Are hindus able to critique semitics without being called communal/ anti-minority ?

[sapr333]

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Dear Saprji,
. My point is we Hindus should be aware that there are lot of differences within other religions as well and should not tolerate finger pointing from the secular media or a Christian or Muslim. .

Dear Anand, pls note, Tolerance mean, 'tolerating the intolerant'!!

In this contexts, if some one is pointing finger at you, please explain him ' about his wrong, or accept it if you are wrong, and find ways to correct yourself.

Absolutely, there is nothing wrong in pointing a finger at him, about his mistakes also. After all , you are helping him, to correct himself.

PS: I have given some gerneric opinion..if you could cite some ex, we can discuss in detail, about how to handle such situation, while maintaining Tolerance.

 

[anandb]

I disagree

I too thought too much is made out of M.F. Hussain's paintings till I came across this site showing most of his paintings. It is quite shocking and I came to the conclusion that this guy is a sick pervert as almost all his depictions of Hindu gods and goddesses and Mother India is in nude. In my opinion, a painter who is depicting anything in nude and consistently so in so many of his paintings deserves to be living in a nudist colony and not a civilized society. I also believe personally that this guy has one hell of a lucky karma going for him because his paintings look like caricatures which even my nine year old can do. Judge for yourselves.

http://www.hindujagruti.org/activities/campaigns/national/mfhussain-campaign/

 

[KRS]

Dear Sri anandb Ji,

With all due respect, are you trained in modern art? Are you a qualified art critic? MF Hussein's paintings are based on modern iconographic techniques and they are appreciated in the maodern art world.

Do you then mean to say that all those nude statues in our temples were made by 'perverts'? Nude figures/paintings are not an exception to the rule in our culture. I do not think that MF Hussein's paintings are in any way vulgar.

I do not understand this feeling of 'anti-nude'. This came about in our culture from the Victorian morality.

Regards,
KRS

I too thought too much is made out of M.F. Hussain's paintings till I came across this site showing most of his paintings. It is quite shocking and I came to the conclusion that this guy is a sick pervert as almost all his depictions of Hindu gods and goddesses and Mother India is in nude. In my opinion, a painter who is depicting anything in nude and consistently so in so many of his paintings deserves to be living in a nudist colony and not a civilized society. I also believe personally that this guy has one hell of a lucky karma going for him because his paintings look like caricatures which even my nine year old can do. Judge for yourselves.

http://www.hindujagruti.org/activities/campaigns/national/mfhussain-campaign/

 

[sapr333]

Dear Anand,pls check this art work... Are you getting offended? Can you appreciate this art? I do agree people of 10th century may not have accepted this, but then, whats your opinion on this in this day of 21st century

 

[happyhindu]

That was a good one sapr. Am certain Christ wud smile at it, or perhaps He wud not find it worth reacting to.

after seeing those paintings in the link: http://www.hindujagruti.org/activiti...sain-campaign/

it just seems to be a case of unnecessary witch hunting.

anandb, what do you think of the khajuraho art work?

 

[KRS]

Dear Sri sapr333 and Srimathi HH Ji,

The assessments made by Sri anandb Ji of MF Hussain's work stems from two aspects, in my opinion:

1.) The merit of the work as an art. This stems mainly from not understanding the principles/techniques/artistic expression of iconography in modern art. His statement that his 9 year old daughter can paint pictures like these show a lack of understanding of this form of modern discipline. And he is not alone in this.

2) The fact that MF Hussein, who is born a muslim will even deign to paint Hindu sacred symbols, when he has not chosen to paint other religion's sacred symbols (especialliy Islam). This totally neglects the fact that MF Hussein's muse spoke to him this way, like every artist must have the freedom to express his/her noble artistic sensibilities (vulgarity excluded as it is not art).

For certain men everything nude is vulgar (of course, they project the vulgarity on to the subject, not understanding that such feelings come from their own voyerism).

