Customer Reviews

Ganesa: Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

Having read this book, I find myself refreshed by the author's approach; however, the conclusions he comes to are by no means unique, and planty of other publications in the Subcontinent and Continental Academia will agree with his lines of thought. As a post-graduate student of Hindu religious philosophy, I appreciated the work for its intriguing nature.

This is not neccesarily a book for a non-scholar. Casual laypeople, or non-scholars may find the work of the book beyond their interests or background of understanding. When using primary texts, one tends to lose (and apparently anger) those who have come to understand the subject based on popular and built up mythology and popular trends of interpretation. As we know, popular Hinduism is irrecognizeable from its forms in the 1800s, and even more so from Vedic Hinduism of thousands of years ago.

The place of Ganesh in Hinduism has undergone a radical change in status in the last 150 years, becoming very public and prominant, where before uncommon. Indeed, the modern great Ganesh Holiday, Ganesh Chaturthi - was the creation of the revisionist Bal Tilak in the late 1800s. The festival was started to create a communal religious fervor among the Hindus, on the coinciding Muslim holiday. It is in this modern form Ganesh has taken, that it is difficult for academics to procede in true analysis of early texts and Ganesh's original appearances in Hindu society, and why this book is a useful text.

How did he come to a conclusion that the trunk is actually a phallus? Are there any ancient scripts available for proving the same ....

According to the ancient scripts translated by Modern Sanskrit literature contemperories, Lord Shiva who is renowed as the one who is short -tempered, cut Lord Ganesha's head once out of rage, due to his childlike activities. Parvati-mata, the sole wife of Shiva ( never otherwise mentioned in Scripts) cajoled him to make render him his head, to which Shiva looked for a head to but could not find one instantly so replaced his head with the White elephants head--which is also called as an AIRAVATA .

I would like to pass on the message to Mr. Courtright, regarding his so called well-written book, after lots of research done in this chapter. Mr. Professor FREEDOM OF SPEECH doesnt mean to publish any thought that one possess without any concrete proof regarding the matter. If you really wanna know about LORD GANESHA you can contact me at my mail address. If not, and your sole idea is to practice blasphemy in the camoaflage of FREEDOM OF SPEECH, I would highly recommend you to continue your practices in PORNOGRAPHIC stories and other related industry. And good luck for the same.

It is interesting that the two "five-star" reviews appear to largely be critiquing the Hindu Caste system rather than saying anything about the book, which is on Ganesha, not the caste system. Their point --since Hinduism is *so bad* a book saying anything bad about Hinduism (demonizing Ganesha in this case) must be automatically great. This is prejudice, not scholarship or criticism and I'm disappointed that Amazon has chosen to highlight these.

Yes, there were prenicious aspects to the caste system that need to be criticised. At the same time there are enormous positive ideas and practises in Hinduism -- many of which like yoga, meditation, bhajans, Hindu systems of philosophy and psychology have made their way into mainstream Western thinking and practise. From Thoreau to Emerson from Nietszche and T S Eliot to Walt Whitman and from Carl Jung to the Beatles, Hindu thought has had an enormous influence on the West. And no, it is not all about the caste system, neither is this book.

Rather this book is about Ganesha who has a central place in a Hindu's relation to the divine. This book seeks to use questionable theories (....) to demean Ganesha, likening the child deities fondness for sweets to a desire for oral sex, for instance. This is fine if you are on a Christian evangelical quest to "save" the pagans (as Courtright is), but if you genuinely wish to understand Hinduism, I would give it a skip.

it seems that the author has deliberately
chosen to hurt the sentiments of a community.
this book is of no value in terms of
academic contribution. people have a right
to react and criticize the book in any manner.
On one hand Thomas P. Fortune is talking about
the right of Free speech, but on
the other hand is is telling the other person
to "go back to the subcontinent". Fine ! Let's
all go back to wherever we came from. And let's
leave this continent to the native americans.

Game for it ?

I have read this and is ignorant and distasteful at its best. Author has no right to hurt the sentiments of the millions of Hindus and non-hindus who revere god ganesha.
Btw sjmanikt is ignorant that its freedom of speech to rebuke and critic ignorance. please enlighten...

This is one of the worst depiction of Hindu culture. This book ought to be banned. I know that we all have freedom of speech, but this is pushing it too far !!!

Anybody who has the slightist sense of respect to others sentiments should stop at once. It is one thing to have freedom of speech and another to scrutinise something that is based on beliefs. Mr. Paul there is no guarantee that what you have written about Ganesh is in any way true so kindly keep your filth out of the millions who start their day with Ganesh's holy name.

Hello folks. This is really a quite worthless book in general. It is like a free association session, with little basis in reality.

I did find a really good book on Hinduism if you are interested. Despite its name 'The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Hinduism' by Linda Johnson, it is one of the best introductions to hindu culture. Very balanced and complete, with a good understanding of how Hindus think about their religion.

This book is insensitive to Hindu faith. Lord Ganesha is always depicted as having a fat belly. He has short stature and a face of an elephant. The author (Paul B. Courtright) has taken the liberty of ghastly speculation on Lord Ganesha.
On page 111: "Ganesha's broken tusk, his guardian's staff, and displaced head can be interpreted as symbols of castration."
Page 111: "Both in his behavior and iconographic form Ganesha resemples in some aspects, the figure of the eunuch."
Page 111: "Although there seems to be no myths of folk tales in which Ganeshas explicitly forms oral sex; his insatiable appetite for sweets may be interpreted as an effort to satisfy a hunger that seems inappropriate in an otherwise ascetic disposition, a hunger having clear erotic overtones."

These are outrageous speculations.

Its a horrendous act of writing books which hurts the feelings & beliefs of billions of people accross the world. People should not tolerate this. No one has any right to crack jokes or comment on other people's religion. This has a direct effect on people's beliefs on CULTURE (specially people of Indian origin/Foreign nationality). Raise a tough voice to act against the book before its too late. I had to select 1 star cause there was no 0 STAR option!!