Indian cult kills children for goddess

[moobu2]

'Holy men' blamed for inciting dozens of deaths

Dan McDougall in Khurja, India
Sunday March 5, 2006
The Observer


A painted image of the Hindu goddess Kali is propped up against a stone in the dirt, her long red tongue goading terrified worshippers into submission. From one of her eight flailing arms a severed head dangles, her neck is adorned by a necklace of bleached human skulls.
There are bloodstains on the cracked wall behind the terrible postcard-size image and, around the dark room, splattered gore on the heavy wooden furniture. These dark marks bear witness to a child sacrificed in the name of the abominable goddess.

Through the doorway, in the distance, colourfully dressed women are bent double, toiling in the fields, their faces worn and wrinkled from the sun, their hands cracked from digging at the dry earth from dawn until dusk.

It's an intolerable life in the remote village of Barha, a squalid collection of mud-bricked farmers' dwellings in the heart of the impoverished province of Khurja, Uttar Pradesh. This corner of rural India is a lawless place of superstitions and deep prejudice. The region, known for its sugarcane, is a tortuous eight-hour drive from Delhi and a lifetime away from the 21st century.

observer.guardian.co.uk
The story goes on to document the horrific story of a woman and her grown sons who kidnapped a 3 year old boy from his home in the middle of the night for sacrifice. They cut off his nose and ears and his body was found the next morning. And 28 other human sacrifices in in 4 months.

[WhiteTara]

1. fundies everywhere. Kali

actually uses the knife to cut the veil of illusion in mythology, not kill people.

[mom cat]

2. It is the same mistake as fundamentalists all over the globe make.

Jihad is supposed to represent a spiritual strugle. Christian fundamentalists had there inquisition and are pining for another.

[moobu2]

3. I know

this is a just a cult involving very uneducated, superstitious rural folks who are easily influenced by these "holy men" etc.. definitely not mainstream Hindu activity. Pretty disturbing though.

[manic expression]

4. A few things

this is something that rarely happens, as in a very, very, very rare thing. Practices such as these are seen as disgusting and wrong by pretty much everyone (specifically by those in the Hindu community), except for those who do it. Furthermore, the part where the article tells of the conditions of the area is very important, as these very rare occurrences are done in the most rural and "less-enlightened" areas, and even then it is still extremely, extremely rare (even this article says these have been part of a recent - while limited - developing trend).

If anyone wants to do the math, compare the number of people in India to these occurrences. THAT'S how rare it is. Again, these sorts of practices are completely condemned by the entire Hindu/Indian/everyone-else community.

In actuality, Kali is a very positive deity, as she is the defeater of ego, pride and ignorance. The heads, skulls and other parts of the picture are various symbols which represent various forms of pride and conceit. It would be ridiculous and equally insensitive and wrong to call Kali an "abominable goddess", or to say that Kali devotees and worshippers are remotely unethical.

[moobu2]

5. Not to be bashing Kali but

she does seem to have a darker side, like all religions do.

Origins of the word 'Thug'

The English word thug, meaning a violent criminal, comes from the Hindi word thag (and originally from the Sanskrit word sthaga), meaning a thief or villain.

The original Thugs were bands of roving criminals in India who strangled and robbed travellers. Originally these gangs committed murder following precise religious rites to honour Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction.

The crime was known as Thuggee, and although it involved a Hindu goddess, there were Muslim Thugs as well.

BBC.COM

I read somewhere that in some depictions of Kali, she wears dead infants as earrings.

I have nothing against the Kali goddess myth, don’t get me wrong, other than morbid curiosity of it’s (and most religions) darker sides..all religions have dark sides. Look at historical Christianity for instance.

[manic expression]

7. No problem

If you point to an English "understanding" of India, I would say that the English were quite quick to paint things as barbaric and "unsivilized" (see "Things Fall Apart"). Pious gangs are quite widespread (MS-13, IIRC), and the fact that Muslim Thugs were active shows that no real connection between Kali and this practice really exists here.

Yes, she is not only depicted wearing dead infants, but disemboweling many people in grotesque ways. The symbolism is what is important. The dead people represent pride and conceit disguised as beauty and innocence. To miss that is to misunderstand the whole concept of Kali.

IMO, this "dark side" is really just misunderstandings and the actions of a few rare lunatics (as in the story in the original post).

Some quick reading:
http://www.goddess-kali-ma.com/

[greyl]

6. They behaved as though they had the knowledge of good and evil.

The knowledge of who and what shall live, and who and what shall die.
They assumed the rights that only belong to their 'god', Kali.

Individual psychosis supported by cultural pathology?


I'm sure we'd all agree, that they weren't real Hindus.