This discussion reminds me of a funny story of a person, who when witnessing a self disrobing of a woman blocked by a passing train in a movie, wanted to run the movie backwards and forwards very slowly so that he can catch a glimpse! Totally a different topic.

Regards,
KRS

 

[happyhindu]

Dear Sri KRS ji,

Perhaps he did the rewinding thing because it was a famous actress ?? Otherwise there is so much of everything to watch on the net for the subscription of just a few cents per day

Am told that muslims consider any human representation as anti-islam. Hanging pictures of dead persons is a strict no-no. I came across orthodox muslims in a village as a kid long ago, where they will not even allow photographing themselves.

So MF painting anything human at all is against his own religion in the first place.

I notice that MF has painted Fatima as well. But i do not see muslims making a mess of it.


Ps: i do not know of any 9 year olds who can paint like that. if his daughter can then she must be an art genius.

 

[vivekam.vairagyam]

Dear Sri sapr333 and Srimathi HH Ji,

The assessments made by Sri anandb Ji of MF Hussain's work stems from two aspects, in my opinion:

1.) The merit of the work as an art. This stems mainly from not understanding the principles/techniques/artistic expression of iconography in modern art. His statement that his 9 year old daughter can paint pictures like these show a lack of understanding of this form of modern discipline. And he is not alone in this.

2) The fact that MF Hussein, who is born a muslim will even deign to paint Hindu sacred symbols, when he has not chosen to paint other religion's sacred symbols (especialliy Islam). This totally neglects the fact that MF Hussein's muse spoke to him this way, like every artist must have the freedom to express his/her noble artistic sensibilities (vulgarity excluded as it is not art).

For certain men everything nude is vulgar (of course, they project the vulgarity on to the subject, not understanding that such feelings come from their own voyerism).

This discussion reminds me of a funny story of a person, who when witnessing a self disrobing of a woman blocked by a passing train in a movie, wanted to run the movie backwards and forwards very slowly so that he can catch a glimpse! Totally a different topic.

Regards,
KRS

did ur assessment factor in his representation of islamic figures and his family viz a viz hindu and mother india figures ? ..... while it is acceptable to ignore such crass overtures as the sun would ignore a barking dog , it is inaccurate to say that he was fair and sensitive in his representation of hindu figures like he was of islamic figures .....

 

[vivekam.vairagyam]

Dear Sri VV Ji,
........
The reason many in the history field looked at Sri PN Oak as a 'nut case', because he was making fantastic claims without proof. While they might have been willing to listen to him if he did scholorly work, despite not being a trained historian, he did not do so.
..........

history is replete with instances of discounting people not understood by contemporaries as nuts/dumb/uneducable ... archimedes to einstein ... i believe sri oak would not have stood any chance of getting his work published / reviewed by any scholar/institution considering the bendover-backwards-policy of muslim appeasement in the country even after independence ... reality simply precluded his chances of a breakthrough in the academic arena ... considering these handicaps .. i believe we can be thankful to him for finding a way to keep the world informed of such vital issues of history ..... left to the appeasers , we would still continue to learn and believe crap like the aryan invasion theory ...

 

[KRS]

Dear Sri VV Ji,

Sri Hussein is one of the high caliber artists from India following modern art and had a very long career. He painted the Hindu Gods in one short period, called his Hindu Gods period. They are very tastefully done and not vulgar at all. Most of the art critics around the world think so. He is not painting like Ravi Verma did, his medium of expression is different. Looking at this from the artistic point of view his nudes are done so with a deep appreciation of the freedom in the Hindu culture.

He has painted two humans nude. One a Brahmin and the other one Hitler. You can obviously see the difference. Hitler's nudity is obviously in disdain (as he is holding a skull), where as the Brahmins nude back somehow conveys naturalness and purity to me.

