Between Ears, Not Legs
______________ Nithin Sridhar ______________ Her lap is a sacrificial altar; her hairs, the sacrificial grass; her skin, the soma-press. The two labia*(lips) of the vulva are the fire in the middle [Brhad-Âranyaka Upanisad, 6.4.3] This man (ama) am I; that woman (sâ), thou! That woman, thou; this man am I! I am the Sâman; thou, the Rig! I am the heaven; thou, the earth! Come, let us two together clasp! Together let us semen mix, A male, a son for to procure! [Brhad-Âranyaka Upanisad, 6.4.20] (1) W henever the issue of love, nudity, sex and Hinduism comes into picture, we usually get to see one of the following reactionaries: (a) The West in general and its scholars studying South Asia [for example RISA (2) ] in particular, and their Indian counterparts who consider Hinduism to be a mix of voodoo and pornography; or (b) The Hindu orthodoxy which thinks sex is taboo. Now let's examine how valid these perspectives are. Hindu purushartha s: Purushartha means "objectives of a hum...