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MahaHrada
04 July 2010, 02:47 PM
The Mother Is Thirsty!
Offer sacrifice to me. Give for I am thirsty. Seeing me,
know and adore the original Power, ranging here as
Kàlí, who . . . hungers to enjoy the heads of bodies of
mighty rulers.
Sri Aurobindo, “Bhavani Bharati”]

Their Sanskrit oath, probably written by Aurobindo, took the form of a Vedic
sacrificial hymn. Invoking Varuna, Agni and other deities . . . bowing down
to the ideal heroes of India that sacrificed their lives to save the motherland
. . . the oath-takers poured their hatred and shame into the fire . . .
to save the country. Renouncing all life’s pleasures, they vowed to dedicate
themselves to the establishment of the Dharma Rajya [Righteous Kingdom].
. . . Then bowing to a sword, crown of all weapons, the symbol of
death, they lifted it up in the name of the Adya Shakti (original Energy,
conceived as the Goddess Kàlí).

The public voice of the movement was communicated through the Calcutta
newspapers Bandemataram, to which Aurobindo was a regular contributor,
and the more radical Jugantar, begun by Aurobindo’s brother,
Barin. The latter openly preached revolution and subversion of British
authority. Calling the Bengali youth to give themselves in “sacrificial
death” to the nationalist cause, the newspaper gave precise directions as
to how one should start a secret terrorist organization and carry out terrorist
activities.

Nationalism is not a mere political program; Nationalism is a religion
that has come from God. Nationalism is a creed which you shall have
to live. . . . If you are to be Nationalist . . . you must do it in the religious
spirit. . . . It is not by any mere political programme . . . that this country
can be saved. . . . What is the one thing needful? . . . the idea that there is
a Power at work to help India, that we are doing what God bids us.


Rise up, O sons of India, arm yourselves with bombs, dispatch
the white Asuras to Yama’s abode. Invoke the Mother
Kali. . . . The Mother asks for sacrificial offerings. What does
the Mother want? . . . A fowl or sheep or buffalo? No. She
wants many white Asuras. The Mother is thirsting after the
blood of the Feringhees. . . . [C]hant this verse while slaying
the Feringhee white goat: with the close of a long era, the
Feringhee Empire draws to an end, for behold! Kali rises in
the East.
Jugantar, Bengali newspaper (1905)

On the day on which the Mother is worshipped in every
village, on that day the people of India will be inspired
with a divine spirit and the crown of independence will
fall into their hands.
Jugantar (1905)

Nationalism is an avatàr that cannot be slain. Nationalism
is a divinely appointed shakti of the Eternal and
must do its God-given work before it returns to the
bosom of Universal Energy from which it came.
Sri Aurobindo, quoted in Iyengar, Sri Aurobindo (1950)

In the first era of the dissemination of English culture . . .
Bengal resounded with opprobrious criticisms of the
Tantras. No one among the educated in Bengal could
praise them. . . . The educated Bengali of the age was
bewitched by the Christian culture, and . . . any who
attempted to study the Tantras ran the risk of exposing
themselves to contumely from the educated community.
Panchkori Bandyopadhyay, Sàhitya (1913)

sambya
05 July 2010, 12:49 AM
aurobindo was not shakta . this is not shakta nationalism . there is nothing like shakta nationalism .
all typical bengali nationalism of the day indentified desha with mother goddess and seeked to invigorate the masses by stirring their relgious spirit , which in case of bengal was mostly mother goddess .

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sm78
05 July 2010, 02:51 AM
aurobindo was not shakta . this is not shakta nationalism . there is nothing like shakta nationalism .




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all typical bengali nationalism of the day indentified desha with mother goddess and seeked to invigorate the masses by stirring their relgious spirit , which in case of bengal was mostly mother goddess .

You do a good job of refuting yourself.

But in seriousness, you perhaves wanted to say Aurobindo was not religiously a shakta and the bengal nationalism did not have much to do with the Shakta Religion (i.e Tantra) except for the spirit of divine feminine. That is a fair comment, although, the spirit of divine faminine is enough to qualify it as shakta.