This is why one needs to understand the subtlities of a particular artistic mode before start criticizing. One has to undersatnd that he is a first rate artist and not a third rate cartoonist. Artists of that caliber do not usually paint about the subjects they do not like and hate. They mainly paint the subjects they like and adore.

One can not draw a distinction between his clothed subjects and his nude subjects. His muse spoke to him that way. To impute religious motives for his paintings is absurd. Instead of appreciating his work, by mob rule we have banished him from his country of birth, just because he was born a muslim and painted a few pictures that the Hindutva people find objectionable.

Our religion is not restrictive like Islam. Why then we are behaving like them?

Regards,
KRS

did ur assessment factor in his representation of islamic figures and his family viz a viz hindu and mother india figures ? ..... while it is acceptable to ignore such crass overtures as the sun would ignore a barking dog , it is inaccurate to say that he was fair and sensitive in his representation of hindu figures like he was of islamic figures .....

 

[anandb]

Mr. KRS, you are missing the point altogether. I am no art critic and I don't know anything about it. When I made that comment I am only talking for myself and not on behalf of anyone else. That is why I stated "In my opinion". Just as that is mine I understand that you are not offended by the paintings and I respect your opinion. Honestly, M.F Hussain is a hypocrite because let us see what happens if he tries to portray Islamic icons in the nude. My point is why target only Hindu deities. Because Hindus do not go beyond protests. And if you don't find a nude Lakshmi sitting on top of Ganesha offending then I feel there is no point in me carrying this conversation forward. There is no way you can compare Khajuraho and nude idols in our temples with what M.F. Hussain does. They were more as symbols to convey the various aspects of life. The people who built them those days did not do it to gain commercial value. And none of our gods and goddesses are portrayed in the nude. But Hussain is different. Let us compare apples with apples.

Your getting offended or not is a matter of your personal choice but what is a bit worrying to me is this kind of indifference from Hindus. I am not saying this because Hussain is a Muslim. Even if a Hindu denigrates our deities it is not to be accepted. If people want to criticize Hinduism, let them do it and we can answer back. But sorry, I cannot accept nude depiction of deities, irrespective of religion, as art.

 

[vivekam.vairagyam]

as i said before , i do not impute religious motives ....
i can understand nudity in context , i can also see through mischevious representations in the name of nude art ... i am not asking him to dare to represent his islamic figures with the same nudistic artistry ... we all know the answer to that .... i would ignore his crass and discriminatory work as i would ignore a barking dog , i am entitled to my opinion and i am not into hartals over this....
but to say that he has shown equal sensitivities in his representation of non-muslim figures and that his muse spoke to him so is at once naive on one front and enlightening , on the other , as to the true nature of his muse and what to expect thereof ......

 

[KRS]

Dear Sri VV Ji,

The difference between Sri PN Oak and the likes of Archimedes and Einstein is that the theories of the latter were proved!

Sorry sir - he was a nut.

Did I miss something? Have someone conclusively proved AIT as wrong? By the way, personally I do not subscribe to the theory. Can you guide me to the scholorly literature where it is proven to be false?

Regards,
KRS

history is replete with instances of discounting people not understood by contemporaries as nuts/dumb/uneducable ... archimedes to einstein ... i believe sri oak would not have stood any chance of getting his work published / reviewed by any scholar/institution considering the bendover-backwards-policy of muslim appeasement in the country even after independence ... reality simply precluded his chances of a breakthrough in the academic arena ... considering these handicaps .. i believe we can be thankful to him for finding a way to keep the world informed of such vital issues of history ..... left to the appeasers , we would still continue to learn and believe crap like the aryan invasion theory ...

 

[KRS]

Dear Sri VV Ji,

Of course, please ignore him like a dog. I am sure he would not care.

But sir, to judge an artist on the basis of religion and being fair and all, is wrong. High quality art is beyond these limitations. Artists of his kind do not even think in those terms. As I said, by painting our Gods nude, he has probably shown more sensitivity towards our religion than anything else.

