Kali's Child
Encyclopedia
Kali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna is a book on the Indian mystic
Ramakrishna
by Hindu studies
scholar Jeffrey J. Kripal
, published in 1995 by the University of Chicago press. It argues for a homoerotic
strain in Ramakrishna's life, rituals
, and teachings.
The book won the American Academy of Religion
's History of Religions Prize for the Best First Book of 1995. It has been criticised by Ramakrishna's followers and several scholars, and became the object of an intense controversy among both Western and Indian audiences. Critics have argued that the book's conclusions were arrived at through mistranslation of Bengali
, misunderstanding of tantra
, and misuse of psychoanalysis
. Two attempts have been made to have the book banned in India, in 1996 and 2001, but did not pass in the Parliament
. Kripal published a second edition in 1998 and several essays and rebuttals, but as of 2004 the controversy still continued.
at the University of Chicago
, advised by Wendy Doniger
. According to Kripal, he adopted a Freudian approach to uncover the connections between tantric
and psychoanalytic hermeneutical traditions. In the preface, Kripal writes that he was fascinated and interested in the relation between "human sexuality and mystical experience". He also mentions that Kali's Child was influenced by Wendy Doniger
whose, "voluminous work, both in its rhetoric style and its erotic content provided me with a scholarly context, a genre if you will, in which I could write and defend my own ideas."
The primary thesis of Kali's Child is that a Ramakrishna's mystical experiences were generated by the lingering results of childhood traumas
, and sublimated
homoerotic
and pedophilia
c passions; and that "Ramakrishna’s mystical experiences...were in actual fact profoundly, provocatively, scandalously erotic." Kripal has argued that the same view was expressed 12 years earlier by Malcolm McLean, in his English translation of the Kathamrita. In his preface, Kripal also mentions that he did not set out looking for a "homoerotic saint" but that as his research proceeded, he became increasingly aware of the "role of homosexuality" in the saint's life and teachings, especially as that became evident in the "secret sayings".
Kripal examines a series of remarks made by Ramakrishna
to some of his intimate disciples regarding his mystical experiences and visions which, following Ramakrishna, he calls "secret talks" (guhya katha). These "secret talks" are taken as evidence of Ramakrishna's unresolved homosexual desires, misogynistic attitudes, and general obsession with the erotic. Kripal argues that Ramakrishna's attitudes and orientations were well known to some of his contemporaries (though not to Ramakrishna himself) and were hidden and suppressed, initially by his own disciples and later by members of the Ramakrishna Order
. He argues a systematic whitewashing of details and a general cover-up carried out by the biographers and translators of Ramakrishna
.
's History of Religions Prize for the Best First Book of 1995. In the following years, the book was reviewed in several Western academic journals of religion and South Asian culture. In 1999, Brian Hatcher wrote that while several reviewers expressed some misgivings, their overall evaluation of Kali's Child was positive, and at times highly laudatory, including one in 1997 by Malcolm McLean, a scholar of Bengali literature who has translated the Sri-Sri-Ramakrishna-Kathamrta and the poetry of Ramprasad. The positive reviews by Western academics were disputed by Tyagananda and Vrajaprana in 2010 writing that the "great majority of those who accepted the latter thesis were not in a position to asses the translation since most of the reviewers were not Bengali readers." They wrote that its "extremely unlikely" that any reviewer did a "close or extensive comparison" of the Kathamrita with that of Nikhilananda and Kripal's translations.
On the other hand, in 1995 Cambridge scholar Jean Openshaw criticized Kripal's book for what she saw as "sleight of hand by which strained or confessedly speculative arguments are subsequently transformed into a firm base for further such arguments". She also faulted the book for "slippage between an entirely appropriate scepticism towards the sources, and an unthinking acceptance of them when it suits the argument". In her opinion, Ramakrishna could not be regarded as a misogynist. She found Kripal's familiarity with a variety of Bengali texts "impressive", but noted several translation slips. For example, Kripal wrote that the faith of an associate of Ramakrishna had "homoerotic dimensions" on the grounds that he "liked to look at pictures of men, for they aroused in him feelings of 'tenderness' and 'love'". Openshaw wrote that the word manus which Kripal had translated as "men" actually means "human being" without gender specificity. She also noted that Kripal had taken "body" (ga- or an+ga) and "lap" (kol) to mean "genitals" and "a normally defiled sexual space", whereas in Bengali culture the lap has a strong maternal association. In her view, Kripal had fallen "into a reductionist trap by sexualising his language in a way quite inappropriate to the material." She wrote that Kripal's disclaimer "certainly many of my conclusions are speculative", but did not agree with his statement that "taken together their combined weight adds up to a convincing argument".
Rajat Kanta Ray
, a Bengali scholar in his 1997 review wrote that the historical evidence Kripal offers in favour of Ramakrishna’s homosexuality is "shaky" and some of Kripal's own evidence "seems to contradict it, and opens up the possibility of an alternative interpretation. A number of his translations from the primary text-Ramakrishna Kathamrita-are wrong; his psychoanalytical proceedings with the text, without the verifications psychoanalysts derive from patients under the ’free-association method’, fills me with doubt, especially as regards his identifications of some Tantrik symbols." Ray writes that "here and there" in the Kathamrita, he comes across "evidence which does not fit", and which ought to have made Kripal "rethink his formulations."
In his 1997 review, Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay of Goldsmith's university begins Kali's Child's review as "invigorating read" and "iconoclastic thesis ... supported by solid textual scholarship". Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay writes that Kirpals's method of 'reading' Ramakrishna's life has problems. Mukhopadhyay criticizes the Kripal’s method of "sexualisation" of Ramakrishna’s body and writes that Kripal does not take culture into consideration. Mukhopadhyay writes, "I demand that Ramakrishna’s visions be taken at their face value and not interpreted as some kind of a confused expression of his sexuality." Criticizing the "obvious glee in Kripal's tone which sometimes verges on flippancy", Mukhopadhyay continues, "Ramakrishna is a very serious matter and real theoretical sophistication is needed to deal with this enigmatic character. With his pop psychoanalysis, bop prose and a crude sense of humour, Kripal is nowhere near those serious scholars...". Towards the end, he writes that the book has "enough nuisance value to perturb
those who are at the helm of affairs at Ramakrishna Mission."
In 1997, Gerald Larson of Indiana University wrote that Kripal's book lacked balance and proper contextualization, and considered that it fell into the trap of monocausal reductionism
. In his opinion, the book would have been much more balanced if Kripal had sought a review outside the context of his teachers and colleagues, including the Swamis of the Ramakrishna Mission (but not allow them to censor) and professionals within the psychoanalytic community. Larson attributed the problem of reductionism to the attitude pervading the American Academy of Religion
on the relation between modern secular intellectuals and believing communities. He wrote that psychoanalytic interpretations are "exceedingly problematic even with the extensive and current evidence of daily psychoanalytic therapy" and that psychoanalysts would be very cautious about asserting relationships between sexual fantasies and mystical or religious experience. On the whole, Larson argued that Kripal's thesis, of "Ramakrishna's homosexual tendencies" having determined the manner in which he created his self-defined states, was "thoroughly implausible" and that a psychoanalyst would be unlikely to say that Ramakrishna's "homoerotic energies" were his mysticism. Larson wrote that the evidence presented in the book did not support "a cause-effect relation between the erotic and the mystical (or the religious), much less an identity".
In a 1997 review, Pravrajika Vrajaprana
discussed Kripal reliance on unreliable sources, such as a report of "a particularly bizarre method Ramakrishna supposedly used to control lust", which Kripal at one point "doubt[ed] seriously" the incident ever occurred, but which he later used to confirm his conclusion.
William Radice
wrote in early 1998 that "[Ramakrishna's] homosexual leanings and his horror of women as lovers should not be the issue: there was plenty of evidence before the exposure of the guhya katha ["secret talk"]. Radice compared the book to a majar kuti ("mansion of fun"), wrote that "occasionally one stops to ask if one has not been hoodwinked by the charm of [Kripal's] arguments", and wondered whether the book could be a game "no more playful than Ramakrishna's own earthy banter".
