History Mystery: Sex And The Religions Part.IV

Almost all the religion worship the power greater than us. Prehistoric men followed many forms of Divine Power, and consequently polytheism, or a faith in numerous gods, is a peculiarity of Pagan peoples and Hinduism. In whatever mode the immense divine power was conceived, it always followed the form of worship of a sexual power that created the nature.“Father”, “our father” or “Father who is in heaven” is the words mentioning the creator in all nations of Aryan extraction (All the religions of European origin else Aryan are the male worshipers). The most primitive idea of Aryans Greek and Romans was the Sky (male) overlay and held Earth (female) in an unending embrace, which result in the creation of all living things. Simply saying, all materialization of nature (thunder, lightning etc) which are mysterious to the primitive people were called by them as god.

The power of procreation or reproduction was the overwhelming characteristic of all religions. In the ancient times the people noticed the child was born after the man first copulated with his counterpart and hence the credit for creation of a new born was given to the male. The same theory was mentioned in Anaxagoras of 450BC. According to the Anaxagoras the embryo was seed given by the father and the mother was only the ground from where the seed grow into a plant.

“Give me children or else I will die” Rachel said to Jacob (Gen.XXX, 1). Because of his physical strength and he subjugate the women and children from the enemies most of the tribes accept the male superiority. Even the life and death of his women, children and his slaves were at his liberty (most of the researchers believe the ancestor worship was the first and foremost original religion).  The Greeks called the penis and the testicles as Phallus and therefore the sex worship was named as phallic worship. The Phoenicians called the Penis as “Asher” which means; “The Upright”, The Powerful”, and “The Opener”. Since the Penis ruptured the hymen and opens the door of the womb in the first coition with a virgin it is called as The Opener.

The Phoenician god Asher was similar to that of Egyptian god Ptah and Ptah were considered identical with Baal-Peor means; “The Master of the Opening”, “Master of the Hole” or The Master of the Vulva”. Even the same ideas were prevailed among the ancient Israelites (refer Bible, “And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her and opened her wo4m1b ;”) Gen.XXX, 22 :) In the ancient days the Jews were taken oaths by laying their hand on the penis of the one to whom the oath was given. Later period the translators of the Bible ashamed of using the word phallus or penis they used the word loin.  The bible of ancient Israelites tells us the Pagan gods as Baal or Baal-Peor. The Hindus reverenced the Penis as “Lingam” and worship it as the visible representation of the Creator himself. The ruins of Aztec temples and ancient Egyptian temple sculptures speak the truth so loudly.                                                                     (to be continued)

History Mystery: Sex And The Religions Part.III

In Indian mythology the gods are usually represented with four, six, twelve or more arms which symbolically indicate their superior power this is somewhat similar to that of the ancient Greek gods with hundred handlers. The development of bible is similar to that of Indian Rig Vedas; entire composing of Bible took at least a sixteen hundred full years. Bible is actually a collection of history, hymns, law, proverbs, visions and even romantic or erotic love stories (Story of Esther is worth mention) and it is not written by God himself in heaven. From the unique internal evidences available in bible we can conclude that bible was compiled from some other old sources that may be lost long before.

Some stories in the bible are quiet similar with the stories found in the Vedas, Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions. The great flood and the sun standing still for accommodate a human hero are the few. The Assyrian inscriptions are a whole thousand years ancient than the Bible with the similar stories. As recent researches have shown that the Old Testament is largely derived from the same sources as the Assyrian, Babylonian, Chaldean and Egyptian religions, it should not surprise us to find traces of these religions and of their symbolism in Christianity, as will appear farther on in our future posts.

In its early stage, the religious worship of sex was as pure in intention and as far removed from any ideas of anything impure or obscene as any of our own religions. As of now those rites may seems to us indecent but the primitive peoples followed those rituals without any idea that they are impure and religious. The Unitarianism, the oneness of all religion seeks to find the truth in worship of god. Most of the people believe in revelation as the source of their religion but both ancient and modern writers thought that the religions are the due to the process of evolution. Our own religion is rarely the result of study and though but rather it is the result of habit and heritage; we are what our parents are. We follow the religion because of the inherited faith on it. Since we have no time or no facilities or don’t have the skill or ability to study our own religion critically and impartially to ascertain the truth; or we don’t have the theosophical education that will enable as to judge our religious inherited faith hence we solemnly settle with the thought our religion is the best to the greater extent.
(to be continued)

Know Your English Literature Part. XIII

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Children’s book by Lewis Carroll published in 1865 and written for Alice Liddell, the daughter of a friend. Alice enters Wonderland by following the white Rabbit down his hole, and has many strange adventures there. She meets the Mad Hatter and the march Hare, the grinning Cheshire Cat and the Queen of hearts, who shouts, ‘Off with her head!’ when Alice makes a mistake at croquet. The book was highly successful and was followed in 1872 by through the Looking Glass.

The book has been interpreted in many different ways, from being a satire on the court of Queen Victoria or academic pedantry at oxford, to mocking the legal system or exploring the unconscious mind.

William Wordsworth: English poet whose work played a major role in the development of Romanticism in English literature. His writing expresses a mystical view of life in which nature and the unman spirit are closely connected. Wordsworth grew up in Cumbria, and the Lake District country side inspired many of his poems, such as ‘The prelude,’ ‘Intimations of Immortality’ and ‘Resolution and Independence’. He was a close friend of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and in 1798 they published a joint volume, Lyrical Ballads, which included such poems as The Rime of the ancient mariner and Tintern Abbey. He was mad poet laureate in 1843.

