Homosexuality

Ven Shravasti Dhammika

Homosexuality is the tendency to be sexually attracted to persons of the same rather than the opposite gender. According to the ancient Indian understanding, homosexuals were thought of simply as being ‘the third nature’ (tritiya prakti), rather than as perverted, deviant or sick.

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items08/210808-3.html

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The Swami Army

Ven. Shravasti Dhammika

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items08/200808-2.html

I agree with you about the JHU. I do not agree with all their policies (or monks being involved in politics) but I totally respect the fact that they are working in the democratic mainstream. As citizens of Sri Lanka they have every right to voice their opinions. They formed a political party, stood for elections and were voted by the people into parliament. Whether one agrees with their stand on various issues or not, you have to hand it to them for doing it democratically and not taking to arms (if only the JVP had done the same thing when they wanted to represent the voice of the marginalised). Again, I think the formation of the JHU had a lot to do with the angst large sections of Buddhists have felt about the missionary activities of Christian groups in the island (hence one of the major original policies of the JHU was to push through the so-called “anti-conversion bill”). In other words, I think they they are a reaction rather than a phenomenon in of themselves; the evangelical/fundamentalist Christian groups in Sri Lanka played a major role in their appearance. But despite their stand the JHU is a very small party in parliament. In contrast, the JHU equivalent in India – the BJP – is the main opposition party in that country and has even formed government. The driving force behind their ideology is Hindutva which also, in my opinion, carries a spectrum of thought from genuine grievances/concerns over Hindu rights to elements of facism. They too seem to be a reactive force. In my opinion Sri Lanka and India are not very different at all 🙂

Having been oppressed (pretty brutally) for close to 500 years by the colonials and the events of the last few decades or so have left Buddhism a political hot potato in Sri Lanka. It may seem like I am blaming the colonials for everything in the country but they too played a role in creating ‘reactive Buddhism’ or what has been termed “Protestant Buddhism” through their active persecution of Buddhism and Buddhists. The ‘Buddhist psyche’ (if I can call it that) in Sri Lanka is still not healed. In my honest opinion any moves at the present time to remove Buddhism from the constitution will only lead to further polarisation and what you term ultra nationalism. Any major political party who advocates that will be committing political suicide. At the present juncture, Christian missionaries and their aggressive agenda of conversion are certainly not helping. But give it time. I don’t think it will happen in our generation but there will come a time (yes I am an optimist! 🙂 ) when there is peace, where ethnic politics does not hold sway and the Buddhist majority does not feel at siege.

It is interesting to note that in our former colonial power Britain, Anglican Christianity is given a special position and the head of state has to be an Anglican Christian (so a Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim or Catholic can never be the head of state). In Norway the Evangelical Lutheran religion is the official religion. It is the same in Denmark and Finland. I forget which one, but in one of the Scandinavian countries it is required that the majority of parliament be held by Christians belonging to the state church. Liechstenstein and Monaco has Catholicism as its official religion. Greece officially recognizes only the Church of Greece. But these are all Wuestern countries that are held up as examples of democracies to be followed by others, with Greece itself the original home of democracy. I believe that there are no real secular states. The religion of the majority usually always, some way or another, gains precedence over the minority ones. And being avowedly “secular” has no bearing on the existence of religious nationalism or extremism – just look at the USA and how Christianity is so closely entwined with the state, its political parties and policies in the Middle East and issues such as abortion/stem cell research/gay rights. All currency carries the slogan “In God We Trust.” The Pledge of Allegiance includes “One nation under God,” in government courts the Bible is the book used to swear truth upon. Parliament proceedings start with a Christian prayer.Only Christian holy days are provided with public holidays…and so on and so forth. The current election campaign also highlights the importance of the majority religion in that country.

(Infact, it was only last year or so for the first time in history of the USA that a Hindu prayer was offered in legislature, but the Hindu priest was heckled and abused by certain Christians inside the legislature because it was apparently “anti Christian” – you can watch the video on youtube and google the news articles).