Reviewer Hugh Urban criticized Kripal for ignoring the social and historical context of late nineteenth-century Bengal. Urban also criticized Kripal for what he saw as a "tendency toward sensationalism and at times an almost journalistic delight in playing on the "sexy," "seedy," "scandalous," and shocking nature of his material".
in January 1997, when The Statesman
, Calcutta's leading English-language newspaper, published a full-page review of the book by historian Narasingha Sil
(whom Kripal had thanked in the preface of Kali's Child) that ended with the words "plain shit". Sil himself had previously written a psychoanalytic study of Ramakrishna, which suggested that Ramakrishna's mystical experiences were pathological and originated from alleged childhood sexual trauma. According to Hugh Urban, Sil's Statesman review of Kali's Child presented Kripal as "a shoddy scholar with a perverse imagination who has thoughtlessly 'ransacked' another culture". The Asian Age also published a negative review by Sil in the same year.
In a 1997 letter to a Ramakrishna Mission official (published in 2001), Narasingha Sil added an negative view of Kripal's scholarship and proficiency in the Bengali
. Sil argued that Kripal translated Bengali terms through Bengali-English dictionaries by picking the meanings that would be most appropriate to make his point, disregarding the primary, secondary, tertiary meanings. He also argued that Kripal was unable even to converse in Bengali. In another 1997 article, Sil charged Kripal with "willful distortion and manipulation of sources", and with, while criticising Swami Nikhilananda's translation of the Kathamrita, having "committed similar crime[s] of omission and commission to suit his thesis."
Sil's review in the Statesman provoked a flurry of angry letters to the editors. The daily published 38 of them and then decided to close the issue, apparently an unprecedented decision in the newspaper's history. Kripal wrote that Willian Radice twice tried to publish a defence of the book in the Statesman, but the editors refused to do so. Kripal soon found himself and the book embroiled in a long-running dispute. Censoring the book was even debated (unsuccessfully) in the Parliament of India
. Kripal claimed, however, that less than 100 copies had been sold in India
and only a few thousands in the US; and that few of its "opponents" had actually read the book.
. He argued that Kripal's book contained many translation and interpretation errors, such as translating māgi as "bitch" instead of "woman". Atmajnananda argued that Kripal had mis-interpreted many of the passages that he had cited, sometimes interpolating words in the translation that were not present in the original. He wrote, for example, that Krishna's traditional depiction in Hindu iconography, the tribhanga pose, "bent in three places" (i.e., bent at the knee, waist and elbow, with flute in hand) which is sacred to Hindus, had been translated by Kripal as cocked hips. He wrote that Kripal's thesis was "nothing more than smoke and mirrors, a house of cards which collapses at the merest touch".
Atmajnananda also disputed Kripal's arguments of concealment of sources by the Ramakrishna Order.
, who wrote in 1981 that "there were limits" to what he could say in Ramakrishna and His Disciples once the book became a project of the Order. Kripal wrote about other similar incidents and argued to have avoided submitting is book to the Mission in order to protect his own intellectual freedom. Kripal argued that if he had done so, he "indeed would not, could not, have written [Kali's Child], but not because of some idealized balance" but because he "would have been too afraid".
In a rejoinder Larson added that by "vetting", he did not mean any sort of "public" debate or confrontation. Larson maintained that reductionism would have been avoided if Kripal has selected one or two Swamis within the Ramakrishna order and one or two practising psychoanalysts for some "critical feedback" prior to the publication of the manuscript and they would have alerted him to the "serious problems of lack of balance and reductionism that are readily apparent in his 'Conclusion: Analyzing the Secret.'" Larson also disagreed with Kripal that he had lifted a few lines out of context to indicate "reductionistic reading", wrote that he "invite[d] any reader to read the book's conclusion in order to determine whether the final analysis is reductionist or not", and argued that the conclusions were "doubly reductionist."
, minister of the Ramakrishna-Vedanta Society
in Boston
and a Hindu chaplain at Harvard University
produced a tract entitled “Kali’s Child Revisited or Didn’t Anyone Check the Documentation,” which was distributed at the 2000 annual meeting of AAR and later published in journal Evam. In the long, meticulously argued tract, Tyagananda questioned Kripal's linguistic competence of the Bengali language on which the thesis was built and argued that Kripal had distorted the meaning of passages throughout the Kathamrita. Tyagananda also argued about other alleged errors by Kripal. For example, Kripal had called "boy" a devotee Kedar who, according to Tyaganada, was actually a fifty-year-old accountant; "boy of fifteen" a person of thirty-four or thirty-five years; and "boy disciples" a group of people in their forties. He asserted that Kripal's claims of child eroticism had been built on these mistranslations.
In 2010, Swami Tyagananda
and Pravrajika Vrajaprana
wrote Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kali's Child Revisited.
Kripal complained that Tyagananda's questioning of his personal motives for writing the book turned the critique into an ad hominem
attack, and denied Tyagananda's charges of "willful distortion and manipulation of sources" and "purposefully deceitful use of citations." He wrote to "deeply regret" the fact that his book has offended many Hindus, but claimed that this fact says nothing about the historical Ramakrishna, "just as the offended responses of innumerable pious Christians [to academic investigations of Jesus
] tell us absolutely nothing about the historical Jesus". He also denied having any negative attitude about homosexuality or Ramakrishna, and suggested that Tyagananda's reading of his book "as an ill-intentioned condemnation of Ramakrishna" was not shared by "numerous reviewers and readers (with Hindus among them)". He argued that he had never called Ramakrishna "a homosexual" and "never argued something as simplistic as that Ramakrishna 'sexually abused children' or that he was a 'pederast'", and that "these are other people’s words" but not his. He also charged Tyagananda with misquoting his words (such as claiming that Kripal had used "sodomy" when he in fact had not) and argued that he had omitting from his own citations of the Kathamrita parts that would support Kripal's thesis.
As for the alleged translation errors, Kripal argued that he had corrected many of them in the second edition, acknowledged that others still needed to be corrected (such as those about the ages of some persons) and that he would "be happy to make any appropriate corrections in any future printings". He denied that any of those errors had been intentional, and argued that all of them could be easily corrected without altering the substance or conclusions of the book, as they amounted to a very small part of the material he had used to demonstrate his thesis. On the other hand, he argued that many of them were not "errors" but simply different interpretations, and that he still stood by them. He counter-charged Tyagananda and other critics with "textual literalism" by sticking only with the primary meanings of words like uddipana, tribhanga, tana, vyakulata, rati, and ramana, not recognizing their alternate meanings; so that his was not "mistranslation" but rather "good translation". Additionally, Kripal argued (following modern literary theory
) that all interpretations, his own included, are products of the interaction of the reader’s horizon of understanding with that of the author’s.
Concerning the charge that he does not understand Tantra, he argued that Tyagananda’s version of Tantra is the "right-handed" ascetic path, as expounded by neo-Vedanta
, while the Tantra of Ramakrishna's milieu was the "left-handed" path, which integrates the sexual with the spiritual. In the second edition of Kali's Child, Kripal argued that the "philosophical expositions" of Tantra are inauthentic that are "designed to rid Tantra of everything that smacked of superstition, magic, or scandal".
wrote in a letter to the editor of the Harvard Divinity School Bulletin that, "I doubt that any other book—not even those of early, polemical, poorly informed, and bigoted missionaries — has offended Hindu sensibilities so grossly. And understandably, despite Kripal's protestations to the contrary in Secret Talk: The Politics of Scholarship in Hindu Tantrism, Kali's Child is colonialism updated."
In 2002, religious scholar Peter Heehs
wrote that there is no direct evidence of homosexuality in the Kathamrta or "anywhere else", and Kripal himself admits that his interpretations are often "speculative". Heehs wrote that the "sensationalism" of Kripal's approach "vitiates the overall value of his book", which does "make a number of interesting points".
In her 2001 review, Renuka Sharma of Melbourne University and a psychoanalyist disputed Kali's Child as being built upon "veneer of psychoanalysis and symbolic deconstruction....The imperialistic use of some outdated dogmas of psychoanalysis..." She writes that psychoanalysis employed by Kripal is "doubtful ... as a science".
In 2004, John Hawley revised his initial positive evaluation of Kali's Child, and wrote in his study The Damage of Separation that neither the gopi
s’ torment nor Ramakrishna's must be allowed to devolve to a bodily level. He also argued that communities of people who respond to different sexual orientations should not indiscriminately impose their thoughts on religious communities.