The bengal nationalism was ofcourse more driven by somewhat rational expectations of freedom on which western education of its key figures had good influence.

MahaHrada
05 July 2010, 03:21 AM
If a secret militant nationalists group worships the Astra of Kali and glorifies Kshatriya Dharma during their "diksha" that alone qualifies as shakta for me. Secret circles of actual tantrics certainly existed within and empowered the more secular members. By the way Aurobindo was also a tantric shakta, he did not broadcast that too loud though, i don´t know of his earlier associations but later he associated with a Guru from the sri kula parampara that goes back to the famous Bhaskararaja.

Although Aurobindo would later deny his involvement with the radical actions
of the Jugantar group, his brother Barindra and other members
clearly regarded him as its founder, chief inspiration, and karta, or boss.
Throughout these organizations, there were often deep connections
between Shàkta Tantra and revolutionary politics. Much of the impetus
for the secret groups came from the well-known novel of Bankim Chandra
Chatterjee, Änandamatah—the story of a group of revolutionary sannyàsís
(renunciants, ascetics) and devotees of the Mother Goddess who
hope to overthrow Muslim rule in Bengal. Inspired by Bankim’s work,
Aurobindo and others deployed a network of secret organizations in order
to work behind the scenes toward an armed revolution. As Kees Bolle,
Leonard Gordon, and others have observed, the revolutionaries explicitly
appropriated many structures of Shakta Tantra, adapting “neo-Tantric
rituals” and initiations to the service of building up an underground
revolutionary organization. “Shakta religious rituals played a significant
role in cementing unity and discipline. . . . The left wing extremists which
organized themselves into revolutionary secret societies followed the
practice of taking vows before the goddess Kàlí.

H.Urban Tantra Politics and Power

Philippe*
05 July 2010, 07:56 AM
Sri Aurobindo was not a religious Shakta neither a Vamachari, he identified himself with Hinduism just for 12 years of his life but he had the spirit of a Shakta so to speak, the Divine Mother has an utmost importance in his path which he named Integral Yoga. He believed that in the struggle for independence violence was needed for some time :

Here is shortly in his own words his view on nationalism and how he related it with Sanatana Dharma.

http://intyoga.online.fr/uttaspch.htm

He hardly lived with his wife (she died quite young) mainly because of his involvement in nationalist activities.

Philippe

MahaHrada
05 July 2010, 10:04 AM
Sri Aurobindo was not a religious shakta neither a vamachari, he identified himself with Hinduism just for 12 years of his life but he had the spirit of a Shakta so to speak, the Divine Mother has an utmost importance in his path which he named Integral Yoga. He believed that in the struggle for independence violence was needed for some time :

Here is shortly in his own words his view on nationalism and how he related it with Sanatana Dharma.

http://intyoga.online.fr/uttaspch.htm

He hardly lived with his wife (she died quite young) mainly because of his involvement in nationalist activities.

Philippe

Thats what i meant when the divine mother is of central importance for you, you are usually called a shakta, i am not aware of any further details then what i wrote. Since Kaula Dharma is secret whether he also practised Sri Vidya or only felt close to it nobody knows, all i know is that he associated with a great Kaula Guru from Bhaskararaja Makhins Parampara. That Vamachara or Kaulachara always involves Sexuality is anyways only a myth, the above remark about acharas and his wife was only caused by the impure imaginations of the above poster (sambya). and has been already deleted by satay.

MahaHrada
05 July 2010, 01:41 PM
M.P. Pandit writer, and secretary of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and personal secretary to The Mother who wrote over 100 books most of them about aurobindos ideas also published excerpts from the importanat Kaula Tantra "Kularnava" called "Gems from the Tantras (Kularnava)

He also translated a book of the aforementioned Kaula Guru under the Title: Thoughts of a Shakta by Yogishananda Natha, who was Nilakanta Sharma Joshi, disciple of Ambanandanath. I remember that yeras ago I had the great fortune to receive a copy of the Guru meditation written by Nilakanta Sharma Joshi for his disciples, his disciple said by this alone one can realise god. I was allowed and would be glad to email a copy to all sincere shaktas who ask me for it.