This expectation of yours tells me that you probably do not understand the creative process of high calibre. So be it.

Regards,
KRS

as i said before , i do not impute religious motives ....
i ignore his crass and discriminatory work as i would ignore a dog , i am entitled to my opinion and i am not into hartals over this....
but to say that he has shown equal sensitivities in his representation of non-muslim figures and that his muse spoke to him so is at once naive on one front and enlightening , on the other , as to the true nature of his muse and what to expect thereof ......

 

[KRS]

Dear Sri anandb Ji,

I am not missing your point at all. I understand your point well.

As I said, you seem to be offended by anything nude. When analyzing art you need to at least understand what you are criticizing. Yes, you have every right to your opinion about these paintings being at the level of your 9 year old daughter (assuming she is not a genius artist). The problem is with that limited understanding some action is taken against him by a mob.

I also take issue with your statement that 'none of our gods are portrayed in the nude'. Our visual art medium was sculpture and you can see examples everywhere.

As I said, you seem to think all nudes are vulgar. Why would you not accept God figures in the nude? Is it modesty? What makes you think that way? Why is nudity in art form bad?

Regards,
KRS

Mr. KRS, you are missing the point altogether. I am no art critic and I don't know anything about it. When I made that comment I am only talking for myself and not on behalf of anyone else. That is why I stated "In my opinion". Just as that is mine I understand that you are not offended by the paintings and I respect your opinion. Honestly, M.F Hussain is a hypocrite because let us see what happens if he tries to portray Islamic icons in the nude. My point is why target only Hindu deities. Because Hindus do not go beyond protests. And if you don't find a nude Lakshmi sitting on top of Ganesha offending then I feel there is no point in me carrying this conversation forward. There is no way you can compare Khajuraho and nude idols in our temples with what M.F. Hussain does. They were more as symbols to convey the various aspects of life. The people who built them those days did not do it to gain commercial value. And none of our gods and goddesses are portrayed in the nude. But Hussain is different. Let us compare apples with apples.

Your getting offended or not is a matter of your personal choice but what is a bit worrying to me is this kind of indifference from Hindus. I am not saying this because Hussain is a Muslim. Even if a Hindu denigrates our deities it is not to be accepted. If people want to criticize Hinduism, let them do it and we can answer back. But sorry, I cannot accept nude depiction of deities, irrespective of religion, as art.

 

[vivekam.vairagyam]

Dear Sri VV Ji,

The difference between Sri PN Oak and the likes of Archimedes and Einstein is that the theories of the latter were proved!

Sorry sir - he was a nut.

Did I miss something? Have someone conclusively proved AIT as wrong? By the way, personally I do not subscribe to the theory. Can you guide me to the scholorly literature where it is proven to be false?

Regards,
KRS

even they (archimedes and einstein ) were called nuts till their theories were proved later on ..

oak's time will come , till then atleast u can enjoy calling him a nut .... as i sed , oak's chances of academic acceptance were precluded by the nature of the subject in the context of political spinelessness in india ....

as for AIT , yes it has been seriously debunked .... for starters

from a paper by michael danino ..

Archaeologists, whatever their school of thought, whether Indian or Western, agree at least on these three points :

First, as surprising as it may seem, there is no physical trace whatsoever of any invaders, Aryan or other, from the Northwest or elsewhere, and no findings have been made which could be associated with an Aryan people coming into India—neither pottery nor utensils nor tools nor weapons nor graves nor any form of art. It is hard to imagine how a people supposed to have conquered the subcontinent failed to leave the slightest physical trace ! Not only that, there is also no trace of any major conflict in any of the cities, and no evidence of any southward population movement ; the only clear movement, about the end of the Harappan civilization, is eastward and more precisely towards the Gangetic basin. B. B. Lal, former director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India, observes,
The supporters of the Aryan invasion theory have not been able to cite even a single example where there is evidence of “invaders,” represented either by weapons of warfare or even by cultural remains left by them[3] (highlighting by vv)
​