Meanwhile in Sri Lanka we have Lakshmi poojas in parliament organised by Buddhists, along with ‘breaking fasts’ and Christmas programmes, the minister for Buddhist affairs holding Saraswathi poojas at his house, the Buddhist president and his Catholic wife and the Buddhist opposition leader jetting off on pilgrimage to Hindu temples in South India, the government providing free cloth to Muslim girls so that they can wear the hijab (while it is banned in ‘enlightened’ and ‘secular’ France and even in some Muslim countries like Turkey and Tunisia), ban on the import of pork based medical products because it is offensive to Muslims, ban on pork and beef and non halal products at parliament as they are offensive to Muslim and Hindu sentiments, government funding for the establishment of Madrassahs and Arabic language schools, mediation during sunni – sufi clashes, banning of particular Hollywood films because they offend Christian sentiments, Muslim, Christian and Hindu committees on State TV and Radio so that they can create and air their own programmes, government funding for Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian schools. Public holidays for Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and Hindu holy days. And before the current government came into being successive governments promoted and funded the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Ministry for Christian Affairs, Ministry for Hindu Affairs and Ministry for Muslim Affairs. I must mention that these are not grievances I am airing, infact I very much support the above moves. But in my opinion, there is more offical and social recognition of religious diversity and more steps taken to see that all religious groups are included in Sri Lanka than there is in many so-called “secular” western countries where only Christianity and the Judeo-Christian worldview is given precedence.

You make good points about the three social views. I hope the ‘cultural purists’ are able to see just how many aspects of “morality” and “culture” are social constructs that change over time.

And it is interesting that you mention homosexuality. If you have time head on over to buddhistchannel.tv or lankaweb.com and read today’s article by Ven. Shravasti Dhammika entitled “Buddhism and Homosexuality”. Thank you for your link, it was interesting reading! We certainly do need to eradicate homophobia in Sri Lanka and the Buddhist-Hindu majority in the island need to be taught that their respective religious traditions do not condemn homosexuality. That said, one ‘alternative group’, the Napunsakayas, are quite accepted in Sri Lanka. They certainly aren’t bashed/attacked or subjected to hate crimes like in the west.

(Before I come across as someone who really seems to hate the west, I do not! 🙂 I love many aspects of it and wish Sri Lanka could imbibe a lot of the good stuff.)

Looks like we are digressing( including myself) from out original topic of conversation. But I do find this interesting. So a few more posts!!!

Firstly we should all join hands to condem and resist religious fanaticism in Sri Lanka because that is not helpful for anybody.But that should not stop us from critiquing both sides of the argument.
The problem is the JHU lot are on one side with some genuine concerns but also a lot of supremacist ideologies concealed in it aswell. Then there is the certain strand of liberals whose arguments are always seen through the majority against the minority, so they take the case of the minority at all costs.

I think the truth lies probably some where in between. So I do not support both their biased arguments when it comes to the religious question in Sri Lanka.

On a different note

In a religious sense, but not on a ethnic sense, the Buddhists( despite many protestant Buddhist elements in the last century and fascist Buddhism of JHU) are very tolerant towards Hinduism, Islam etc in Sri Lanka.

But special status for the Buddha Sasana within the constituition does create ethnic dishamorny and will like it to be abolished since it does harbour ethnic based ultra nationalism within it. The state should be separate from religion. Look at the Islamic republic of Iran, Islamic republic of Pakistan etc

As for David Frawley ( aka Vama Deva Shastri) – I shall be a bit carefull of him. Though he is a brilliant mind and has genuine scholarship in Sanskrit etc he is not too much to my liking. He is of that camp who believes everything comes from Sanskrit and the greatness of the Aryan civilisation. Also some of his scholarship has been seriously questioned ( pan Aryan ideology etc). Sanskrit too has got Munda and Dravidian influences of syntax, words etc.

Keralan redhha like cloth stuff……..

True. Kerlan redhha like cloth is worn along with a small shawl on the shoulder( to wipe the sweat) by both communities in Sri Lanka until recent times. My patrilineal Tamil grand mother in Sandilippay, Jaffna wore that at most times. I know the Sinhala women also had and have similar kind of dress which was more common than the saree.

On The body, sexuality stuff………

Yes this European Christian influence on the body/ sexuality in the whole of the sub continent and Sri Lanka is negative. North India also had added pressure
from Islamic ideas on it. Eg – North Indian Hindus cover their head when going to temples and in the South India and Sri Lanka it will be sacreligious to do so. This is a Islamic influence to cover the head.