Somnath Bhattacharyya argued that Ramakrishna cannot be regarded as a misogynist, since he spoke about "indriya sukha (sense pleasures), deha sukha (bodily pleasures), vishaya sukha (object gratification), kama (lust), and bhoga (enjoyment) as impediments to spiritual growth" and not because of fear of women. Bhattacharyya also argues that Ramakrishna's lifelong love and devotion for the Goddess Kali does not fit into the homoerotic thesis.
In their 2007 book Invading the Sacred
, Krishnan Ramaswamy and Antonio de Nicolas, argued that the American Academy of Religion
does not have a well-informed understanding of Hinduism. Ramaswamy and de Nicolas argue that translation errors continued into the second edition of Kali's Child. They argued that instead of winning a prize, Kripal's book should have been reviewed as a possible violation of academic due process and ethical norms.
The alleged translation errors include:
Critics have argued that several instances where Kripal allegedly had misquotes or misinterpretations:
Gayatri Spivak argued that Kripal has misinterpreted "Ramakrishna's life as a bhakta, as tantric practice" and "unfortunately the book is so full of cultural and linguistic mis-translations that the general premise cannot be taken seriously."
In his 2000 extensive review, Swami Tyagananda argued that Kripal had misquoted Ramakrishna's disciple Christopher Isherwood
as confirming the master's homosexuality, when Isherwood had said in fact said that he "couldn't honestly claim him [Ramakrishna] as a homosexual, even a sublimated one", even though he "would have liked to be able to do so." According to Tyagananda, Sarkar
's statement that Tantric worship (upasana) is "looking upon a woman as mother" (janani ramani) was misquoted by Kripal to mean the opposite, that the mother is the lover.
In a 1997 article, Sil wrote that Kripal had tried "to fit the square peg of a Tantrika Ramakrishna into the round hole of a homosexual Paramahamsa
". Urban argued that Kripal has a prejudiced view of Tantra
as "something scandalous, seedy, sexy, and dangerous". Tyagananda argues that Kripal dismisses the "philosophical expositions" of Tantra as inauthentic, to support his thesis. Tyagananda argued that the Kripal's view that Ramakrishna's world was a "Tantric world" overlooks other religious practices undertook by Ramakrishna, such as Vaishnava, Shakti
, Vedanta
, Islamism and the Christianity. Radice wrote that erotic-Tantric lens is not the only one through which the Kathamrta can be read." Amiya Prosad Sen
writes about Kripal's "confusion" over chronology. Sen writes that arguments made by Kripal that some of Ramakrishna's mystic visions are but subconscious revelations of his actual Tantric experiences with Bhairavi are chronologically not possible. For instance Ramakrishna's vision describing a probing human tongue exploring—what Kripal translates as—"vagina shaped lotuses" as alleged sexual encounter with Bahiravi. Sen writes that this vision (around 1855-1858) was before his first meeting of Bhairavi (1861).
Several critics, including Tyagananda, Openshaw, Larson, and Radice object to Kripal use of the word secret, which did not exist in the original source. In a 1997 review, Colin Robinson
noted that the texts "exposed" by Kripal had been readily available in Bengali since 1932, when the final volume of the Kathamrita was published; and that Kripal used the thirty-first edition of the Kathamrita (1987).
Openshaw argued that it was highly unlikely that any act considered "homosexual" would have been defended by the disciples (homosexuality was rigorously repressed in Indian society of the time), let alone immortalised in print by a devotee.
Larson wrote that "Even Freud, with all of his reductionist tendencies, would have been highly suspicious and critical" about Mahendranath Gupta
's so-called "secret" material, if for no other reasons than the temporal distance between his notes and the publication of the Kathamrita.
Radice wrote of the discrepancy between the small amount of "secret talk" cited by Kripal (18 occurrences) and the amount of analysis he derived from them, and asked "Has Kripal made a mountain out of molehill?" He then quoted Kripal's claim that those passages, plus other non-"secret" passages that touch on similar themes, are the key to Ramakrishna's mysticism and a lens through which one can validly read the whole Kathamrta.
In his extensive 2000 review, Tyagananda wrote that Ramakrishna's "secret" talks were neither troubling nor secret, having been said in the presence of a large number of visitors, with the doors open. According to Tyagananda, Kripal's "secret talks" is a mistranslation of guhya katha, which in the context means the "esoteric" or "deeper meaning" of a scripture.
, author of books and articles on applying psychoanalysis to eastern cultures, Somnath Bhattacharyya (emeritus professor and former head of the Psychology Department at Calcutta University), and Gerald Larson argued that neither Kripal nor his advisor Wendy Doniger were trained as psychologists and in psychoanalysis
. These critics observe that neither Kripal nor Wendy Doniger
are trained in psychoanalysis or psychology.
Roland argued that Freudian approaches are not applicable to Asian cultures. Other critics questioned the propriety of applying Freudian analysis to third parties via native informants or posthumously.
However, Tyagananda wrote that portions from Gupta's diaries (which are in the possession of his descendants) were published in various Bengali journals long before they appeared in book form as the Kathamrita. According to Tyagananda, there was no textual evidence that Gupta was thinking of writing a book when he began writing his diaries. He pointed out that at least four generations of Bengalis had read the Kathamrita, and he wrote that their perception of Ramakrishna was in most respects diametrically opposite to the picture presented in Kali's Child. Furthermore, Tyagananda wrote that Ramakrishna Mission
had published a two-volume edition of the Kathamrita rearranged in chronological order, after the copyright which rested with Gupta's descendants expired.
Disputing the idea that Mahendranath Gupta ran out of material, Amiya Prosad Sen
writes that the fifth volume (published posthumously) had "no note of finality" and ended "abruptly". Amiya Sen writes that "M." was contemplating at least six to seven volumes and after which he hoped to rearrange the entire material chronologically, within a single volume. Sen further writes that maintaining a "strictly chronological order" have meant postponing publication, and alternatively Gupta "sacrificed" chronological order to accommodate the short notice period. Sen also writes that Gupta faced other practical problems like finding a willing publisher.
, which purports to be "a literal translation" of the Kathamrita, contains in fact substantial alterations from Gupta's text. Besides combining the five parallel narratives into a single volume (which is often sold as a two-volume set) Nikhilananda would also have deleted some passages ("only a few pages") which supposedly were "of no particular interest to English-speaking readers".
Examples of missing passages quoted by Kripal include a declaration of Ramakrishna to a disciple: "In that state [during a Tantric ritual with a female guru] I couldn't help but worship the little penises [dhan] of boys with flowers and sandal-paste". Another example was the description by Ramakrishna of one of is visions, which in the Bengali original, according to Kripal, read "This is very secret talk! I saw a boy of twenty-three exactly like me, going up the subtle channel, erotically playing [ramana kara] with the vagina-shaped [yoni-rupa] lotuses with his tongue! but was translated by Nikhilananda as "[...] communing with lotuses with his tongue".
In his 1997 review, Swami Atmajnanananda wrote that "there are some other instances which, at first, seem to substantiate Kripal's cover-up theory" but he too believed that they were all motivated by respect the Western decorum. He argued that, had Nikhilananda been fearful of revealing hidden secrets, "he certainly would have eliminated far more of Ramakrishna's remarks than he did". Atmajnanananda also argued that Kripal's translation of the missing parts more misleading than Nikhilananda's omissions. In 2000, Swami Tyagananda added that Nikhilananda had attempted to faithfully convey the ideas, which might have been misunderstood if he had opted for a literal translation; and that the Gospel was translated in the 1940s and one should consider the Western sense of decorum as it existed then. Somnath Bhattacharya wrote that anybody with knowledge of Bengali could check that an overwhelming majority of the passages marked guhya-katha had been translated by Nikhilananda faithfully to the letter as well as to the spirit of the original.
In response, Pravrajika Vrajaprana
and Swami Atmajnanananda wrote that the book had been published in nine Bengali editions as of 1995. In 1998 Kripal wrote that he had "overplayed the degree" of his alleged suppression, noting that "to my wonder (and embarrassment), the Ramakrishna Order reprinted Datta's text the very same summer Kali's Child appeared, rendering my original claims of a conscious concealment untenable."
