[INDOLOGY] Sexual Harassment

Tue Oct 18 05:20:39 UTC 2016

I have to apologize again, this time for incorrectly spelling "harrassment"
under the influence of nocturnal clouding of consciousness. Kindly take it
as "harassment".
Thanking you, WS

2016-10-18 7:02 GMT+02:00 Walter Slaje <slaje at kabelmail.de>:

> I am sorry the diacritics I use for vedic accents and the hácek (inverted
> circumflex) *never* show in my emails. This is beyond my control. My
> apologies for the inconvenience.
>
>
>
> I was also reminded that the thread is „sexual harrassment“, not „rape“ in
> the strict sense. This is correct. Might I, with your permission, then add
> the innocent question why public sexual harrassment in India is widely
> known as „Eve teasing“?
>
> The vast majority of victims are Indian girls. So, why an English – but
> not an Indian – forename to designate a crime committed by male Indian
> youth gangs against Indian women?
>
> I have never quite understood the background of this bizarre denomination.
> I am afraid in this particular case attempts at linking it to the premodern
> past of India are bound to fail. Are there any explanations on offer?
>
>
>
> Yours, cluelessly,
>
> WS
>
>
> 2016-10-17 22:25 GMT+02:00 Artur Karp <karp at uw.edu.pl>:
>
>> > Iva Fiser
>>
>> Let's please retain Prof. *Ivo **Fišer*'s Czech family name.
>>
>> Artur K.
>>
>> 2016-10-17 22:17 GMT+02:00 farkhondeh iran via INDOLOGY <
>> indology at list.indology.info>:
>>
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>>> ---------- Wiadomość przekazana dalej ----------
>>> From: farkhondeh iran <iran_farkhondeh at yahoo.fr>
>>> To: Walter Slaje <slaje at kabelmail.de>
>>> Cc: Nityanand Misra <nmisra at gmail.com>, indology <
>>> indology at list.indology.info>
>>> Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2016 22:16:11 +0200
>>> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Sexual Harassment
>>>
>>> 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>:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 17 October 2016 at 22:48, Artur Karp <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/w
>>>> eb/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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>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
>

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