Though on a theological sense Hinduism and Budhism doesn’t have such pronounced ideas of sinfull sexuality/ sensuality/ body etc, it has now certainly entered it in the present day – especially in the social context. So ultimately whether we are Buddhist, Hindus, Christians or Muslims – we all suffer from this now. We are all in this shit together. So we need to work tighter to deal with it.

But there are three areas of resistsances for it in SL.

The obvious westernised peoples influence. The west has done much to get rid of its Victorian legacy in its post Christian phase and once again exporting it lock stock and barrel. Though in recent times, I do wonder whether the sexual liberation of the west is actually liberation or just rebelling aginst its ‘sinfull’ past. A diarroeah of sex to make up for it. Either way we are all buying into it.

Secondly – the lower classes are still relatively unaffected. Shirtless, loin cloith garment wearing farmer etc
But the male nationalist politician covers his top half in a relatively new addition – the ‘national’ on top of the veshti( white sarong like cloth worn by both Tamil and Sinhala political elites). Victorian prudery working miracles to create ‘tradition’!!!! in order to make him feel superior than the loin cloth wearing farmer!!!
Some older fisher women of all communities are topless in Sri Lanka.
My middle class Appa( dad) used to say that even as recent as the the sixties the ravakkai( female blouse in Tamil) sandhai( market) in Manipay, Jaffna – the female vendors hardly wore blouses. Hence the name ravakkai sandhai.

Sigiriya topless fescoes in the are matter of fact about it aswell

Thirdly- Within a religious realm the Buddhists and Hindus still occupy the old system. The ‘traditional’ Nallur Murugan temple in Jaffna and other ‘orthodox’ temples expects the men to take their shirts off to enter it. The shirtless musicians at the Dalada Maligawa etc

The body is not to be ashamed of.

I suppose the three systems are co existing ,inter mingling and competing together as viable alternatives to the impositions of the past.

For detailed and illuminating readings of Indian/Hindu/Budhistetc ideas of Homosexuality or any sexuality in the past in South Asia read AmAra Das Willhelm article bellow

http://www.galva108.org/Indias_Descent.html

Either way , despite homophobia existing in SL in the present day Buddhism and Hinduism, it can never become such a big issue to cause a possible split in the religions over such a matter. I cant see the Shangha dividing to become two separate instuitions over the matter.This is unlike what the Anglicans who are possibly heading for( the Euro American /Anglican supporting and the Asian/ African Anglicans denouncing homosexuality) for a split. That says a lot in itself.

Even the orthodox Saiva Siddhanta church’s Sivaya Subramanya swami

( Saiva Sidhhanta is the predominant hindu philosophical and religious system of Sri Lanka and the Saiva Siddhanta church is from the lineage of one of Sri Lankas most important spiritual teachers for both Sinhala and tamil communities in the last centuriy – Yogar Swami. The Saiva Siddhanta church though now based in the USA has still a special remit to minister Sri Lankas Saiva community and its diaspora around the world)

says

Hinduism neither condones nor condemns birth control, sterilization, masturbation, homosexuality, petting, polygamy or pornography. It does not exclude or draw harsh conclusions against any part of human nature…

thats enuff. got to go……….
.

Hi pragmatist, I totally agree with you that both the Buddhist clergy and Buddhist lay people have to be more pro-active when it comes to helping the less fortunate. And I would also agree with you if you said that the Hindu community in India has to work towards reforming the caste system and ending the oppression of dalits. These arguments are valid and I accept them; there are indeed problems in both Dharmic communities which need to addressed by their members. But if these Christian evangelists are so concerned about the poor, why do they not first help the millions upon millions of poor Christians in countries such as the Philippines, numerous countries in Africa and almost all countries in South America? Is it possibly because they are not really interested in poverty alleviation but only in claming more converts to Christ? In other words, poor Christians can be ignored because they are already Christian, whereas it’s the souls of the pagans/idol worshippers/heathens that need to be “saved”?

