[INDOLOGY] Sexual Harassment

[farkhondeh iran]

If I may again, I agree with Prof. Slaje on the danger of anachronism and the need to go back to the Sanskrit words. The word kanyā-dūṣaṇa does not occur in KSS XII, 2, 105 cd but the Sanskrit is crystal-clear: it is a case of abuse as the girl is not willing and as the vidyādhara has undertaken to abduct her by force. 


upetya tām anicchantīm haṭhād dhartum pravṛttavān, KSS XII, 2, 105, cd

I. Farkhondeh

> Le 17 oct. 2016 à 21:54, Walter Slaje <slaje at kabelmail.de> a écrit :
> 
> Before rashly jumping to a discussion of “rape” by tacitly presupposing a 21st century Western understanding of its concept and performance also for ancient India, a clarification is required of the concept(s) of “rape” prevailing in premodern Indian thought. What unambiguous words and matching notions have so far been recorded that would correspond to "rape" in accordance with modern Western standards? What normative boundaries of, e.g., “legal” types of marriage such as rākṣasa and piśāca – clear cases of “rape” in Western terms I suppose – needed to be transgressed that facts of rape would have been considered as fulfilled in premodern India? Was kanyā-dūṣaṇa the same as “rape” in our understanding, or simply the spoiling of a virgin so that she could no longer be married off and became a serious damage to her parents?
> 
> In what way can the absolute power a husband would have exercised over his wife (or wives) be categorised in contexts of "rape"?
> 
> Is there any connecting factor of the past that could be related to the extraordinarily high number of filed gang rape cases in present-day India as continuously reported by the Indian media? In this latter regard, a good starting point could perhaps be Gyula Wojtilla's "Women at Work and Their Enemies. A Reappraisal of the Kāmasūtra V, 5, 5 – 10" (I lack the bibliographic citation of his paper at the moment).
> 
> 
> 
> In a more general sense, BĀU (M) VI 4,7 could also be revealing, if just ati-√kram is not understood in line with Śaṅkara’s unconvincing attempts at downplaying the matter, but in accordance with Iva Fiser's „overcome her forcibly“ (Indian Erotics of the Oldest Period, Praha 1966: 116, a book not without its merits).
> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> WS
> 
> 
> -----------------------------
> Prof. Dr. Walter Slaje
> Hermann-Löns-Str. 1
> D-99425 Weimar
> Deutschland
>  
> 
> 2016-10-17 20:08 GMT+02:00 Nityanand Misra <nmisra at gmail.com <mailto:nmisra at gmail.com>>:
> 
> On 17 October 2016 at 22:48, Artur Karp <karp at uw.edu.pl <mailto:karp at uw.edu.pl>> wrote:
> Dear All, 
> 
> Should I understand that there are no traces, no mentions of sexual harrasment in the entire - vast - corpus of ancient/medieval Indian literature?
> 
> 
> 
> A search for rape as the Text Word in the Puranic Encylopedia under http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/PEScan/2014/web/webtc2/index.php <http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/PEScan/2014/web/webtc2/index.php> shows up the following:
> 
> Rape of Rambhā by Rāvaṇa (VR, UK).
> Rape [sic] of Vedavatī by Rāvaṇa (VR, UK). In the VR, it is harassment but not rape. Probably the rape is described in some other R.
> Rape of Madanamañjarī by Rāvaṇa (source?)
> Rape of Cañcalākṣī by Rāvaṇa (KambaR)
> Rape of Arā, daughter of Śukra, by Daṇḍa (VR UK)
> Rape of Ugrasena's wife by the Gandharva Dramila (SB, 10th Canto)
> Attempt to rape Vinayavatī by Raṅgamālī (Kathāsaritsāgara)
> Attempt to rape Pramati by Nala, friend of Sudeva (Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa)
>  
> 
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