's essay RISA LILA—I:Wendy's Child Syndrome which argued that the Freudian psychoanalytical approach had been discredited even among Western psychologists. Kripal lamented the "angry tone and ad hominem nature" of the text, and charged Rajiv of spreading "a number of falsehoods" over the internet that involved his person and reputation, and of having got "just about everything wrong" about his ideas and translations, claiming that his criticisms were merely a repeat of Tyagananda's.
Kripal argued that gender and spirituality are intricately linked, and that the history of mysticism in all the world's religions is erotic. Kripal argued that the mysticism of Teresa of Ávila
, John of the Cross
and other European Roman Catholics were erotic and similar to Ramakrishna's ecstasy. Kripal strongly denied that Kali's Child was intended as a slur either against Ramakrishna specifically or Hinduism in general. Kripal later published his second book, Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom which studied the alleged eroticism in Western mysticism.
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna , born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay , was a famous mystic of 19th-century India. His religious school of thought led to the formation of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda – both were influential figures in the Bengali Renaissance as well as the Hindu...
by Hindu studies
Hindu studies
Hindu studies is the study of the traditions and practices of the Indian subcontinent, especially Hinduism. Beginning with British philology in the colonial period, Hindu studies has been practiced largely by Westerners, due in part to the lack of a distinct department for religion in Indian academia...
scholar Jeffrey J. Kripal
Jeffrey J. Kripal
Jeffrey John Kripal is the J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religious Studies and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University, Houston, Texas...
, published in 1995 by the University of Chicago press. It argues for a homoerotic
Homoeroticism
Homoeroticism refers to the erotic attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female , most especially as it is depicted or manifested in the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements...
strain in Ramakrishna's life, rituals
Sadhana
Sādhanā literally "a means of accomplishing something" is ego-transcending spiritual practice. It includes a variety of disciplines in Hindu, Sikh , Buddhist and Muslim traditions that are followed in order to achieve various spiritual or ritual objectives.The historian N...
, and teachings.
The book won the American Academy of Religion
American Academy of Religion
The American Academy of Religion is the world's largest association of scholars in the field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association,...
's History of Religions Prize for the Best First Book of 1995. It has been criticised by Ramakrishna's followers and several scholars, and became the object of an intense controversy among both Western and Indian audiences. Critics have argued that the book's conclusions were arrived at through mistranslation of Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, misunderstanding of tantra
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
, and misuse of psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
. Two attempts have been made to have the book banned in India, in 1996 and 2001, but did not pass in the Parliament
Parliament of India
The Parliament of India is the supreme legislative body in India. Founded in 1919, the Parliament alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all political bodies in India. The Parliament of India comprises the President and the two Houses, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha...
. Kripal published a second edition in 1998 and several essays and rebuttals, but as of 2004 the controversy still continued.
Overview
The book was developed from Kripal's Ph.D. dissertation on RamakrishnaRamakrishna
Ramakrishna , born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay , was a famous mystic of 19th-century India. His religious school of thought led to the formation of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda – both were influential figures in the Bengali Renaissance as well as the Hindu...
at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, advised by Wendy Doniger
Wendy Doniger
Wendy Doniger is an American Indologist and Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School, the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and the Committee on Social Thought...
. According to Kripal, he adopted a Freudian approach to uncover the connections between tantric
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
and psychoanalytic hermeneutical traditions. In the preface, Kripal writes that he was fascinated and interested in the relation between "human sexuality and mystical experience". He also mentions that Kali's Child was influenced by Wendy Doniger
Wendy Doniger
Wendy Doniger is an American Indologist and Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School, the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and the Committee on Social Thought...
whose, "voluminous work, both in its rhetoric style and its erotic content provided me with a scholarly context, a genre if you will, in which I could write and defend my own ideas."
The primary thesis of Kali's Child is that a Ramakrishna's mystical experiences were generated by the lingering results of childhood traumas
Psychological trauma
Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event...
, and sublimated
Sublimation (psychology)
In psychology, sublimation is a mature type of defence mechanism where socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are consciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behaviour, possibly converting the initial impulse in the long term...
homoerotic
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
and pedophilia
Pedophilia
As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children...
c passions; and that "Ramakrishna’s mystical experiences...were in actual fact profoundly, provocatively, scandalously erotic." Kripal has argued that the same view was expressed 12 years earlier by Malcolm McLean, in his English translation of the Kathamrita. In his preface, Kripal also mentions that he did not set out looking for a "homoerotic saint" but that as his research proceeded, he became increasingly aware of the "role of homosexuality" in the saint's life and teachings, especially as that became evident in the "secret sayings".
Kripal examines a series of remarks made by Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna , born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay , was a famous mystic of 19th-century India. His religious school of thought led to the formation of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda – both were influential figures in the Bengali Renaissance as well as the Hindu...
to some of his intimate disciples regarding his mystical experiences and visions which, following Ramakrishna, he calls "secret talks" (guhya katha). These "secret talks" are taken as evidence of Ramakrishna's unresolved homosexual desires, misogynistic attitudes, and general obsession with the erotic. Kripal argues that Ramakrishna's attitudes and orientations were well known to some of his contemporaries (though not to Ramakrishna himself) and were hidden and suppressed, initially by his own disciples and later by members of the Ramakrishna Order
Ramakrishna Order
The Ramakrishna Order is the monastic organization founded by Sri Ramakrishna and his disciple Swami Vivekananda. It encompasses the twin organizations Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, both headquartered at Belur Math near Kolkata, India....
. He argues a systematic whitewashing of details and a general cover-up carried out by the biographers and translators of Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna , born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay , was a famous mystic of 19th-century India. His religious school of thought led to the formation of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda – both were influential figures in the Bengali Renaissance as well as the Hindu...
.
Scholarly reviews, 1995-1997
The book won the American Academy of ReligionAmerican Academy of Religion
The American Academy of Religion is the world's largest association of scholars in the field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association,...
's History of Religions Prize for the Best First Book of 1995. In the following years, the book was reviewed in several Western academic journals of religion and South Asian culture. In 1999, Brian Hatcher wrote that while several reviewers expressed some misgivings, their overall evaluation of Kali's Child was positive, and at times highly laudatory, including one in 1997 by Malcolm McLean, a scholar of Bengali literature who has translated the Sri-Sri-Ramakrishna-Kathamrta and the poetry of Ramprasad. The positive reviews by Western academics were disputed by Tyagananda and Vrajaprana in 2010 writing that the "great majority of those who accepted the latter thesis were not in a position to asses the translation since most of the reviewers were not Bengali readers." They wrote that its "extremely unlikely" that any reviewer did a "close or extensive comparison" of the Kathamrita with that of Nikhilananda and Kripal's translations.
On the other hand, in 1995 Cambridge scholar Jean Openshaw criticized Kripal's book for what she saw as "sleight of hand by which strained or confessedly speculative arguments are subsequently transformed into a firm base for further such arguments". She also faulted the book for "slippage between an entirely appropriate scepticism towards the sources, and an unthinking acceptance of them when it suits the argument". In her opinion, Ramakrishna could not be regarded as a misogynist. She found Kripal's familiarity with a variety of Bengali texts "impressive", but noted several translation slips. For example, Kripal wrote that the faith of an associate of Ramakrishna had "homoerotic dimensions" on the grounds that he "liked to look at pictures of men, for they aroused in him feelings of 'tenderness' and 'love'". Openshaw wrote that the word manus which Kripal had translated as "men" actually means "human being" without gender specificity. She also noted that Kripal had taken "body" (ga- or an+ga) and "lap" (kol) to mean "genitals" and "a normally defiled sexual space", whereas in Bengali culture the lap has a strong maternal association. In her view, Kripal had fallen "into a reductionist trap by sexualising his language in a way quite inappropriate to the material." She wrote that Kripal's disclaimer "certainly many of my conclusions are speculative", but did not agree with his statement that "taken together their combined weight adds up to a convincing argument".
Rajat Kanta Ray
Rajat Kanta Ray
Rajat Kanta Ray is a historian of South Asian history, specializing in Modern Indian history.-Background:He is the son of Kumud Kanta Ray, ICS who was a Home Secretary of West Bengal in the 1960s...