If you have the time I would urge you to read the article “The Missionary Position” by Peter Frawley. It really is a good read. If you google it, you will be able to find it. I think the following excerpt from the article is pertinent here:

“A similar argument is that the conversion effort is part of service to humanity, that the missionary is motivated by love of humanity. This is also questionable. If you are motivated by love of humanity you will help people regardless of their religious background. You will try to help people in a practical way rather than aim at getting them to embrace your religious belief. You will also love their religion, even if it is an aborigine worshipping a stone. You will give unconditional love to people, which is not the love of Jesus or the Church but universal love. You will not condemn any person to hell for not following your particular belief. You will not interfere with that person’s religious motivation and seek to convert him to your belief. You will honour the Divine in that person and in his belief. Such social work born of love is hardly to be found in missionary Christianity, though it likes to pretend that this is the motivation. If one were truly motivated by love of humanity and the need to serve humanity, one would not promote massive conversion agendas. In fact one would regard such practices as inhumane, which they are. ”

As to your last question… perhaps the following may answer it..

“Organized conversion efforts are quite another matter than the common dialogue and interchange between members of different religious communities in daily life, or even than organized discussions in forums or academic settings. Organized conversion activity is like a trained army invading a country from the outside. This missionary army often goes into communities where there is little organized resistance to it, or which may not even be aware of its power or its motives. It will even take advantage of communities that are tolerant and open minded about religion and use that to promote a missionary agenda that destroys this tolerance.”

Don’t you think that last sentence in the above paragraph hits the nail on the head when it comes to Sri Lanka (and India and no doubt many other countries in Asia)? I do. It is easy to blame the “Buddhist fanatics” and the “Hindu fanatics” and the “Muslim fanatics” like all the persecution websites do, but the question needs to be asked – what has led to their existence?

Jiva, regarding saris I read somewhere that the Malayali people also have their own version of the redde hatte. I also read another (controversial) article that argued that going by paintings/icononography available in the subcontinent, ancient South Asia was a far more liberal society that it is today, with women often going about barebreasted or wearing such fine upper garments that almost everything that is covered today was visible. It argued that when the Muslims arrived, they brought along with them their idea of what was appropriate. I’m not sure how much truth there is to those claims but it is an interesting idea that echos what you have written. Another thing – in pre-colonial South Asia homosexuals were not discriminated against and homosexuality was not prohibited by the rulers (from a religious point of view, Hinduism and Buddhism do not condemn homosexuality unlike Islam and Christianity). This was only criminalised when the colonials brought their sense of morality and enforced it through the law.

Agree. For example, if someone looked at the Sinhala script and then the scripts of Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if he thought that Sinhala belonged to the same family. Interesting fact – if you write the word “ganga” in Malayalam and Sinhala, both Malayali and Sinhala speakers would be able to read the word in either script – it’s almost identical! I think the relationship between Kerala (and its people) and Sri Lanka could fill a few books 🙂 I have been trying to learn the Tamil script, Devanagari (Hindi) script and Urdu script. For someone familiar with the Sinhala script the easiest one of the three to pick up is without a doubt the Tamil script (I can read Tamil pretty fluently now, but dont understand the words unfortunately – hopefully one day 🙂 )

“I agree with you on this. Especially the confrontation between Abrahamic( Christianity, Islam etc)and Dharmic faiths ( Hinduism, Budhism). Religious nationalism does exist in Dharmic faiths along with Abrahamic faiths and need to be condoned and resisted. But they need to be seen through the politics of Colonisation and theological finalities of truths propunded by modern day Christians and Muslims.”

I agree with you about the confrontation between the Abrahamic faiths and the Dharmic faiths (but also not that the Abrahamic faiths are also confronting each other eg Islam vs Christianity). Unfortunately however, I think this confrontation will become more acute in the future if nothing is done to further religious dialogue. The subcontinent is the place of origin of 4 beautiful Dharmic faiths – Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism and personally, I think it would be a shame to see them disappear from their homeland. From my understanding, religious nationalism in these traditions has arisen only when they have been actively persecuted for decades/centuries (generally speaking, In India this happened at the hands of Islam and in Sri Lanka it happened at the hands of Christianity). I think you have hit the nail on the head when you say that Dharmic extremism/violence “need to be seen through the politics of colonisation and theological finalities of truths propunded by modern day Christians and Muslims.”