Wordsworth lived with his sister Dorothy and wife, Mary, at Dove Cottage, now a museum, in Grasmere.

Brer Rabbit: Wily animal character from black American folklore used by the 19^th century American author Joel Chandler Harris in his ‘Uncle Remus’ tales.

Brer is a dialect version of brother

Know Your English Literature Part. XII

The Charges of the Light Brigade: The poem written by Tennyson in 1854, about a disastrous British cavalry charge in the Crimean War, in which nearly 250 soldiers were killed or wounded. The poem contains the lines:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die.

‘Big Brother is watching you’: Slogan appearing on posters throughout the fictional dictatorship in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty four. Big brother is the unseen head of the ruling party. The term ‘big brother’ is used to refer to any ruler or government seen as invading the privacy of individuals.

Brave New World: Futuristic novel by the British author Aldous Huxley published in 1932. It is set in a time when society is governed by science, and solutions have supposedly been found to all human problems. The main character is an intellectual, Bernard Marx, who in his travels encounters ‘Savages’ who still lead lives of unscientific disorder. Marx returns to London accompanied by a Savage, and the book ends with a debate on human freedom versus scientific determinism.

The book’s title comes from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest in which Miranda, brought up alone on an island, catches her first glimpse of a man other than her father. ‘O brave new world,’ she exclaims,’ that has such people in it.’

Anita Brookner: Novelist and former art historian who began writing fiction in middle age. Her heroines are innocent romantics who find to their cost that in life – unlike literature – there are few happy endings. Her novel Hotel du Lac won the 1984 Booker prize.

Know Your English Literature Part. XI

Othello: Tragedy by William Shakespeare, probably written between 1602 and 1604. Othello, a Moor, has command of the Venetian forces in Cyprus. However, the villain Iago cunningly convinces Othello that Desdemona, his beautiful and faithful wife, has committed adultery with Cassio, a lieutenant. Consumed by jealously Othello murders Desdemona by smothering her in bed. When he realizes his error and Iago’s malice, he kills himself.

Pride and Prejudice: Novel by Jane Austen published in 1813. The story concerns an upper middle class Hertfordshire family consisting of the foolish Mrs. Bennet, her wryly humorous husband and their five daughters. After a complex succession of proposals, refusals, engagements and even an elopement, three of the daughters end up happily married.

                The book’s opening sentence is well known:’ It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife’.

The Wind in the Willows: Animal story for children by Kenneth Grahame published in 1908. The book started out as a series of tales told to Grahame’s son, featuring the highly strung, conceited and irresponsible toad and his riverside companions Rattie, Mole and Badger- characters partly based on friends of Grahame’s and partly on the rural gentry.

A musical, Toad of Toad Hall, was adapted from the book by A.A.Milne in 1930.

‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may’: First line of the 17^th century poem urges young people to make the most of life in particular,of love- while they can.

Know Your English Literature Part. X

The Jungle Book: Collection of short stories for children by Rudyard Kipling published in 1894 and followed by the second Jungle book. Many of the stories feature Mowgli, a boy who is brought up by wolves and educated in the ways of the jungle by animals such as Ballo, the brown bear, and Bagheera, the Black Panther.

·         Mowgli and his friends are now, perhaps, best known to thousands of youngsters through Walt Disney’s 1967 delightful animated film version of the jungle book.

·         The Jungle Book was the inspiration behind the Wolf Cubs, the junior division of the Boy Scouts, founded in 1916.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Comedy by William Shakespeare, written around 1595. Four lovers spend a night in a wood outside Athens, where the fairy king and Queen, Oberon and Titania, have had an argument. To punish Titania, Oberon gets the sprite Puck to drop the juice of a magic herb on her eyes while she sleeps so that she will fall in love with the first thing she sees when she wakes. This turns out to be the weaver Bottom wearing an ass’s head mask for a play rehearsal, Puck also uses the herb on the human lovers who unfortunately set eyes on the wrong partners first. When Titania and Oberon are reconciled, Oberon releases the human lovers from the spell.

Ø  Well known lines from the play include

Ø  ‘Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania’

Ø  ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’

Know Your English Literature Part. IX

Emma: Novel by Jane Austen published in 1816 and regarded by many as her best work. The heroine, Emma Woodhouse, is a talented and attractive young woman who is, however, just a little too pleased with herself and a little too keen to meddle in the lives of others. Her action upset many people and nearly causes disaster on several occasions. However, Emma eventually learns her lesson and is rewarded by marriage to the chivalrous Mr.Knightley.

Samuel Johnson: Writer, wit, critic and lexicographer, best known for his Dictionary of the English language, published in 1755. In it, Johnson defines more than 40000 words and includes over 100000 quotations illustrating their usage. The book remained the standard reference work until publication of the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1884.

Henry V: Historical play by William Shakespeare, written in 1599. The new king, Henry V, is advised that he has a claim to the French throne and wages war on France. After his rousing and patriotic speech- designed to increase his soldiers comradeship, and which includes the line ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers’- the English win a great victory at Agincourt. The play ends with peace reestablished and Henry courting Katherine of France.

·         Films of Henry V include a 1944 version, starring Laurence Olivier, and a 1989 version directed by Kenneth , Branagh in which he also played the title role

‘Let us go then, you and I’: First line of the poem The Love song of J.Alfred Prufrock by T.S.Eliot. The title is ironic, and Eliot deliberately uses unromantic images to reflect the nature of modern existence. The poem continues:

         When the evening is spread out against

                       The sky

          Like patient etherised upon a table.