My family and extended family are high caste Hindu and coincidentally terrible human beings (narrator: It’s not coincidental). As such I am atheistic and have kept my distance from Hindu stuff because from what I have seen so far no good comes out of it ever. The way I see it, in a post-colonial India, Hinduism is a religion of the oppressors. The little that I know it is full of red flags and there no emancipatory value to it which is a bit shocking considering India’s colonial past. For example, in the Hindu epic called Ramayana, Hanuman flies to Sri Lanka. He does this to check up on Sita, the wife of Lord Rama (the incarnation of Krishna who is one of the most important Hindu gods). Sita had been kidnapped by Ravana, the king of Sri Lanka. After Hanuman checks up on her, he commits arson basically setting civilian infrastructure on fire which I am sure is against the Geneva Convention or its equivalent mapped to this mythical universe. This is something that is celebrated which I never understood really.
Either way, I don’t fuck with Hinduism for mostly personal reasons. This got me thinking if there are people here who are interested in it. The only other Indian person I know here is trapped in the cycle of getting banned for going off the handle and creating alt accounts which is kinda ironic considering the Hindu belief in karma and rebirth.
I know that the Rev Left Radio guy is interested in Buddhism which also originated in India/Nepal but is extremely less problematic. So it got me wondering if there are non-Indian people here interested in Hinduism. That’s all.
I’m Thai, so, thanks to the Buddhism-with-Hinduism-characteristic over here, I’m a bit familiar with a few of localized version of Hindu mythology, including Ramayana. I agree, it’s weird when you really think about it.
Can you give me some keywords that I can search for or some links so I look into these localised versions?
The conception of good-versus-evil in Ramayana is heavily racialised. I was wondering what it was like in other versions.
Ramakien (wikipedia link)
It’s the only one I remembered, thanks to secondary school. I remember that they are other mythology, mostly in the form of children stories, but I can’t remember the name or even the plot.
[warning : incoming rant]
Frankly, literatures is one of my least favorite subject in my entire school years, partly thanks to many local literatures that was so terribly written I have no idea why people still talk about them fondly. For heck sake, one of the first story we learn in primary school is a few step away from being a porn. Compare to these, at least Ramakien is somewhat enjoyable.
[end rant]
Thank you