Furthermore it is the upperclasses and the Govigama caste wore sarees in the past. The lower classes wore a top with the cloth to cover the bottom half similar to the reddha. Furthermore is is not conclusive evidence prior to the European invasions that people of Sri Lanka wore sarees at all.

It was agreed by various commentators in previuos posts that genetically the Sinhalas have both dravidian and aryan blood in them. So why are we still looking for the pure Aryan origin of the Sinhalas. If the blood is mixed how can there be one single origin?

Finally there is a significant influence of Indian Aryan in the Sinhala people. But the undue and unbalanced facination of this Aryan past without any reflection of its Drviadian past as well is alarming. It could be even summarised that the majority of the Sinhala peoples inability to come to terms with their Dravidan heritage as well( along with their Aryan heritage undeniably) has lead to the paranoid suspicion of the Tamil other. The Tamils represents this other which is infact is half of their own, blood, culture, art,architecture( Keralan architectures similaritey with Kandyan architecture), language, food, music.
To finish off let me give you an example. On a trip to India a while back a Sinhala friend of mine gave asked him to bring back some Hindi tapes to him. he specially requested for the Bombay( the film ) film music. I mentioned that Bombay film music can be bought in any Tamil music shop in Colombo and elsewhere in SL. But he wanted the Hindi one only. Bombay is a Tamil film which was then also dubbed and remade in HIndi. As with many of AR Rahmans songs( who first started off in the Tamil film industry and continues to work in it along with being a hit in the Hindi film industry) are first made in Tamil and then on other Indian languges aswell to include Hindi. My Sinhala friends inability or to be presise ‘not’ wanting to sing along to the Bombmay song in its original Tamil which is freely available in Sri Lanka( more than the Hindi counterpart) reveals a lot to be desired for. Singing in Tamil reminds too much of who he is

May be Sam Tahmbipillai is right after all. The problem is so deep rooted and endemic that a ‘divorce’ is possibly the best answer for the sake of peace!!!!!

“If you read the Kamboja Colonists of Sri Lanka article it would seem however that the East – West India debate is still not dead. If you look at the Wikipedia article on the Sinhalese language it supports the Idea that there were two types of Prakrit that gave rise to the Sinhalese language – Eastern and Western prakrit, suggesting immigration/influences from both eastern and western India. If I am not mistaken Lata/Lada refers to the area that is West Bengal/Bangladesh today (Vanga).”

Beware what you read on Wikipedia. It is of course conceivable that there were emigrants from NW India who assimilated and became Sinhala, but the overwhelming linguistic and cultural evidence points to Kalinga region adjacent to Vanga (mythical Sinhabahu’s human mother supposedly came from Vanga region).

For the linguistic evidence, take a look at W.S. Karunatillake’s “Historical Phonology of Sinhala.” The Asokan edicts can generally be divided into two categories of prakrit- the “majority” prakrit found in most of India including Kalinga, and the “minority” few inscriptions in NW/Gandhara area which had a different prakrit. The oldest Sinhala inscriptions resemble the “majority” more than the NW variety.

I read a book about sarees that states that the Sinhala method of pleating is not found anywhere in India EXCEPT for among the Gond people of northern Andhra Pradesh and Orissa areas. The fact that even the medieval Tamils believed that Vijaya came from Kalinga shows that this must have been the consensus of the ancients.

“My reference to “ability practice their own religions and cultures with freedom” is based on the very real and current threat to this freedom on the island, posed by some fanatical buddhist clergy and their gangs of thugs. ”

I don’t think we would be having this problem if we didn’t have equally if not more fanatical evangelical born-agains who believe that the entire world should convert to their idiotic faith. Take a look at 19th century history and you will see that the Buddhist monks at first were very open and accommodating to the Christian missionaries. It is only a few decades later after the Christians made their intentions clear to wipe out Buddhism that this “Buddhist fanaticism” arose.

The evangelicals pose a greater threat to the Tamil Hindus who are in a vulnerable state due to displacement and other suffering caused by the war.

You won’t be able to google the more numerous accounts of Christian misdeeds around the world because their non-Xian victims don’t have the same kind of clout and money to launch these kinds of campaigns.