J. M. Kenoyer, who is still pursuing excavations at Harappa, is even more categorical :

There is no archaeological or biological evidence for invasions or mass migrations into the Indus Valley between the end of the Harappan Phase, about 1900 BC and the beginning of the Early Historic period around 600 BC.[4]
​

http://micheldanino.voiceofdharma.com/riddle.html


.. here is dr. koenraad elst's writings ...

http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/articles/aid.html

and then some ..

http://vishalagarwal.voiceofdharma.com/articles/indhistory.htm

 

[anandb]

Dear KRSji,

I agree an artist has to have the freedom of creative expression but to what extent? If this is the case they can be granted immunity from whatever they want to express in the name of art? Let us assume that for the sake of artistic expression he portrays nudity of Hindu icons. Then why not Christian or Islamic icons? Is he scared that a fatwa against his life would be issued? If he is scared then that fear is something which is inhibiting his artistic expression. So the artistic expression is in full flow when it comes to a community known to be passive and not go beyond some token protests and inhibited when it comes to portrayal of other communities which can possibly issue fatwas. What kind of expression is this?

I am sorry to have offended some people about my son painting better than him. I personally don't like his paintings and it was an emotional outburst and probably unwarranted for the purpose of this discussion.

There is enough literature available on the net and books about the AIT. May be you are aware of this excellent site, if not please visit http://www.hinduwisdom.info/aryan_invasion_theory.htm. Unfortunately on issues like these there is no court or authority which examines evidence and pronounces judgment so these scholarly debates will continue. But fortunately lot of Western Indologists have started to debunk this theory. Personally, I don't think my ancestors or Rig Veda or Sanskrit came from Central Asia. If such great work as the Vedas or Upanishads or a language like Sanskrit came from such a place there should be be at least traces of it existing in the place of origin and not in the place to which it migrated.

 

[KRS]

Dear Sri anandb Ji,

My reponse in 'blue':

Dear KRSji,

I agree an artist has to have the freedom of creative expression but to what extent? If this is the case they can be granted immunity from whatever they want to express in the name of art? Let us assume that for the sake of artistic expression he portrays nudity of Hindu icons. Then why not Christian or Islamic icons? Is he scared that a fatwa against his life would be issued? If he is scared then that fear is something which is inhibiting his artistic expression. So the artistic expression is in full flow when it comes to a community known to be passive and not go beyond some token protests and inhibited when it comes to portrayal of other communities which can possibly issue fatwas. What kind of expression is this?
Sir, it is like asking an artist who paints only let us say Elephants, why he does not paint Lions or Tigers, is he afraid of them? When you say an artist should have freedom of expression, how can you put a limit on that? The final arbiters of an artist's work are the people who understand those things and make a final judgement by proclaiming it's merits. Art is never in the domain of ordinary folks like you and me. It is a well developed discipline. Like our own classical art.

I don't know MF Hussain's mind when he painted these figures. Neither do you. I am not at all offended by his paintings. So I do not impute anything on the basis of religion. I see a renowned Indian painter, at his prime painting certain subjects that interested him. How can one then ask, how come other subjects did not interest him? Even if we presume that he did not want to portray anything islamic as nudes because he feared fatwa (which I do not know to be true), so what? We should be proud that as a secular painter he chose to paint figures from our mythology.

I am sorry to have offended some people about my son painting better than him. I personally don't like his paintings and it was an emotional outburst and probably unwarranted for the purpose of this discussion.
Okay, thanks.

There is enough literature available on the net and books about the AIT. May be you are aware of this excellent site, if not please visit http://www.hinduwisdom.info/aryan_invasion_theory.htm. Unfortunately on issues like these there is no court or authority which examines evidence and pronounces judgment so these scholarly debates will continue. But fortunately lot of Western Indologists have started to debunk this theory. Personally, I don't think my ancestors or Rig Veda or Sanskrit came from Central Asia. If such great work as the Vedas or Upanishads or a language like Sanskrit came from such a place there should be be at least traces of it existing in the place of origin and not in the place to which it migrated.
As I said, I do not subscribe to AIT, because Swami Vivekananda Ji said that it was not true. Besides that I am educating myself on both sides of the argument.

