French

Dear Roshan,

I know absolutly nothing about hinduism, so I will certainly not try to contradict you. Maybe I do not remember exactly which god is in which category according to Dumezil.

But, well, since I have been far away from being convinced by his work (even his works concerning the roman religion that I know better), I will not insist. I just wanted to give a reference of a book that is very famous in France concerning religion in indo-european contries.


camille

RyanS2

Why does everyone think Dionysus was some sort of sex freak God? The Bacchae play clearly relates that Dionysus was hardly a God of strange rituals, except at certain festivals like every fertility God, (Attis, Tammuz, etc.) His worshippers wanted to be left alone in the mountains. To quote myself:

<a href="http://www.satan4u.8m.com/history/dionysus.html" target="_blank">http://www.satan4u.8m.com/history/dionysus.html</a>

<a href="http://www.satan4u.8m.com/history/dionysos.html" target="_blank">http://www.satan4u.8m.com/history/dionysos.html</a>

"This gets into a contest that needs to go into the Dionysian play. I've already established good evidence that the worship of Dionysus wasn't as frenzied as believe. The first thing to remember in the play is that the women of Theban worshipping Dionysus are being punished. According to the play:

"Therefore I have driven those same sisters mad, turned them All frantic out of doors; their home is now the mountain; Their wits are gone......

For Thebes, albeit reluctantly, must learn in full This lesson, that my Bacchic worship is a matter As yet beyond her knowledge and experience;"

Obviously, because it is beyond the Theban knowledge to even know how to worship Dionysus, and because they are being punished, we can't expect many positive traits of worship to pop-up here. They represent an extreme form physis, (a Greek carnal philosophy), which Dionysus didn't advocate. Indeed, Dionysus was actually a law-giver himself. In real Dionysian worship, as shown from the chorus in the first ode, has a much different sparagmos than the Theban women do. The ritual form speaks of "The slaughtered goat", a singular form, while the Theban women attack every animal goat they can. There's no ritual in what they do, they take it to the mountainside and raid nearby villages.

Ekbert, "Tragedy and After", p. 72, shows that the worship of Dionysus is gentle and blissful, up until external forces threaten it. When the Chorus of Asiatic women are threatened by Pentheus, they do not respond by attacking, instead, they pray for the God to assist them:

"Dionysus! Do your eyes
See us? O son of Zeus, the oppressor’s rod
Falls on your worshippers; come, mighty god,
Brandish your golden thrysus and descend
From great Olympus; touch this murderous man,
And bring his violence to a sudden end!"

[ May 23, 2002: Message edited by: RyanS2 ]</p>

roshan

shiva isnt the god of sex that some people make him out to be either.

shiva is actually a god of renunciation.

however, left hand tantrists(who worship shiva), a sect of tantra believe that they can awaken an energy called kundalini(similar to chi or ki or mana) within them by having pleasure. so they have several ways of havin pleasure, inluding some sex rituals. however, these were never orgies, but were normally done with the wife.

Melysni

As the god of many things, including issues in death and reincarnation, I always thought of Shiva as the Hades of Hinduism, though the parallels there aren't all that strong either.

roshan

the "hades of hinduism" wuold be yama, the god of death,

hinduwoman

Actually Shiva seems to me to be a kind of balance of opposites: he is the ultimate ascetic but also a loving husband and father; he is the destroyer, but without him creation of new universe is not possible.

Here is a folk-song I heard,(approximate translation of the few lines I remember)

Cave-dweller, lover of Parvati
The moon is at his head, the drum at his hand,
The Ganges flow from his hair, snakes are his ornament
The crematarium is his wandering-ground, [he is]gracious towards humans
Dancer of apocalypse, drinking posion to save the world
He is Shiva-Sankar, our darling.


[ June 13, 2002: Message edited by: hinduwoman ]

[ June 13, 2002: Message edited by: hinduwoman ]</p>

hinduwoman

for those unenlightened folks out there when a poison came up from the sea threatening to destroy the world, all other gods ran away; he drank it and made the world safe. Other gods get to drink the ambrosia of immortality, Shiva gets to drink only poison.