sm78
06 July 2010, 03:09 AM
M.P. Pandit writer, and secretary of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and personal secretary to The Mother who wrote over 100 books also published excerpts from the importanat Kaula Tantra "Kularnava" called "Gems from the Tantras (Kularnava)

He also translated a book of the aforementioned Kaula Guru under the Title: Thoughts of a Shakta by Yogishananda Natha, who was Nilakanta Sharma Joshi, disciple of Ambanandanath. I remember that yeras ago I had the great fortune to receive a copy of the Guru meditation written by Nilakanta Sharma Joshi for his disciples, his disciple said by this alone one can realise god. I was allowed and would be glad to email a copy to all sincere shaktas who ask me for it.

Can you send me a copy please.

Thanks.

MahaHrada
06 July 2010, 03:40 AM
Can you send me a copy please.

Thanks.

done

Back on topic:

Whether this movement was inspired by Vamachara or not, certainly the otherworldly aims of Vedanta with its emphasis on Brahman and the illusionary nature of the world, blowing up otherworldy aims and Moksha out of proportion weakened the resistance of the Hindus against colonial rule. Since the british ended the muslim rule they naturally had many supporters.

What is very intersting though whether true or not in the eyes of the british Vamachara, "debauchery" and idolatry where to be blamend for the riots and the plan to weaken and destroy the Tantras or at least replace the original darshana with a sanitized Vedantic version with emphasis on the loving mother Kali, was carried out, and people like Rammohun Roy and his Brahmo samaj utilising the faked and manipulated Mahanirvana tantra with its vedantic bias and its inclusion of british legal reforms into the shastras to give divine status to them is an interesting move, of course many others well known like Ramakrishna and Vivekananda came in handy to promote a sanitized christianized version of Hindusims that strongly condemmend the authentic Achara.

Some more material from this time, this time from the british, which show that they considered that some "evil" variety of Hinduism and its idolatry was cause of the revolts ansd that they were looking for help from the orthodox Hindus to quell the riots:

One of the most pitiful of all the manifestations of unrest . . . is the strange
underground movement . . . which has produced a secret bomb and revolver
cult, an assassination society with secret initiation. . . . Behind all the cruelty
and sudden death of the world lies . . . Kali, the goddess of all horror. . . .
“I am hungry” is her cry. “I want blood, blood victims.” . . . Not even the
perverted imaginations of the Marquis de Sade could devise a more horrible
nightmare than Kali. . . . To minds such as students . . . overstrained by premature eroticism . . .
this deity becomes a cult in which half-mystical murder may be a dominant thought.
MacMunn, The Underworld of India, (1854)

Modern men could not but seek to get rid of the filth,
superstition and corruption revealed by the searchlight
of Christ. . . . There has been a serious attempt, on the
part of the orthodox, to destroy, drive underground or
deny the worst features of Left-hand shaktism . . . and
unclean superstition.
J. N. Farquhar, Modern Religious Movements in India (1915)

Cited in Arun Chandra Guha, Aurobindo and Jugantar, p. 19. Lieutenant
Governor Baker described Aurobindo as “an active generator of revolutionary sentiment.
He is imbued with a semi-religious fanaticism . . . and I attribute the spread
of seditious doctrines to him personally in a greater degree than to any other individual
. . . in India”

sm78
06 July 2010, 07:40 AM
done

people like Rammohun Roy and his Brahmo samaj utilising the faked and manipulated Mahanirvana tantra with its vedantic bias and its inclusion of british legal reforms into the shastras to give divine status to them is an interesting move,

In my understanding, the mahanirvana tantra instead of being a fake tantra created by neo-moralists aimed at diluting the kaula dharma with newer morals and vedantic slant, was instead a text written by kaulas to influence the neo vedantins and victorial moralists into better appreciation of the religion of that region (bengal, assam).

It is true ramamohan was very much using this book in his new christian like religion, but still only to a small degree w.r.t to the whole scope of the book.

MahaHrada
06 July 2010, 07:54 AM
In my understanding, the mahanirvana tantra instead of being a fake tantra created by neo-moralists aimed at diluting the kaula dharma with newer morals and vedantic slant, was instead a text written by kaulas to influence the neo vedantins and victorial moralists into better appreciation of the religion of that region (bengal, assam).