Regards,
KRS

 

[anandb]

Dear Sir,

Don't we draw a line when it comes to what is acceptable in public domain? Isn't nudity one of them? Otherwise the entire society can be roaming around naked. Why wear clothes at all? At least in Kaliyuga, we have still not reached that stage. A painter can also portray Lord Shiva as a terrorist with AK-47 and we can still say that is artistic freedom to be given to a painter to express himself. The painter can even get away saying that he is only portraying Shiva in the role of "Destroyer". Are these artists living outside the society? Why should they be given immunity to express what ever they want to express if it is hurting sentiments of people. Suppose a artist does a painting showing a top political figure getting killed by a terrorist, I guess he would be immediately arrested for instigating violence. Can he claim immunity on account of creative expression?

 

[KRS]

Dear Sri anandb Ji,

You ask very valid questions. The difference between what you cite as examples and Sri MF Hussain's paintings is that while the former are vulgar, his work is considered as art.

As I said, high art can not be judged by ordinary folks. If that was the case, Kama Sutra would have been banned, Kalidasa would have been edited out. Art is never in the realm of getting judged by you and me.

He did not paint for the audience of the masses who do not know how to evaluate them. High art is devoid of vulgarity. I guess the issue here is whether his art is vulgar or not. Vulgar 'art' does not sell. Art, by definition is to uplift the human spirit.

Artists should never be censored, but the purveyors of eroticism should be sensored based on the societal norms. In India, in the movies, especially Tamil movies, songs, we allow a lot of vulgarity, even though in the scenes the people are fully clothed dancing through a rain while singing songs with double meaning. Now that is vulgarity and we have every right to censor that. But we do not, but get worked about some art that has some nude iconography.

I do not think that by definition, high art falls in the category of being amenable to censorship. I think, vulgarity is.

Regards,
KRS

Dear Sir,

Don't we draw a line when it comes to what is acceptable in public domain? Isn't nudity one of them? Otherwise the entire society can be roaming around naked. Why wear clothes at all? At least in Kaliyuga, we have still not reached that stage. A painter can also portray Lord Shiva as a terrorist with AK-47 and we can still say that is artistic freedom to be given to a painter to express himself. The painter can even get away saying that he is only portraying Shiva in the role of "Destroyer". Are these artists living outside the society? Why should they be given immunity to express what ever they want to express if it is hurting sentiments of people. Suppose a artist does a painting showing a top political figure getting killed by a terrorist, I guess he would be immediately arrested for instigating violence. Can he claim immunity on account of creative expression?

 

[anandb]

As a ordinary folk, my judgment of his art really does not matter. But as a Hindu, my sensibilities regarding his portrayal of Hindu icons is offended and that's what matters to me. Just because he is considered to be a master in the art world and his paintings sell for millions don't really matter to an ordinary folk like me. Kama Sutra was only one of Kalidasa's work and not his only one. And honestly his art became high only because it has got huge commercial value as well. No one can really say how or why their art is considered so "high" while there are better artists with better art languishing on the sideline. I will also not agree with your opinion on high art is devoid of vulgarity. Who makes all these judgments? There are no set standards. It is all in the eyes of the beholder.

Unfortunately, it is a fact that vulgarity does sell these days, even in art and this is the age of hype. Apart from sheer talent, one also needs the talent to create hype, PR and controversies around your work.

To me an artist belongs to the profession of providing enjoyment to others just like a musician, dancer or a movie actor although in different ways. There should be norms within which they should operate. Even better in these cases is self censorship, so the artist knows what is likely to create a controversy and avoid it unless the intention is to create hype and make more money out of it.