, a Bengali scholar in his 1997 review wrote that the historical evidence Kripal offers in favour of Ramakrishna’s homosexuality is "shaky" and some of Kripal's own evidence "seems to contradict it, and opens up the possibility of an alternative interpretation. A number of his translations from the primary text-Ramakrishna Kathamrita-are wrong; his psychoanalytical proceedings with the text, without the verifications psychoanalysts derive from patients under the ’free-association method’, fills me with doubt, especially as regards his identifications of some Tantrik symbols." Ray writes that "here and there" in the Kathamrita, he comes across "evidence which does not fit", and which ought to have made Kripal "rethink his formulations."
In his 1997 review, Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay of Goldsmith's university begins Kali's Child's review as "invigorating read" and "iconoclastic thesis ... supported by solid textual scholarship". Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay writes that Kirpals's method of 'reading' Ramakrishna's life has problems. Mukhopadhyay criticizes the Kripal’s method of "sexualisation" of Ramakrishna’s body and writes that Kripal does not take culture into consideration. Mukhopadhyay writes, "I demand that Ramakrishna’s visions be taken at their face value and not interpreted as some kind of a confused expression of his sexuality." Criticizing the "obvious glee in Kripal's tone which sometimes verges on flippancy", Mukhopadhyay continues, "Ramakrishna is a very serious matter and real theoretical sophistication is needed to deal with this enigmatic character. With his pop psychoanalysis, bop prose and a crude sense of humour, Kripal is nowhere near those serious scholars...". Towards the end, he writes that the book has "enough nuisance value to perturb
those who are at the helm of affairs at Ramakrishna Mission."
In 1997, Gerald Larson of Indiana University wrote that Kripal's book lacked balance and proper contextualization, and considered that it fell into the trap of monocausal reductionism
Reductionism
Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can...
. In his opinion, the book would have been much more balanced if Kripal had sought a review outside the context of his teachers and colleagues, including the Swamis of the Ramakrishna Mission (but not allow them to censor) and professionals within the psychoanalytic community. Larson attributed the problem of reductionism to the attitude pervading the American Academy of Religion
American Academy of Religion
The American Academy of Religion is the world's largest association of scholars in the field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association,...
on the relation between modern secular intellectuals and believing communities. He wrote that psychoanalytic interpretations are "exceedingly problematic even with the extensive and current evidence of daily psychoanalytic therapy" and that psychoanalysts would be very cautious about asserting relationships between sexual fantasies and mystical or religious experience. On the whole, Larson argued that Kripal's thesis, of "Ramakrishna's homosexual tendencies" having determined the manner in which he created his self-defined states, was "thoroughly implausible" and that a psychoanalyst would be unlikely to say that Ramakrishna's "homoerotic energies" were his mysticism. Larson wrote that the evidence presented in the book did not support "a cause-effect relation between the erotic and the mystical (or the religious), much less an identity".
In a 1997 review, Pravrajika Vrajaprana
Pravrajika Vrajaprana
Pravrajika Vrajaprana is a writer on Vedanta, the history and growth of the Vedanta Societies and a nun at Vedanta Society of Sarada Convent.Her works on Vedanta include, Vedanta: A Simple Introduction , editor of Living Wisdom...
discussed Kripal reliance on unreliable sources, such as a report of "a particularly bizarre method Ramakrishna supposedly used to control lust", which Kripal at one point "doubt[ed] seriously" the incident ever occurred, but which he later used to confirm his conclusion.
William Radice
William Radice
William Radice is a Poet, Writer and Translator.He is the Senior Lecturer in Bengali in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.His research area is in Bengali language and literature....
wrote in early 1998 that "[Ramakrishna's] homosexual leanings and his horror of women as lovers should not be the issue: there was plenty of evidence before the exposure of the guhya katha ["secret talk"]. Radice compared the book to a majar kuti ("mansion of fun"), wrote that "occasionally one stops to ask if one has not been hoodwinked by the charm of [Kripal's] arguments", and wondered whether the book could be a game "no more playful than Ramakrishna's own earthy banter".
Reviewer Hugh Urban criticized Kripal for ignoring the social and historical context of late nineteenth-century Bengal. Urban also criticized Kripal for what he saw as a "tendency toward sensationalism and at times an almost journalistic delight in playing on the "sexy," "seedy," "scandalous," and shocking nature of his material".
Sil's 1997 review
Controversy over the book left the bounds of academiaAcademia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
in January 1997, when The Statesman
The Statesman
The Statesman is an Indian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper founded in 1875 and published simultaneously in Kolkata, New Delhi, Siliguri and Bhubaneswar. The Statesman is owned by The Statesman Ltd., its headquarters at Statesman House, Chowringhee Square, Calcutta and its national...
, Calcutta's leading English-language newspaper, published a full-page review of the book by historian Narasingha Sil
Narasingha Sil
Narasingha Prosad Sil goes by the nickname "Ram" and is an Indian American professor of history at Western Oregon University, Monmouth, Oregon. Ram is primarily trained in the history of Tudor England and has published books, journal articles, and encyclopedia articles on a number of Tudor...
(whom Kripal had thanked in the preface of Kali's Child) that ended with the words "plain shit". Sil himself had previously written a psychoanalytic study of Ramakrishna, which suggested that Ramakrishna's mystical experiences were pathological and originated from alleged childhood sexual trauma. According to Hugh Urban, Sil's Statesman review of Kali's Child presented Kripal as "a shoddy scholar with a perverse imagination who has thoughtlessly 'ransacked' another culture". The Asian Age also published a negative review by Sil in the same year.
In a 1997 letter to a Ramakrishna Mission official (published in 2001), Narasingha Sil added an negative view of Kripal's scholarship and proficiency in the Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
. Sil argued that Kripal translated Bengali terms through Bengali-English dictionaries by picking the meanings that would be most appropriate to make his point, disregarding the primary, secondary, tertiary meanings. He also argued that Kripal was unable even to converse in Bengali. In another 1997 article, Sil charged Kripal with "willful distortion and manipulation of sources", and with, while criticising Swami Nikhilananda's translation of the Kathamrita, having "committed similar crime[s] of omission and commission to suit his thesis."
Sil's review in the Statesman provoked a flurry of angry letters to the editors. The daily published 38 of them and then decided to close the issue, apparently an unprecedented decision in the newspaper's history. Kripal wrote that Willian Radice twice tried to publish a defence of the book in the Statesman, but the editors refused to do so. Kripal soon found himself and the book embroiled in a long-running dispute. Censoring the book was even debated (unsuccessfully) in the Parliament of India
Parliament of India
The Parliament of India is the supreme legislative body in India. Founded in 1919, the Parliament alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all political bodies in India. The Parliament of India comprises the President and the two Houses, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha...
. Kripal claimed, however, that less than 100 copies had been sold in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and only a few thousands in the US; and that few of its "opponents" had actually read the book.
Atmajnanananda's criticisms, 1997
A critical review of Kripal's book was published in 1997 by Ramakrishna Mission's Swami AtmajnananandaSwami Atmajnanananda
Swami Atmajnanananda is a swami of the Ramakrishna Order, which he joined in 1981. He has a Ph.D. in oriental studies from the University of Pennsylvania...
. He argued that Kripal's book contained many translation and interpretation errors, such as translating māgi as "bitch" instead of "woman". Atmajnananda argued that Kripal had mis-interpreted many of the passages that he had cited, sometimes interpolating words in the translation that were not present in the original. He wrote, for example, that Krishna's traditional depiction in Hindu iconography, the tribhanga pose, "bent in three places" (i.e., bent at the knee, waist and elbow, with flute in hand) which is sacred to Hindus, had been translated by Kripal as cocked hips. He wrote that Kripal's thesis was "nothing more than smoke and mirrors, a house of cards which collapses at the merest touch".
Atmajnananda also disputed Kripal's arguments of concealment of sources by the Ramakrishna Order.