It is true ramamohan was very much using this book in his new christian like religion, but still only to a small degree w.r.t to the whole scope of the book.

Yes it is hard to say many of the hindu revivalist movements in that time are so to say acting in a grey area, also writers like A.Avalon are constantly appeasing victorian morals. very strange is that the only copies of the Mahanirvana tantra before printing can be traced to brahmo samaj and ramamohans library and that the british reform of marriage laws are described in that tantra, furthermore there is a lot of talk about the Brahman untypical for any tantra besides the M.
Maybe in the past appeasement was neccesary but that was 200 years ago, India is living in that past religiously, moderntantra does not really profit from the distortions, that crept into this tantra because people where appeasing the victorian era mindset. There are no mss. earlier than the 18th century ones from the library of Brahmo samaj or Ramamohan. So it is probably a compilation of earlier texts and some fake sociological parts where inserted.

MahaHrada
07 July 2010, 08:17 AM
A most influential early british description of the shakta tantras comes
from the Reverend William Ward, one of the leading figures in
the spread of the Baptist Missionary Society in Bengal and one of the
first Western authors to try to categorize the many diverse sects and castes
of the “Hindoos.” In Ward’s eyes, Hinduism as a whole was “the most
puerile, impure and bloody of any system of idolatry that
was ever established on earth,” a religion of “idle, effeminate and
dissolute people” with “disordered imaginations who frequent their
temples for the satisfaction of their licentious appetites”
In 1817, Ward’s book recounts the insidious practices described in the
tuntras—practices that involve “things too abominable to be revealed to
a Christian public”.

These where the viewpoints of the christian rulers on the Hinduism of the common man which in bengal always was based on the tantras.
Even today tantra has a bad name due to the hate of the british of everything genuinely hindu that smacked of idolatry and "debauch".
Music and dance was enough to qualify as debauchery nothing except the quasi monotheistic celebration
of the formless brahman in Vedanta was considered acceptable.

Some impression on the viewpoints prevalent among the christians of that time.

To know the Hindoo idolatry as it is, a person must
wade through the filth of the thirty-six pooranus. . . .
[H]e must follow the brahmun through his midnight
orgies before the image of Kalee.
William Ward, A View of the History,
Literature, and Religion of the Hindoos (1817)

Kàlí is wholly given over to cruelty and blood. She
drinks the blood of her victims. She lives in an orgy
of horrors.
Rev. E. Osborn Martin, The Gods of India (1913)

The dark image of this goddess is a truly horrid figure. . . . [S]he holds
in one hand a scimitar in another a giant skull. . . . [S]he stands upon her
husband . . . to keep him in subjection till the time of the universal con
flagration. . . . She exhibits the appearance of drunken frantic fury. Yet this
is the goddess . . . upon whose altars thousands of victims annually bleed,
and whose temple . . . is the resort of Hindoos from all parts of India.

Aurobindos devotion to Kali at the time he was organising the uprise in Bengal depicting her as scarred mother india suffering from the british rule:

“Bhavani Bharati, Mother of India”:
Garlanded with the bones of men and girdled with human skulls, with belly
and eye like a wolf’s hungry and poor, scarred on her back by the Titan’s
lashes, roaring like a lioness who lusts for kill . . . filling the world with
bestial sounds and licking her terrible jaws, fierce and naked, like eyes of
a savage beast, thus did I see the Mother.
Thou naked art Kàlí and utterly ruthless thou art. . . . I bow to Thee as
the violent One, O Ender of worlds. . . . The mighty Mother of creatures
has vanquished the age of Strife . . . in East and West, I hear the cry of the
whole world hastening with the praise on its tongue to this country, the
ancient Mother of the Vedas . . . firmly established in the Aryan country.
Abide forever gracious in this land, O mighty One.

rainycity
19 August 2010, 07:05 AM
So was aurobindo a radical and a supporter of terrorism?

rainycity
02 September 2010, 07:59 PM
So was aurobindo a radical and a supporter of terrorism?

yes or no?