I am equally worked out about other ills you mentioned as well and this is also one of them. Well, sir, we will agree to disagree and your thoughts on this have been quite valuable to me.

Regards
anand

 

[happyhindu]

Personally, I don't think my ancestors or Rig Veda or Sanskrit came from Central Asia. If such great work as the Vedas or Upanishads or a language like Sanskrit came from such a place there should be be at least traces of it existing in the place of origin and not in the place to which it migrated.

Dear Anand B,

You said it very well. I remember having read about this somewhere before. The theory proposed was that there should have been atleast a few remnents of the old civlization, in those regions around Central Asia, if the Vedas did come from there.

At the same time, it is conclusively accepted, by one section of population genetists, that there was more than one migration from those regions. The older layer of indo-scythians that formed the scythic-dravidian set were most likely the ones that created the vedic civilizations. The later set of indo-scythians that got absorbed into the existing structure were considered nomads. The diff in time b/w the two is considered huge.

A lot of things are however, are dependent on available data at the moment.

Everything is always subject to change.

 

[anandb]

Dear Happy Hindu ji,

There is a very good book written by Steven Knapp called Proof of Vedic Society's Global Existence. He offers a very interesting theory, not his own but gathered from various sources, that after the Mahabharata war, the Vedic society disintegrated and a lot of people migrated from India to other parts of the world. I kind of tend to believe this not because I am a Hindu and feel superior about our culture. It is a known fact that Christianity and Islam always terms the culture before them as pagan and belonging to the dark ages and these religions came to uplift people from darkness. Islam acknowledges that Prophet Muhammed set the foundation for Islam by smashing 360 pagan idols at Kaaba. Similarly for Christianity all the Roman idolatry gods were destroyed by early Christians.

Probably the only remaining pagan culture is our Hindu society. This does not prove or disprove the AIT but it is apparent that there was one global pagan culture existing at one point of time. Carl Sagan himself said that it is amazing the early Hindus could conceive the age of the universe in trillions of years as said in our Vedas while people in the rest of the world did not even know how to count. While the Church chased out Galileo from his country 400 years back for saying the earth is round and goes around the sun, ages back our Vedas called the universe as Brahmanda (elliptical) and we Tamilians call our earth as Bhugolam (round). I kind of find it strange that this original knowledge which we possess came from so called fair skinned Aryans who migrated here while the fair skinned themselves lost all this knowledge and were burning everyone for heresy in Medieval Europe.

I am yet to read a supposedly good book on this subject called Hidden Horizons - Unearthing 10,000 years of Indian culture by David Frawley and Dr. Navaratna Rajaram. If anyone has read please comment on it.

anand

 

[sapr333]

Dear Anand, to start with, I really appreciate your good interactions in this thread as a new comer. Also I request you to keep this tempo and share your views here often.. Im also addressing this post to Shri.V.V parallely..

After careful reading and re-reading all your posts, I quickly arrived with a single crispy question (not an answer)..

Why cant MF Hussain paint Prophet Mohammed/Ayesha that way? putting it straight? Arent you (anand/VV) trying to ask this?..

As KRS said, its all about art and our calibre about appreciation of art. Do we have that calibre, taste,quality and knowledge about art, esp, modern art.. ??

I consider MF.H as a great modern artist... Dont forget,any artist would conceptualise his painting only in line with the target media ,which knows how to appreciate art (than wasting our time, in order to satisfy what we want? Say for eg, Im a villager, and I do appreciate art, but does it make sense, if I buy Norwegian Edvard Munch's SCREAM for $60Mn, and host it infront of my ancestoral house in the village down south in the tip of our country? Im sure, my own folks (even my mom) would be ridiculing me, calling me as insane..They may make a fool out me, calling that painting as a scribbling by charcoal . In this context Husssain carefully skipped to paint islamic icons, cos he knows already,that, they may not appreciate his art..Rather may ask his head, like Danish cartoonist? Why he should venture in to something,which dont appreciate his work?


