flaherty not only tried to establish Siva as an erotic ascetic, no matter an oxymoron, but proves how it can be possible only in the Hindu myth, just so that she can draw from it how beautiful and magnificent is the literature of the Puranas with its formlessness, vagueness, repetition and recurrent symbols. She implies that how by not providing a solution of balance the myth provides the solution to Siva's extreme forms and nature. After all, there is no need of a balance or a synthesis for change itself is the law of the nature.
Siva is two things - a creator and a destroyer. Siva is an ascetic and he is erotic. He claims sainthood while he tries to woo the wives of the sages. He talks of brahmacharya while he marries Parvati. He is childless and still has sons. He is full of tejas and tapas and kama, all at the same time, and yet they never co-exist. His tapas leads to extreme kama, which in turn leads to more tapas for the energy has now been expended. For Siva, tejas and kama happen one after another in a cyclic motion, and yet they never come together and intermingle. He smears himself with ashes and then goes in to Parvati. While he is the god of the ascetics, his linga is worshipped in the yoni of the Devi. He ridicules other Gods for their households and still runs after Parvati when desire conquers him and yet he burns kama only to revive him when his wife asks him to.
Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty has successfully drawn the beauties and treasures of Indian mythology. She starts with a simple argument that in Indian myth the divine intermingles with the mundane. The problems of everyday life are the problems of the Gods, they too struggle like humans. However, the solutions differ in the cosmic world and in human. While a man when conquered with desire would become a householder, Siva can constantly keep moving between the cycles of a householder and an ascetic. For him, the two phases never co-exist, one does not create an obstacle in the path of the other but instead one leads to another. Indian Hindu myth does not neglect the mundane everyday problems but instead tackles them in the mythical world. The myth-maker makes it possible for the solutions to happen in as logical a manner as can be imagined.
Flaherty studies a vast corpus of literature to write this text. It is a magnificent research work, with details, references, and cross-notes. Never have the myths been studied in such a coherent and logical fashion to draw meaning out of them. Flaherty not only tried to establish Siva as an erotic ascetic, no matter an oxymoron, but proves how it can be possible only in the Hindu myth, just so that she can draw from it how beautiful and magnificent is the literature of the Puranas with its formlessness, vagueness, repetition and recurrent symbols. She implies that how by not providing a solution of balance the myth provides the solution to Siva's extreme forms and nature. After all, there is no need of a balance or a synthesis for change itself is the law of the nature.
April 8, 2024
When the attention of a yogi passes through the golden celestial realms and transcends, the devas (gods) become jealous, it is said, because they are enjoying their world of light so fully, their attention cannot go beyond it. Being jealous of the yogi, the gods send down to Earth celestial nymphs, to entice him from his meditation. This usually works. There are countless stories of such incontinence in the literature of the subcontinent. This is a Western, structuralist approach to the story in all its many forms. A structuralist approach teases out the binary opposites in a myth and also the factor that mediates between them. In this genre of Indian myth, the binary opposite is asceticism : eroticism. And the mythic personality who mediates between the two is Shiva, who is both and neither.
The maestro of its approach was the anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss, whose masterful Mythologiques, which follows the variants of a myth all the way from the southern tip of the Americas to the northernmost top. Although fascinating, this method has been criticized for being too reliant on the subjectivity of the mythologist. Also, many in India who do not consider these myths to be unreal, write off such Western efforts as misinterpretations. Edward Said, in Orientalism, labels Western scholars studying the Orient as Orientalists, which is not a flattering term.
The maestro of its approach was the anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss, whose masterful Mythologiques, which follows the variants of a myth all the way from the southern tip of the Americas to the northernmost top. Although fascinating, this method has been criticized for being too reliant on the subjectivity of the mythologist. Also, many in India who do not consider these myths to be unreal, write off such Western efforts as misinterpretations. Edward Said, in Orientalism, labels Western scholars studying the Orient as Orientalists, which is not a flattering term.
May 27, 2012
Il problema di questo come di altri (ma soprattutto di questo!) libri della Doniger?
In mezzo a un'introduzione e una conclusione esili si trovano centinaia di pagine che raccolgono miti d'ogni sorta senza che venga posta tra questi alcuna minima relazione.
L'impressione è quella di una serie enorme di documenti catalogicamente allineati in sequenza, privi di una qualunque guida per districarvisi.
L'impressione è quasi quella che la Doniger, più che libri, scriva delle enciclopedie mancate...
In mezzo a un'introduzione e una conclusione esili si trovano centinaia di pagine che raccolgono miti d'ogni sorta senza che venga posta tra questi alcuna minima relazione.
L'impressione è quella di una serie enorme di documenti catalogicamente allineati in sequenza, privi di una qualunque guida per districarvisi.
L'impressione è quasi quella che la Doniger, più che libri, scriva delle enciclopedie mancate...
April 3, 2010
Riveting, yet hilarious: Classic Wendy Doniger.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews