The Hebrew Bible does not have a lenient view on idolatry. The Genesis, besides talking about the origins of the world and the existence of evil, also wonders how could idolatry exist in a world created by a good god. The authors of the Bible lived in a region where the worship of little household idols and local fertility deities were common and it is believed that this rant against idolatry was an attempt at distinguishing themselves from the local customs and traditions. When God makes a covenant with Abraham and promises him the land, one of the justifications is that the current inhabitants were polluting it with idolatry. The primary book of the Priestly school talks about ritual purity and moral purity and the three heinous sins on the moral side were idolatry, homicide and sexual transgressions. Since idolatry defiles the land, the offenders are to be stoned. All this is put to test during the Queen of Sheba’s tempestuous visit to Jerusalem during Solomon’s reign.
According to myth, the Queen of Sheba, on hearing about the wisdom of Solomon, visits him. He too has heard about her and her cloven feet. Solomon talks to her about his God Yahweh and she converts. In the movie, the narrative is completely different. The Egyptian Pharaoh and the Queen of Sheba (Gina Lollobrigida) are allies who after failing in an effort to capture Israel come up with another plan. The Queen will travel to Jerusalem and influence Solomon (Yul Brynner). She will introduce pagan rituals which involve idols to Egypt and thus cause a rift between Solomon and his people. Once that is done it would be easy to conquer Israel.
It was a solid plan with one major loophole. The pagan fell in love with the monotheist. The monotheist too fell in love with the pagan and was willing to do anything to please her including giving permission for an an orgy festival. This, as expected, turns the clergy against Solomon. God too turns against Solomon and hits the temple and the Sheban idol with lightning. Meanwhile the Egyptians, who were waiting for an opportune moment, attack and Solomon’s army has to retreat. Hearing the news, the Queen of Sheba goes to the temple and affirms the supremacy of the one and only God. Solomon too asks for forgiveness. Everything goes well as Solomon defeats Egypt and returns right in time to Jerusalem to save Queen of Sheba from death by stoning. God forgives the Queen, but mandates that she return back to her country. Sheba returns, carrying Solomon’s baby.
The movie ends at that point, but according to an Ethiopian legend, the son of Sheba and Solomon returns to Jerusalem to meet his father. But on his return, he takes the Ark of the Covenant and the Ark has stayed in Ethiopia ever since. Reference:
Rigveda MS in Sanskrit on paper
..is in dire straits according to this article from Samskrita Bharati. Here is the original article and here are some excerpts from the English translation.
What is this serious situation? The place of Sanskrit in schools is the biggest base of Sanskrit these days. But that also seems to be slipping away now. With the advent of the rule that to be a teacher in Elementary and Secondary schools, a teacher-qualification-examination must be passed. However, in many places for those exams Sanskrit subject is not set by the government. In these boards, we are able to secure this by going to the court – CTET exam coordinated by CBSE and Haryana’s TET examinations. But, for TET conducted by UP even the Highcourt did not help Sanskrit in this matter related to examinations. We don’t know how many courts in how many states we’ll have to go.
In Central (kendriya) Schools, at present English, Hindi and Sanskrit – these three languages are taught. But now as an option to Sanskrit, these two languages are offered – French and German. Central Schools follow the syllabus created by Central Board of Secondary Education, and in that syllabus as a third language these option of Foreign languages was already provided – so for this reason we cannot go to court related to this matter. (The adoption of Foreign Languages in the three-language-formula is another topic and some people are thinking about going to court regarding it)
In Maharastra’s Marathi Secondary Schools, Hindi is taught as a compulsory third language. Maharastra government changed the rule and said that in its place German or French can also be taught. Due to this there was a commotion in the state assembly and the Governement revoked the new rule. It had justified the change claiming that students studying in English-medium schools score higher due to the Foreign languages but the students studying in villages are deprived of high scores due to this rule.
Japanese Troops, Sino-Japanese War, 1894
When we look at the period between the Anglo-Indian war of 1857 and Indian independence in 1947, it is important to view it not in isolation, but in the backdrop of global events during that 90 year period. Instead of viewing that 90 year period as one block, we will look at the common themes till the start of World War I as it was a period of imperial expansion and reactions to it.
Mercantilism and tributary system was replaced by capitalism. Spurred by the second industrial revolution, big companies came into existence and there was a need for cheap access to raw materials for the industrial complex. Goods that were the result of mass production could now, due to improvements in transportation, be shipped around the world easily. The rise of joint stock companies and large financial institutions helped scale the industrial production. Also, thanks to war, technologies like steam powered gunships and breech loading rifles helped imperialists conquer countries which would provide them with raw materials and also serve as captive markets. During this period, we United States, Europe, Japan and Russia became new economic titans and started competing with Britain.
Another source of imperial expansion was the rise of nation states and a part of nation building involved conquering new territories, like what Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama did in the 15th century. Newly formed countries like Germany and Italy competed with the other industrialized countries in this matter. This also allowed “Enlightenment” driven countries to display their hypocrisy as they colonized people around the world.
A third source were missionaries. In Africa, the European missionaries saw a great opportunity to display their religious intolerance by failing to respect native traditions. They felt an urgent need to “civilize” Africa and “save” the souls and in fact in countries like Uganda, northern Nigeria and central Africa, missionaries went ahead of the European armies. Americans too used religion as a reason for their imperialist cause. The Berlin Conference on partition of Africa, 1884
United States, which was once a colony itself, started grabbing frontier lands once they became a nation. By coining a phrase called “Manifest Destiny” and touting their exceptional role in the world which was based on unverifiable divine assertions, United States used muscle power to deprive the indigenous people of their land. Once the natives were conquered, this theory was applied to rest of the world and soon Puerto Rico, Cuba and Philippines came under American control, apparently to rescue them from Spanish tyranny.
Following the Anglo-Indian war of 1857, the crown took over the administration of India and also expanded to Malaya and Burma for oil and rubber. The French colonized Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, while the Dutch took over coffee production in Indonesia. Following Commodore Perry’s visit to Japan in 1853 the Dutch, British, Americans and Russians forced the Japanese to sign humiliating treaties giving them favored access to its port and exemption from local laws. Following the Meiji restoration, Japan conquered Korea and Manchuria and defeated China. The worst was saved for Africa where in a meeting in Berlin, the continent was carved up among seven European countries. If you look up the history of Carl Peters, Cecil Rhodes and King Leopold of Belgium, you can see what really happened.
A consequence of imperial expansion was economic development for the benefit of the imperial forces. In the frontier lands of United States and British Raj, new railway lines were laid and telegraph was introduced, While this looked like generosity from the colonizers, the truth is that the colonies themselves paid for all this. Dams were built and agriculture and tea plantations prospered. Japanese built transportation networks and educations institutions in the colonies of Taiwan and Korea mostly for their own benefit. Mutilated people from Congo Free State, 1905
But there were disastrous consequences for the subjugated. For example, in Indonesia, the Dutch policies resulted in widespread famine. In Africa it caused dislocation of families as people were forced to move across distances to find employment in mining industry or in plantations. The imperial expansion resulted not just in the domestic movement of labor but also in the movement of labor across nations as Indians moved to South Africa, Japanese moved to Brazil and Chinese to California. But once the colonies were stabilized like in Africa, riches started flowing to the industrialized countries.
There were radical changes in some of the countries involved in imperialism. Japan, during the Meiji restoration and in an attempt to keep up with the Western forces, abolished the feudal system, modeled its Constitution on Germany, had its army trained by Prussians. The Russians, following the defeat in the Crimean War by the British, French and Ottomans realized that their weapons were inadequate and their supply chain, weak. Serfdom was abolished, industrialization was pursued and the Trans-Siberian Railroad constructed linking Moscow to Vladivostok.
There was a cultural impact as well as it led to the loss of traditional values and identity of local people.The languages (English, French, Spanish) and religion (Christianity) of the colonizers were inflicted on the native population. There was a racial separation of people as well. The colonized were not given the same rights; in India and other colonies, the colonizers never mingled with the local population and kept them at their place. People of American colonies could never become American citizens, in British caste system Indians were in the lower rung and Japan considered Okinawans backward.
Thus as the colonizers gained power and wealth, resentment grew among the subjects. It resulted in armed resistance in countries like Indonesia and Senegal and violent and non-violent resistance in countries like India. As empires jostled for supremacy, the response to imperialism was the rise of nationalism in the colonized countries. All the way from India to Philippines to Cuba to Latin America, nationalist movements arose to overthrow the colonists.
(Adapted from a writing assignment for A History of the World since 1300 course) Reference
Tignor, Robert, Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron, Stephen Kotkin, Suzanne Marchand, Gyan Prakash, and Michael Tsin. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World: From 1000 CE to the Present (Third Edition). Third Edition. W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.
Apsidal Structures and Fire Altars (from ASI report 1997-1998)
The area covered by Harappan civilization was bigger than ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia combined and there are various model which try to explain how the land was administered. One model suggests that it was not centrally governed, but had various domains centered around five major cities. While Mohenjo-daro and Harappa are the most well known sites of the Indus-Saraswati civilization, Rakhigarhi in Haryana, which was probably one of those capital cities, is less known. Located on the dry river bed of Saraswati, apsidal structures and fire altars too have been discovered there.
In an interview with Sunday Guardian, Vasant Shinde, Professor of Archaeology at Deccan College talks about Rakhigarhi and the question of Aryan invasion/migration.
Has Rakhigarhi been able to shed any light on the theory of the origin and history of Aryans?
It is an intriguing question, one that can be understood only by identifying the actual cultural sequence of the Ghaggar/Saraswati. There are different hypotheses as regards the identity of the people who thrived on the banks of the Saraswati. Some people believe these were Aryans while others insist they were non-Aryans. My argument is that from 7000 BC onwards, we don’t have any evidence of people migrating. If we say the Aryans came from outside, it should reflect in their lifestyle. From 7000 BC onwards, we have been able to observe that they are the same people. Studying Rakhigarhi has been a study of their legacy. The model Haryana household today is exactly how the households of people must have been thousands and thousands of years ago. There are too many similarities between modern day and ancient Rakhigarhi to ignore.[Harappa’s greatest centre sheds light on our today]
Amaravati is another famous Buddhist site located close to the Krishna River and is believed to date to around the 3rd century BCE. The large mahastupa was originally built by King Ashoka while many other buildings are said to have been constructed over at least four phases. The Amaravati ruins first caught the attention of scholars in the late 19th century and a number of collections of artifacts from Amaravati complex are exhibited in a number of museums around the world. Relic caskets were discovered here during the excavations conducted during the period of 1957-67 at the mahastupa site. It is said that there is evidence to state that a Mahayanic site was later transformed into a Tantric Vajrayana site. The style of sculpture style is in fact referred to as the Amaravati School of Art or Amaravati Sculpture and is well known for its narrative style.
A few years back there was an excellent Malayalam movie called Nottam which was based on the life of Kudiyattam performers (See few clips). David Shulman has a long piece in The New York Review of Books about this art form.
Kudiyattam plays, always based on classical Sanskrit texts, many of them composed in Kerala, invariably include a long nirvahanam or “retrospective” in which a character reveals, mostly by the silent language of hand- and eye-gestures, abhinaya, the long process that has brought him or her to the present moment in the play. In the course of performing this retrospective, the solitary actor frequently adopts other personae, always signaling such a transition by a coded move familiar to the spectators—usually by tying or untying the tasseled ends of a long cord that forms part of his elaborate costume of red, white, and black cloth, rich ornament with many reflecting surfaces, and a high headdress. This condensation of many voices in a single actor (called pakarnattam, “exchanging roles”) is a hallmark of the tradition and a clear innovation in relation to what we know of classical Sanskrit drama. Sanskrit verses and prose passages from the original text of the play are recited, or rather sung, always in a peculiar, high-pitched musical style that includes several distinct ragas or recitation modes; but the great bulk of the performance is devoted to the actor’s silent enactment and elaboration of such passages, to the accompaniment of the drums.
Kerim Friedman writes about Nicholas Dirks’s Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India
One of Dirks’ most important books is Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India in which he argues that India’s contemporary caste system was largely a colonial invention. This isn’t to say that there wasn’t something called caste before colonialism, just that caste in its present form was shaped by the colonial process. Nor was this shaping of caste purely a top-down matter, but something that happened through a process that heavily involved the Indian people themselves. Both the Brahmins who worked closely with the British to encode the caste system in the new bureaucracy, as well as the ordinary people, many of whom organized politically to ensure that their caste status was listed favorably in the census. While the “invented” nature of caste is still a matter of considerable academic debate, much of the debate is over how extensive and how formalized caste was in pre-colonial India. Most scholars accept Dirks’ argument that caste was profoundly altered as a result of the colonial encounter.
The cinchona bark was the source for quinine and was required in large quantities to deal with the malaria fever which was rampant all over India and many other parts of the world. The cinchona bark was brought to Europe by the Jesuits and was called the Jesuit bark. The demand for the bark soon outgrew the supply. European powers vied with each other to get hold of the seedlings so that it could be planted in their colonies in Africa and Asia. But it was only by the middle of the 19th century that the cinchona seedlings were successfully smuggled out of South America. By 1867, the commercial cultivation of cinchona in the Nilgiris gained popularity. Cinchona was planted in a woody ravine on the slopes of the Doddabetta. Labor was scarce and many of the government and private plantations used convict labor to clear the jungle and to plant cinchona. The convicts were mainly Chinese from the Straits Settlements and some from mainland China. After they served their time, these Chinese men married Tamil women and settled down to live in Naduvattam; making a living out growing vegetables and from dairy farming.
In 1888, a rich man named Buchi Babu created the Madras United Cricket Club and that marked the birth of Indian cricket in the city. Sriram writes about Buchi Babu.
Most of the members were boys from poor families. Parents considered cricket a waste of time and very reluctantly allowed the boys to play the game. Orthodoxy was another factor, for cricket did not recognise caste barriers. It was common for players to slink away from home in dhotis and then change to trousers at the venue, for leaving home wearing trousers was a sure sign of going out to play. Opposing teams were invariably from schools and colleges. And it was from them that Buchi Babu selected promising youngsters. He imported shirts, trousers, cricket boots, bats, balls, gloves and other equipment for his players and encouraged them in every way. Over time, the MUC became known for its six perfect pitches, all better than those of the Chepauk-based, English-only Madras Cricket Club (MCC). And it was Buchi Babu’s dream that his MUC would one day be invited to play against the MCC.
Sardar Patel had supported the cause of Himachal Pradesh and admitted as early as 1948 that “the ultimate objective is to enable this area to attain the position of an autonomous province of India.” On the other hand, Nehru and other Congressmen considered HP to be economically unviable and were pushing for its merger into Punjab…..no doubt with an eye out for the completion of the Bhakra-Nangal project. One of the other arguments made was that HP lacked administrative officers of good calibre since the territory was mostly made up of princely states. But the local leaders as well as princes of Himachal opposed such a merger on cultural and geographical grounds.
With this edition the Carnival completes 5 years with the help of regular contributors like Sandeep V and Feanor. If you have any links for the carnival, please send it to varnam.blog @gmail. The next carnival will be up on Jan 15th.
Hilary Mantel won the Man Booker Prize for her novel Wolf Hall in 2009. She won the Man Booker once again in 2012 for the sequel Bring Up the Bodies. In a Fresh Air interview, she talks about her technique
I make up as little as possible. I spend a great deal of time on research, on finding all the available accounts of a scene or incident, finding out all the background details and the biographies of the people involved there, and I try to run up all the accounts side by side to see where the contradictions are, and to look where things have gone missing. And it’s really in the gaps, the erasures, that I think the novelist can best go to work, because inevitably in history, in any period, we know a lot about what happened, but we may be far hazier on why it happened. And there’s always the question: Why did it happen the way it did? Where was the turning point? Every scene I go into, I’m looking for these contradictions, antagonisms, turning points, and I’m trying to find out the dramatic structure of history, if you like.[Mantel Takes Up Betrayal, Beheadings In ‘Bodies’]
You can listen to the entire interview on this page. In Guardian, she explains how she wrote Wolf Hall
After I had written the first page I was flooded by exhilaration. I am usually protective of my work, not showing it to anyone until it has been redrafted and polished. But I would have liked to walk around with an idiot grin, saying to the world: “Do you want to see my first page?” Soon the complexity of the material began to unfold. So many interpretations, so many choices, so much detail to be sifted, so much material: but then, suddenly, no material, only history’s silences, erasures. Until a late stage, what would become a trilogy was still one book. It was only when I began to explore the contest between Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More that I realised I was writing the climax of a novel, not merely another chapter. The facts of history are plain enough, but the shape of the drama was late to emerge, and the triple structure later still. In my mind, the trilogy remains one long project, with its flickering patterns of light and dark, its mirrors and shadows. What I wanted to create is a story that reflects but never repeats, a sense of history listening and talking to itself.[Hilary Mantel: how I came to write Wolf Hall]
The ruins of Sikandar Bagh palace showing the skeletal remains of rebels in the foreground, Lucknow, India, 1858
From the late eighteenth century to mid-nineteenth century, as the world changed through conquest, colonialism and capitalism, a set of people rose around the world, reacting against such changes. Ironically, global historians – historians who look beyond regional and local causes – call these men prophets in an ode to Abrahamic religions. During this period of encounters and social changes, these charismatic leaders revitalised traditional ways and reorganised societies to challenge foreign institutions and ideas. Garnering support of broad swaths of society, they promised to restore lost harmony, bring in a new moral order, and a bright future. While global historians were able to find leaders for such movements in China, Middle East, United States, Mexico and Europe, they missed the leaders of the First War of Independence in India and fell back on the same old narratives.
As we look at examples from around the world, we get to see some of the qualities and methods of these leaders who influenced fields as diverse as economics, politics and religion. Due to encounters with the Western world, new ideas circulated in the Islamic world and alarmed by the lax religious practices and attempts by rulers in Saudi Arabia and sub-Saharan Africa to model their administration along European lines, leaders arose to return Islam back to its pure form. In Saudi Arabia, this led to the rise of Wahhabism under the leadership of Ibn abd al-Wahhab (1703 – 1792) whose work still influences the modern world. In West Africa, Usman dan Fodio (1754 – 1817) too attacked unbelievers and false religions and his movement led to Islam becoming a majority religion in the Nigerian region. Tecumseh
During this period, leaders also provided political leadership and created larger states from tribal clans. As Africa became overpopulated and there was competition for cattle-grazing and farming lands, small family clans found themselves overwhelmed. This traditional structure which had existed for centuries could no longer cope with the changes brought by long distance trade. It was the right moment for a cruel and powerful leader like Shaka (1787 – 1828) to rise up, wipe out other clans and unite the winners into a large monarchy, which in turn led to the creation of the Zulu kingdom. In the United States of America, Native Americans had to compete for land with the European colonisers who forcefully took over their land. As a reaction, groups under leaders like Tenskwatwa (1775 – 1836) and Tecumseh (1768 – 1813) exhorted their followers to renounce European goods and shun the missionaries. They tried to forge unity among native Americans, but were eventually betrayed by the British and left to perish.
In China, after a humiliating defeat in the Opium War that forced the country to open other ports to foreign merchants, there rose a fear of western power. During that period, as the rulers became inefficient, masses of people joined what is known as the Taiping Rebellion, motivated by a Christian leader named Hong Xiuquan (1813 – 1864). Like the Islamic leaders in Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, his goal was to return China to an era before it was corrupted by human conventions. Their war was not against the Europeans, but against the Chinese leaders who they thought were the main obstacle in obtaining God’s kingdom on earth. Hong came up with a radical new system which basically countered all the established Chinese traditions, but in the end it was defeated.
Analysis of these prophetic movements across the world show that whenever there is a structural change – in religion or rebellions – it is triggered by a leader. These revolutions were not accidents, but the result of planned action by certain individuals who inspired the masses through messages, symbols and charisma. In the pantheon of prophets we see leaders like Jacinto Pat and Cecilio Chi who led the Mayans in 1847 by blending Christian rituals with Mayan beliefs, Charles Fourier who had a utopian socialist vision and Karl Marx who inspired many nations and their leaders with this theory of proletarian revolt. While many such movements were defeated, the ideas they created lived longer. Wikipedia says this picture is Tantya Tope, after his capture in 1859, but this is a fake(See note 2)
When global historians evaluate the “Rebellion of 1857” in this context, it is mentioned as an uprising which was sparked by the greased cartridge controversy. Compared to the other global revolutions, this one was not triggered by any prophet, but was a spontaneous uprising or mutiny and it was after the uprising happened that leaders came up. But if one asks questions like how thousands of Indian soldiers marched successfully to Delhi without a supply line, it is evident that something is missing from the known narrative.
New, as well as ignored evidence now tell us that the Anglo-Indian war of 1857 was a carefully planned operation. Leaders like Baija Bai Shinde, Nana Saheb and his Diwan Tatya Tope, Begum Hazrat Mahal, and the Nawab of Banda were involved in the planning using red lotus flowers and chappatis to count the number of soldiers and ensure the commitment of the villages along the army path. Letters translated for the first time in Parag Tope’s “Operation Red Lotus” reveal that Tatya Tope was aware of military movements, logistics and provisions.
Global historians alone cannot be blamed for this lapse because Indian historians themselves have not accepted this view. Then, misrepresentation of the war of 1857 is not new. Depending on the bias of historians, it had many interpretations. According to the official version by Surendra Nath Sen, it was a spontaneous uprising. Marxist historians marginalised the leadership and saw it as a peasant revolt. Another Indian historian wondered how it could be a war at a time when India was not a nation. Now we know that the leaders of the war of 1857 used symbols (red lotus) and messages (Azamgarh proclamation) similar to the prophets of China and USA, and promised a new moral order where people would have political, religious and economic freedom.
Thus, the Anglo-Indian war of 1857 doesn’t have to be relegated to a secondary status in the global prophetic narrative as it satisfies the criteria met by the others. Notes
Tignor, Robert, Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron, Stephen Kotkin, Suzanne Marchand, Gyan Prakash, and Michael Tsin. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World: From 1000 CE to the Present (Third Edition).W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.
Tope, Parag. Tatya Tope’s Operation Red Lotus. Rupa & Co., 2010.
[This post is in response to this news item – “Archaeologists confirm Indian civilization is 2000 years older than previously believed”. It is adapted from Michel’s response on IndiaArchaeology eGroup – JK] Early farming village in Mehrgarh, c. 7000 BC
Seing that several blogs and mass mailers are repeating this piece of “news”, I would like to emphasize that the article sensationalizes things without understanding the issue. The Indus-Sarasvati civilization (accepting that the word “civilization” connotes urbanism) emerges around 2600 BC, and those dates have not been challenged.
It has long been established — for at least 20 years — that its antecedents at Mehrgarh (Baluchistan) go back to the 8th millennium BCE, in the context of a Neolithic rural society, that is with just stone tools, yet a fairly advanced agricultural economy. The new development (“new” meaning some seven years) is the comparable antiquity of the earliest stages at Bhirrana (Haryana) excavated by the late L.S. Rao. This is also a rural stage, which probably straddles the Neolithic and the Chalcolithic; the pottery type is the Hakra ware, which has emerged at a few other sites of the Sarasvati basin in Haryana (such as Farmana) and Cholistan (in Pakistan).
How such antecedents, whether in Baluchistan or in the Sarasvati region and probably with contributions from other regions, converged towards the Early Harappan stage (usually dated from 3800 BCE) is the very interesting question which should have been addressed instead. As too often, the media hype conceals the real issues.
In any case the dates for the Indus cities — Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Kalibangan or Dholavira — in their Mature urban stage will not change. They are firmly in the 3rd millennium BCE, as hundreds of carbon 14 and thermoluminescence have established.
The teaching Confucius. Portrait by Wu Daozi, 685-758, Tang Dynasty
Xi Shi, who was a contemporary of Buddha, was one of the four beauties of ancient China. It seems she was so beautiful that when they looked her, the fish forgot to swim and sank and the birds forgot to flap their wings and fell to the ground. She was the concubine of King Fuchai of Wu who it seems was so smitten by her beauty that like King You of the Zhou, he forgot his dharma. King Fuchai’s kingdom was invaded and he was forced to commit suicide.
Examples of Bao Si and Xi Shi taught the Chinese that women can be dangerous and can bring down the city and the nation. Thus when the heavy handed Qin dynasty collapsed and the Han dynasty emerged in the 3rd century BCE, they made changes to differentiate themselves from the Qin. Since the Qin followed a centralized model of administration, the Han followed a decentralized model. The Han also switched from the legalistic model to a Confucian model and with that patriarchy was built into the system.
It was clear that women were trouble and had to be kept out of power. If a woman was educated, it was considered equivalent to arming the enemy. There were three obedience and four virtues a woman had to practice in the Confucian culture.
The three obediences dictate that a woman must obey her father before manage, her husband after marriage and her sons after her husband’s death.These rules originated in conventions concerning the appropriate length of a woman’s mourning period following the death of her father and husband, gradually becoming the normative code insuring women’s lifelong subordination to men.[Women in Chinese Martial Arts Films of the New Millennium: Narrative Analyses and Gender Politics]
The four virtues related to the behavior of women and was adopted by families across the nation and the subordination of women was institutionalized.
What about Greece, the land of democracy and culture? It is from Greece that we get the story of Pandora, the woman who bought all the evils to humanity, thus hammering a similar point that women are a problem and have to be controlled. According to Meno, “A woman’s virtue, if you wish to know about that, may also be easily described: her duty is to order her house, and keep what is indoors, and obey her husband.”
From Greece again comes the story of Tiresias which goes like this. Once Zeus and his wife Hera have an argument on who has more pleasure during sex – man or woman. Since they could not come to an agreement, they called Tiresias who was transformed as a woman for seven years (long story). Tiresias replied, “”Of ten parts a man enjoys one only.” Once again, a good reason to control women.
Pandora was followed by Eve in the Hebrew Bible and all these stories, from the East and West, justified patriarchy. As global historians, when we examine such stories we find that patriarchy was not restricted to just one culture, but it transcended space in the ancient world. References:
Lecture 18, 24of MMW 11 by Prof. Matthew Herbst at UCSD
Chen, Ya-chen. Women in Chinese Martial Arts Films of the New Millennium: Narrative Analyses and Gender Politics. Lexington Books, 2012.
In his new book Paul and Jesus, Prof. James Tabor explains the important role that Paul, who never met Jesus, plays in the creation of Christianity. He argues that the fundamental tenets of Christianity as practiced by various denominations come from Paul and not Jesus himself.
The fundamental doctrinal tenets of Christianity, namely that Christ is God “born in the flesh,” that his sacrificial death atones for the sins of humankind, and that his resurrection from the dead guarantees eternal life to all who believe, can be traced back to Paul — not to Jesus. Indeed, the spiritual union with Christ through baptism, as well as the “communion” with his body and blood through the sacred meal of bread and wine, also trace back to Paul. This is the Christianity most familiar to us, with the creeds and confessions that separated it from Judaism and put it on the road to becoming a new religion.[Christianity Before Paul]
But what were the original teachings of Jesus?
What we get in the letter of James is the most direct possible link to the Jewish teachings of Jesus himself. James is quite sure that the “Judge” is standing at the door, and that the kingdom of God has drawn very near (James 5:7). He warns the rich and those who oppress the weak that very soon the judgment of God will strike. James seems to be directly echoing and affirming what he had learned and passed on from his brother Jesus. It is important to note that James did not directly quote Jesus or attribute any of these teachings to Jesus by name — even though they are teaching of Jesus.
For James the Christian message is not the person of Jesus but the message that Jesus proclaimed. James’ letter lacks a single teaching that is characteristic of the apostle Paul and it draws nothing at all from the Gospel narratives. What we have preserved in this precious document is a reflection of the original apocalyptic proclamation of Jesus: the “Gospel of the kingdom of God” with its political and social implications.[Christianity Before Paul]
Thus it looks like, it was Paul who caused the shift from Jesus’ message to Jesus the person himself.
In his new book