From: paulchem@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Atharvan)
Subject: Re: Rig Veda and the Beginning of Time
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 20:02:07 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.054111.17977@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> prasanth@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Ravi K. Prasanth) writes:
>In article <1992Dec29.223340.21094@colorado.edu>, paulchem@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Atharvan) writes:
>> In article <1992Dec29.002735.21430@odin.corp.sgi.com> murgesh@entropy.esd.sgi.com (Murgesh Navar) writes:
>> >Rig veda :( ~ 1500 BC)
>> >
>> >        Whatever he made the world or did not make it,
>> >        He knows whence this creation came, he only
>> >        Who in the highest heavens guards and watches;
>> >        He knows indeed, but then, perhaps, he knows not!
>> >
>> 
>>    I think the essence of the timelessness of the vedas is contained
>>    in the attempt to reach a self-consistent explanation of existence
>>    without endowing God with human attributes, and without starting
>                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>    with God as an axiom. 
>> 
>
>Then why is God referred to as He in the poem ? Male Chauvinism ?

1] I do not know how serious you are in this query.
   I am treating it seriously.
   
   I agree completely with you about God having a gender being absurd.
   Still from the lines quoted, the impression I got was that the being
   described was so far removed from concrete shapes and forms that the
   'He' used was in-operative. The abscence of gender, using the nuetral
   form would make it extremely impersonal, [ Perhaps that is the right form ]
   to say that "It created us from chaos" or whatever else is de-personalising 
   to man. It removes the importance that the human race is assumed to have 
   in the scheme of things.  It also removes psychologically the concept of
   divine pre-meditated creation. "It" is directly connected in our minds with
   inanimate things. And who would want to believe that we were made by 
   "things" ? 
   The point I am trying to make is that extra-polating from general experience,
   the nueter gender invokes inanimate images, which are difficult to swallow
   for people.


   I do think that the tone of these lines invoke a genderless formless being.

   Now, the question of why a male creator, the reasons seem to be connected
   to the nature of human "creation" of life. The male in most cultures and
   civilisations is taken as the active principle. The female is assumed to be
   passive and the medium of creation. Sexual reproduction in the higher 
   species is accomplished by internal fertilisation, and is a theme so
   all-pervading as to influence thinking. The male fertilizes, and "creates"
   life. This usage of He I think derives from this mode of thinking.

   Note that  the female gender is used in refernce to nature, "the medium
   of creation", earth the basis for life is almost always seen as female.

   The point I make here is that it is not so much chauvinism but analogy to
   human creation of life that influenced such gender-typing.

   I do agree that genedr-typing of the divine has been carried to extremes
    and now appoaches the absurd.

2] Stay Cool.


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.    ~ ~                                                                     .
.    o o      signito ergo sum.              paul chemmanoor.                .
.     |    i sign therefore i am.            Computer Science department.    .
.     =                                      Univ. of Colorado, Boulder.     .
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