Second edition, 1998
Kripal published a second edition of Kali's Child in 1998. In its preface he claimed to have corrected the translation errors pointed out by Atmajnananda. Kripal called the corrections "a set of minor errors" which he "happily corrected."Kripal's response to Larson, 1998 and Larson's rejoinder
In a 1998 response to Gerald Larson's review, Kripal denied the critic's claims that his final conclusions were monocausally reductive, saying that Larson had seriously misunderstood him, as in Kali's Child he had adopted a "nondual methodology" and expressed "consistent rejection of Freudian reductionism". Kripal argued that Larson lifted a few lines out of context to show that Kripal's concluding analysis was a "reductionistic reading". for Larson's suggestion that he should have "vetted" the text to the Ramakrishna Mission before publishing it, Kripal cited Christopher IsherwoodChristopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
, who wrote in 1981 that "there were limits" to what he could say in Ramakrishna and His Disciples once the book became a project of the Order. Kripal wrote about other similar incidents and argued to have avoided submitting is book to the Mission in order to protect his own intellectual freedom. Kripal argued that if he had done so, he "indeed would not, could not, have written [Kali's Child], but not because of some idealized balance" but because he "would have been too afraid".
In a rejoinder Larson added that by "vetting", he did not mean any sort of "public" debate or confrontation. Larson maintained that reductionism would have been avoided if Kripal has selected one or two Swamis within the Ramakrishna order and one or two practising psychoanalysts for some "critical feedback" prior to the publication of the manuscript and they would have alerted him to the "serious problems of lack of balance and reductionism that are readily apparent in his 'Conclusion: Analyzing the Secret.'" Larson also disagreed with Kripal that he had lifted a few lines out of context to indicate "reductionistic reading", wrote that he "invite[d] any reader to read the book's conclusion in order to determine whether the final analysis is reductionist or not", and argued that the conclusions were "doubly reductionist."
Tyagananda and Vrajaprana, 2000 and 2010
In 2000, Swami TyaganandaSwami Tyagananda
Swami Tyagananda is a Hindu monk of the Ramakrishna Order and presently the head of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society in Boston. Currently he is also the Hindu chaplain at MIT and Harvard. He is also a member of American Academy of Religion and the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies...
, minister of the Ramakrishna-Vedanta Society
Ramakrishna Mission
Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission are twin organizations which form the core of a worldwide spiritual movement known as Ramakrishna Movement or Vedanta Movement. The Ramakrishna Mission is a philanthropic, volunteer organization founded by Ramakrishna's chief disciple Swami Vivekananda on...
in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
and a Hindu chaplain at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
produced a tract entitled “Kali’s Child Revisited or Didn’t Anyone Check the Documentation,” which was distributed at the 2000 annual meeting of AAR and later published in journal Evam. In the long, meticulously argued tract, Tyagananda questioned Kripal's linguistic competence of the Bengali language on which the thesis was built and argued that Kripal had distorted the meaning of passages throughout the Kathamrita. Tyagananda also argued about other alleged errors by Kripal. For example, Kripal had called "boy" a devotee Kedar who, according to Tyaganada, was actually a fifty-year-old accountant; "boy of fifteen" a person of thirty-four or thirty-five years; and "boy disciples" a group of people in their forties. He asserted that Kripal's claims of child eroticism had been built on these mistranslations.
In 2010, Swami Tyagananda
Swami Tyagananda
Swami Tyagananda is a Hindu monk of the Ramakrishna Order and presently the head of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society in Boston. Currently he is also the Hindu chaplain at MIT and Harvard. He is also a member of American Academy of Religion and the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies...
and Pravrajika Vrajaprana
Pravrajika Vrajaprana
Pravrajika Vrajaprana is a writer on Vedanta, the history and growth of the Vedanta Societies and a nun at Vedanta Society of Sarada Convent.Her works on Vedanta include, Vedanta: A Simple Introduction , editor of Living Wisdom...
wrote Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kali's Child Revisited.
Kripal's reply to Tyagananda, 2000-2002
Responding to Swami Tyagananda's Kali's Child Revisited, Kripal wrote:Kripal complained that Tyagananda's questioning of his personal motives for writing the book turned the critique into an ad hominem
Ad hominem
An ad hominem , short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it...
attack, and denied Tyagananda's charges of "willful distortion and manipulation of sources" and "purposefully deceitful use of citations." He wrote to "deeply regret" the fact that his book has offended many Hindus, but claimed that this fact says nothing about the historical Ramakrishna, "just as the offended responses of innumerable pious Christians [to academic investigations of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
] tell us absolutely nothing about the historical Jesus". He also denied having any negative attitude about homosexuality or Ramakrishna, and suggested that Tyagananda's reading of his book "as an ill-intentioned condemnation of Ramakrishna" was not shared by "numerous reviewers and readers (with Hindus among them)". He argued that he had never called Ramakrishna "a homosexual" and "never argued something as simplistic as that Ramakrishna 'sexually abused children' or that he was a 'pederast'", and that "these are other people’s words" but not his. He also charged Tyagananda with misquoting his words (such as claiming that Kripal had used "sodomy" when he in fact had not) and argued that he had omitting from his own citations of the Kathamrita parts that would support Kripal's thesis.
As for the alleged translation errors, Kripal argued that he had corrected many of them in the second edition, acknowledged that others still needed to be corrected (such as those about the ages of some persons) and that he would "be happy to make any appropriate corrections in any future printings". He denied that any of those errors had been intentional, and argued that all of them could be easily corrected without altering the substance or conclusions of the book, as they amounted to a very small part of the material he had used to demonstrate his thesis. On the other hand, he argued that many of them were not "errors" but simply different interpretations, and that he still stood by them. He counter-charged Tyagananda and other critics with "textual literalism" by sticking only with the primary meanings of words like uddipana, tribhanga, tana, vyakulata, rati, and ramana, not recognizing their alternate meanings; so that his was not "mistranslation" but rather "good translation". Additionally, Kripal argued (following modern literary theory
Literary theory
Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of...
) that all interpretations, his own included, are products of the interaction of the reader’s horizon of understanding with that of the author’s.
Concerning the charge that he does not understand Tantra, he argued that Tyagananda’s version of Tantra is the "right-handed" ascetic path, as expounded by neo-Vedanta
Vedanta
Vedānta was originally a word used in Hindu philosophy as a synonym for that part of the Veda texts known also as the Upanishads. The name is a morphophonological form of Veda-anta = "Veda-end" = "the appendix to the Vedic hymns." It is also speculated that "Vedānta" means "the purpose or goal...
, while the Tantra of Ramakrishna's milieu was the "left-handed" path, which integrates the sexual with the spiritual. In the second edition of Kali's Child, Kripal argued that the "philosophical expositions" of Tantra are inauthentic that are "designed to rid Tantra of everything that smacked of superstition, magic, or scandal".
Further reviews
In 2001, Huston SmithHuston Smith
Huston Cummings Smith is a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religions remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.-Education:...
wrote in a letter to the editor of the Harvard Divinity School Bulletin that, "I doubt that any other book—not even those of early, polemical, poorly informed, and bigoted missionaries — has offended Hindu sensibilities so grossly. And understandably, despite Kripal's protestations to the contrary in Secret Talk: The Politics of Scholarship in Hindu Tantrism, Kali's Child is colonialism updated."
In 2002, religious scholar Peter Heehs
Peter Heehs
Peter Heehs is an American historian living in Pondicherry, India who writes on modern Indian history, Indian spirituality and religion. Much of his work focuses on the Indian political and spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo...
wrote that there is no direct evidence of homosexuality in the Kathamrta or "anywhere else", and Kripal himself admits that his interpretations are often "speculative". Heehs wrote that the "sensationalism" of Kripal's approach "vitiates the overall value of his book", which does "make a number of interesting points".
In her 2001 review, Renuka Sharma of Melbourne University and a psychoanalyist disputed Kali's Child as being built upon "veneer of psychoanalysis and symbolic deconstruction....The imperialistic use of some outdated dogmas of psychoanalysis..." She writes that psychoanalysis employed by Kripal is "doubtful ... as a science".
In 2004, John Hawley revised his initial positive evaluation of Kali's Child, and wrote in his study The Damage of Separation that neither the gopi
Gopi
Gopi is a word of Sanskrit origin meaning 'cow-herd girl'. In Hinduism specifically the name gopi is used more commonly to refer to the group of cow herding girls famous within Vaishnava Theology for their unconditional devotion to Krishna as described in the stories of Bhagavata Purana and...
s’ torment nor Ramakrishna's must be allowed to devolve to a bodily level. He also argued that communities of people who respond to different sexual orientations should not indiscriminately impose their thoughts on religious communities.
Somnath Bhattacharyya argued that Ramakrishna cannot be regarded as a misogynist, since he spoke about "indriya sukha (sense pleasures), deha sukha (bodily pleasures), vishaya sukha (object gratification), kama (lust), and bhoga (enjoyment) as impediments to spiritual growth" and not because of fear of women. Bhattacharyya also argues that Ramakrishna's lifelong love and devotion for the Goddess Kali does not fit into the homoerotic thesis.
In their 2007 book Invading the Sacred
Invading the Sacred
Invading The Sacred: An Analysis Of Hinduism Studies In America is a critical work published in 2007 by Rupa & Co. which discusses the perceived biased portrayal of Hinduism in the Western academy based religious studies and Hindu studies. The editors of the book are Antonio de Nicolas, Krishnan...
, Krishnan Ramaswamy and Antonio de Nicolas, argued that the American Academy of Religion
American Academy of Religion
The American Academy of Religion is the world's largest association of scholars in the field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association,...
does not have a well-informed understanding of Hinduism. Ramaswamy and de Nicolas argue that translation errors continued into the second edition of Kali's Child. They argued that instead of winning a prize, Kripal's book should have been reviewed as a possible violation of academic due process and ethical norms.
Translation and interpretation
The main faults that critics have argued in Kali's Child are:- faulty translations due to a lack of understanding of Bengali languageBengali languageBengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
and culture - willful distortion and manipulation of sources and suppressing the facts
- misunderstanding of tantra
- misuses of psychoanalysis and hermeneutics, and
- false accusations of source suppression by the Ramakrishna Mission.
The alleged translation errors include:
- vyakulata or vyaakula, which means "anxiety" from the context, was translated by Kripal as "erotic torment". J. S. Hawley wrote that the Ramakrishna vyakulata must not "be allowed to devolve to a bodily level that could be indiscriminately shared".
- uddipana, which means "enkindling" or "lighting up" was translated as "homoerotic excitement", and thus translating a sentence that meant "looking at pictures of sadhus" into "getting erotically aroused by looking at picture of holy men".
- Vrindavana lila, "the play in VrindavanVrindavanVrindavan also known as Vraj is a town in the Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh, India...
" was translated as "Krishna's sexual exploits with the milkmaids."
- hrt-padma, which means "lotus of the heart", was translated as "vagina".
- raman karo was translated as "have sex" instead of "unite", so what should have been "Unite with Satchidananda" became "Have sex with Saccidananda".
- milan, commonly used to mean "meeting", was translated as "sexual union".
Critics have argued that several instances where Kripal allegedly had misquotes or misinterpretations:
- Adding phrases such as "his near naked body" and "instead of lusting after woman", which did not exist in the original bengaliBengali languageBengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
sources.
- Representing Ramakrishna's teachers Bhairavi Brahmini, TotapuriTotapuriIshwar Totapuri affectionately known as "Nangta Baba" , born likely in Punjab, India, was a parivrajaka who is said to have followed the path of the Advaita Vedanta, which is often disputed due to the meager information that exists on Totapuri.By the time he arrived at Dakshineswar Temple in...
, and the temple manager Mathur babu as his sexual predators, without evidence.
Gayatri Spivak argued that Kripal has misinterpreted "Ramakrishna's life as a bhakta, as tantric practice" and "unfortunately the book is so full of cultural and linguistic mis-translations that the general premise cannot be taken seriously."
In his 2000 extensive review, Swami Tyagananda argued that Kripal had misquoted Ramakrishna's disciple Christopher Isherwood
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
as confirming the master's homosexuality, when Isherwood had said in fact said that he "couldn't honestly claim him [Ramakrishna] as a homosexual, even a sublimated one", even though he "would have liked to be able to do so." According to Tyagananda, Sarkar
Sarkar
Sarkar may refer to:*Government in Urdu/Persian/Hindi/Bengali*Sarkar *Sarkar, a title initially used in the Mughal period to denote persons of political authority-Sarkar film series:...
's statement that Tantric worship (upasana) is "looking upon a woman as mother" (janani ramani) was misquoted by Kripal to mean the opposite, that the mother is the lover.
Tantra
Several critics — including Tyagananda, Sil, Urban, and Radice — argue that Kripal misrepresents Tantra to support the thesis.In a 1997 article, Sil wrote that Kripal had tried "to fit the square peg of a Tantrika Ramakrishna into the round hole of a homosexual Paramahamsa
Square peg in a round hole
A square peg in a round hole is an idiomatic expression which describes the unusualindividualist who could not fit into a niche of his society.-English literature:...
". Urban argued that Kripal has a prejudiced view of Tantra
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
as "something scandalous, seedy, sexy, and dangerous". Tyagananda argues that Kripal dismisses the "philosophical expositions" of Tantra as inauthentic, to support his thesis. Tyagananda argued that the Kripal's view that Ramakrishna's world was a "Tantric world" overlooks other religious practices undertook by Ramakrishna, such as Vaishnava, Shakti
Shakti
Shakti from Sanskrit shak - "to be able," meaning sacred force or empowerment, is the primordial cosmic energy and represents the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the entire universe in Hinduism. Shakti is the concept, or personification, of divine feminine creative power, sometimes...
, Vedanta
Vedanta
Vedānta was originally a word used in Hindu philosophy as a synonym for that part of the Veda texts known also as the Upanishads. The name is a morphophonological form of Veda-anta = "Veda-end" = "the appendix to the Vedic hymns." It is also speculated that "Vedānta" means "the purpose or goal...
, Islamism and the Christianity. Radice wrote that erotic-Tantric lens is not the only one through which the Kathamrta can be read." Amiya Prosad Sen
Amiya Prosad Sen
Amiya Prosad Sen is a historian with an interest in the intellectual and cultural history of modern India. Amiya P.Sen is currently Professor of Modern Indian History at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi...
writes about Kripal's "confusion" over chronology. Sen writes that arguments made by Kripal that some of Ramakrishna's mystic visions are but subconscious revelations of his actual Tantric experiences with Bhairavi are chronologically not possible. For instance Ramakrishna's vision describing a probing human tongue exploring—what Kripal translates as—"vagina shaped lotuses" as alleged sexual encounter with Bahiravi. Sen writes that this vision (around 1855-1858) was before his first meeting of Bhairavi (1861).
Nature of the "secret talk"
Kripal labeled some of Ramakrishna's words "secret talk" and believed them to be "too troubling or important to reveal to any but [Ramakrishna's] most intimate disciples"Several critics, including Tyagananda, Openshaw, Larson, and Radice object to Kripal use of the word secret, which did not exist in the original source. In a 1997 review, Colin Robinson
Colin Robinson
Colin "Big C" Robinson is a mixed martial artist from Northern Ireland. He competes in the Heavyweight division...
noted that the texts "exposed" by Kripal had been readily available in Bengali since 1932, when the final volume of the Kathamrita was published; and that Kripal used the thirty-first edition of the Kathamrita (1987).
Openshaw argued that it was highly unlikely that any act considered "homosexual" would have been defended by the disciples (homosexuality was rigorously repressed in Indian society of the time), let alone immortalised in print by a devotee.
Larson wrote that "Even Freud, with all of his reductionist tendencies, would have been highly suspicious and critical" about Mahendranath Gupta
Mahendranath Gupta
Mahendranath Gupta , , was a disciple of Ramakrishna—a 19th century mystic and the author of Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita,a Bengali classic...
's so-called "secret" material, if for no other reasons than the temporal distance between his notes and the publication of the Kathamrita.
Radice wrote of the discrepancy between the small amount of "secret talk" cited by Kripal (18 occurrences) and the amount of analysis he derived from them, and asked "Has Kripal made a mountain out of molehill?" He then quoted Kripal's claim that those passages, plus other non-"secret" passages that touch on similar themes, are the key to Ramakrishna's mysticism and a lens through which one can validly read the whole Kathamrta.