As someone claimed here earlier, that MFH's painting is worth his 10th std kids scribbling..Im not saying you are wrong here, but there is something,which force us to univerally accept that, art was the oldest form of expression/communication, developed by homosapiens much before scripts/alphabets were invented. How did men of 10K BC expressed their feelings and lifestyle (Ajantha/Ellora)... Definitely not hindi.. tamil, sanskrit.. A big No.. Its only art which helped them to communicate to the future generations..

now, why MF.H is not painting nudity on icons of Islam? Thats what you are curious about!!.. Here I compare you with radicalism/fundamentalism/hindutva/talibanisation.. According to me, I feel , you wish to talibanise hinduism.. Many of us may not be aware, Islamic countries were the higest contributers to double entry accounting system (which brahmins excelled in British era),Algebra, and modern philosophy. IBN, Avvero were the greatest philosophers, who were talibanised and their works got burnt, but then, later copied by Christians of Europe during Rennaisance and succeeded.Inspite of all the glorious Islamic art and architecture (remember Islamic tajmahal/tabla/Sulfi), talibanised radical Islam condemned Art/sculpture/Painting/Music/ keeping in line with their (own)view of prophet mohammed's teaching to ban recording of 'Images' and recreational arts.wonder why I narrated so much here..

Coming to the point, as i said earlier, any artist would look for some one(rather seek the whole world) to appreciate his work ...Thats his quest.. If MF were to paint Prophet Mohammed, he would have,only been condemned as blasphemist by sharia, but would not have got appreciations for their hard work (Rushdie/Richard Dawkins/Dan brown is are bold exemptions),which any artist would long for..Lets recollect Danish cartoonist..Do you think he would caricature again prophet mhmd, in his life time..A big not.. Not because of the threats, but because, he found little of appreciation from a major sects.. I think, this answers your apprehensions..

If you could really appreciate art like, me, then let me share you some more interesting points..The world famous art of rennanisance was 'Nude statue of David'.. He is not just Mr. David .. rather, he was a great Biblical heroic warrior king , and a prophet in religious view.. But that great marble sculpture may be just nudity according to you.. But it was the most revered /admired sculputres among Christians and the whole world, just because it artistically expressed the 'Mighty power of King Prophet david as a vein protruding king and soldier".. No artists or no words of Old Testament or No articulation of Theologist could express Prophet David so perfectly as a masculine win-it-all king..

Let me give now, a bit of touch in mythology ...(get to know about MYTHOLGOY)... Mythology is something which never exist'ed, but 'do' exist in our day to day life.....

Do you think Lord Ganesha really had an elephant face,trunk with a pot belly, joyously dining all the sweets...Will it fit in to modern science and your favourite Darwin/Einsten?... According to me, it was an ancient expression art form to express/document/record God (before written languages evolved)..The art of Lord Ganesha expressed that, God was all powerful(like Elephant-King of forest), All happiness (no poverty, cos Lord ganesha had all sweet in front).. Lots to explain about this...If not for art, we wouldnt have had lord Ganesha.. I can sense in advance, that I'll be on the firing line now, for saying this .

Thats my take on this..

Would ask Shri V.V and Anand to share your view on this.. Thanks in advance.

 

[sapr333]

Dear Happy Hindu ji,
It is a known fact that Christianity and Islam always terms the culture before them as pagan and belonging to the dark ages and these religions came to uplift people from darkness. Islam acknowledges that Prophet Muhammed set the foundation for Islam by smashing 360 pagan idols at Kaaba. Similarly for Christianity all the Roman idolatry gods were destroyed by early Christians.

Probably the only remaining pagan culture is our Hindu society.
anand

Knowingly or unknowingly, you carefully forgot, that there were neither idol worship nor temple building activity during Vedic period !!!