| Yet if we
pursue the same logic with Indra as Western scholars have with Shiva, as fighting with the
Gods, slaying Tvashtar (the deity of the sacrifice) or his son, being excluded from
drinking the Soma, slaying a Brahmin, being an outcast and doing what is forbidden, Indra
must also be a non-Vedic or non-Aryan God. While
there has been a tendency to make Shiva into non-Vedic for having such fierce,
unusual traits and unorthodox actions, Indra has the same traits. However we cannot make
Indra non-Vedic because he has the largest number of hymns in the Vedas. Hence there is no
reason why Shiva should be non-Vedic for having such traits either.
These bizarre metaphors merely express the nature of the
higher Self or Atman which transcends all the dualities and limitations of the manifest
world, even that of good and evil. Shiva has been criticized by some Hindus as
unaryan. Western scholars, caught in a superficial racial view of the term Aryan, have
taken this to mean that Shiva is the deity of a different race or religion. |