In his extensive 2000 review, Tyagananda wrote that Ramakrishna's "secret" talks were neither troubling nor secret, having been said in the presence of a large number of visitors, with the doors open. According to Tyagananda, Kripal's "secret talks" is a mistranslation of guhya katha, which in the context means the "esoteric" or "deeper meaning" of a scripture.
Psychoanalysis and hermeneutics
Kripal's understanding and application of psychological theory has been criticized by several experts, such as psychoanalyst Alan RolandAlan Roland
Alan Roland is a psychoanalyst who has written several books and articles on the interface between traditional psychoanalysis and Asian cultures/persons of Asian descent....
, author of books and articles on applying psychoanalysis to eastern cultures, Somnath Bhattacharyya (emeritus professor and former head of the Psychology Department at Calcutta University), and Gerald Larson argued that neither Kripal nor his advisor Wendy Doniger were trained as psychologists and in psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
. These critics observe that neither Kripal nor Wendy Doniger
Wendy Doniger
Wendy Doniger is an American Indologist and Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School, the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and the Committee on Social Thought...
are trained in psychoanalysis or psychology.
Roland argued that Freudian approaches are not applicable to Asian cultures. Other critics questioned the propriety of applying Freudian analysis to third parties via native informants or posthumously.
Claims about hiding of sources
In the 1995 edition of the book, Kripal argued that the Ramakrishna Mission was hiding or "bowdlerizing" key biographical sources on Ramakrishna, in order to hide inconvenient secrets. These views were denied by the Mission, and some of them were retracted by Kripal shortly thereafter.The Kathamrita
According to Kripal, the unusual five-volume, non-chronological structure structure of Mahendranath Gupta's Kathamrita was designed to "conceal a secret", and Gupta "held back" the secret in the first volume, "hinted at" it in the second, "toyed with" it in the third, "revealed it" in the fourth and found that he had hardly any material left for the fifth.However, Tyagananda wrote that portions from Gupta's diaries (which are in the possession of his descendants) were published in various Bengali journals long before they appeared in book form as the Kathamrita. According to Tyagananda, there was no textual evidence that Gupta was thinking of writing a book when he began writing his diaries. He pointed out that at least four generations of Bengalis had read the Kathamrita, and he wrote that their perception of Ramakrishna was in most respects diametrically opposite to the picture presented in Kali's Child. Furthermore, Tyagananda wrote that Ramakrishna Mission
Ramakrishna Mission
Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission are twin organizations which form the core of a worldwide spiritual movement known as Ramakrishna Movement or Vedanta Movement. The Ramakrishna Mission is a philanthropic, volunteer organization founded by Ramakrishna's chief disciple Swami Vivekananda on...
had published a two-volume edition of the Kathamrita rearranged in chronological order, after the copyright which rested with Gupta's descendants expired.
Disputing the idea that Mahendranath Gupta ran out of material, Amiya Prosad Sen
Amiya Prosad Sen
Amiya Prosad Sen is a historian with an interest in the intellectual and cultural history of modern India. Amiya P.Sen is currently Professor of Modern Indian History at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi...
writes that the fifth volume (published posthumously) had "no note of finality" and ended "abruptly". Amiya Sen writes that "M." was contemplating at least six to seven volumes and after which he hoped to rearrange the entire material chronologically, within a single volume. Sen further writes that maintaining a "strictly chronological order" have meant postponing publication, and alternatively Gupta "sacrificed" chronological order to accommodate the short notice period. Sen also writes that Gupta faced other practical problems like finding a willing publisher.
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
In his book, Kripal also wrote that Swami Nikhilananda's The Gospel of Sri RamakrishnaThe Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna translated by Swami Nikhilananda is an English translation of the Bengali religious text Sri Sri Rāmakrishna Kathāmrita...
, which purports to be "a literal translation" of the Kathamrita, contains in fact substantial alterations from Gupta's text. Besides combining the five parallel narratives into a single volume (which is often sold as a two-volume set) Nikhilananda would also have deleted some passages ("only a few pages") which supposedly were "of no particular interest to English-speaking readers".
Examples of missing passages quoted by Kripal include a declaration of Ramakrishna to a disciple: "In that state [during a Tantric ritual with a female guru] I couldn't help but worship the little penises [dhan] of boys with flowers and sandal-paste". Another example was the description by Ramakrishna of one of is visions, which in the Bengali original, according to Kripal, read "This is very secret talk! I saw a boy of twenty-three exactly like me, going up the subtle channel, erotically playing [ramana kara] with the vagina-shaped [yoni-rupa] lotuses with his tongue! but was translated by Nikhilananda as "[...] communing with lotuses with his tongue".
In his 1997 review, Swami Atmajnanananda wrote that "there are some other instances which, at first, seem to substantiate Kripal's cover-up theory" but he too believed that they were all motivated by respect the Western decorum. He argued that, had Nikhilananda been fearful of revealing hidden secrets, "he certainly would have eliminated far more of Ramakrishna's remarks than he did". Atmajnanananda also argued that Kripal's translation of the missing parts more misleading than Nikhilananda's omissions. In 2000, Swami Tyagananda added that Nikhilananda had attempted to faithfully convey the ideas, which might have been misunderstood if he had opted for a literal translation; and that the Gospel was translated in the 1940s and one should consider the Western sense of decorum as it existed then. Somnath Bhattacharya wrote that anybody with knowledge of Bengali could check that an overwhelming majority of the passages marked guhya-katha had been translated by Nikhilananda faithfully to the letter as well as to the spirit of the original.
Jivanvrittanta
Kripal also described the book Sri Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsadever Jivanvrittanta by Ramchandra Dutta as a scandalous biography of Ramakrishna that was suppressed by Ramakrishna's followers.In response, Pravrajika Vrajaprana
Pravrajika Vrajaprana
Pravrajika Vrajaprana is a writer on Vedanta, the history and growth of the Vedanta Societies and a nun at Vedanta Society of Sarada Convent.Her works on Vedanta include, Vedanta: A Simple Introduction , editor of Living Wisdom...
and Swami Atmajnanananda wrote that the book had been published in nine Bengali editions as of 1995. In 1998 Kripal wrote that he had "overplayed the degree" of his alleged suppression, noting that "to my wonder (and embarrassment), the Ramakrishna Order reprinted Datta's text the very same summer Kali's Child appeared, rendering my original claims of a conscious concealment untenable."
To Malhotra
Kripal also wrote a long response to Rajiv MalhotraRajiv Malhotra
Rajiv Malhotra is an author and the founder of Infinity Foundation. He is also a former telecommunication entrepreneur. After a career in the software, computer, and telecom industries Malhotra took an early retirement to pursue philanthropic and educational activities...
's essay RISA LILA—I:Wendy's Child Syndrome which argued that the Freudian psychoanalytical approach had been discredited even among Western psychologists. Kripal lamented the "angry tone and ad hominem nature" of the text, and charged Rajiv of spreading "a number of falsehoods" over the internet that involved his person and reputation, and of having got "just about everything wrong" about his ideas and translations, claiming that his criticisms were merely a repeat of Tyagananda's.
Final remarks
By late 2002, Kripal combined his primary replies on his website, and wrote:Kripal argued that gender and spirituality are intricately linked, and that the history of mysticism in all the world's religions is erotic. Kripal argued that the mysticism of Teresa of Ávila
Teresa of Ávila
Saint Teresa of Ávila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, was a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun, and writer of the Counter Reformation, and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer...
, John of the Cross
John of the Cross
John of the Cross , born Juan de Yepes Álvarez, was a major figure of the Counter-Reformation, a Spanish mystic, Catholic saint, Carmelite friar and priest, born at Fontiveros, Old Castile....
and other European Roman Catholics were erotic and similar to Ramakrishna's ecstasy. Kripal strongly denied that Kali's Child was intended as a slur either against Ramakrishna specifically or Hinduism in general. Kripal later published his second book, Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom which studied the alleged eroticism in Western mysticism.
External links
- Limited preview of Kali's Child on Google books(edition 2)
- Swami Tyagananda's essay, "Kali's Child Revisited or Didn't Anyone Check the Documentation?"
- Kripal's consolidated responses to criticism of Kali's Child
- A perspective on the controversy regarding RISA scholars from the University of Chicago
- Kali’s Child: Psychological and Hermeneutical Problems by Somnath Bhattacharyya