![]() ![]() ![]() The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition by Thenmozhi Soundararajan puts this history under a microscope. The yoga they constructed for export has become a form of soft power, serving Hindu nationalist objectives. Many of those evangelists have either been caste privileged, or caste apologists. The pious are told that these obscene retributions maintain the divine order.Indian wisdom traditions have globalized to the extent that its evangelists have laundered the spiritualization of caste-based violence, and hidden its history from erstwhile progressives. In the Mahabharata, an Adivasi (South Asian Indigenous) boy is commanded to cut off his own thumb for the sin of being self-taught and skilled above his station. In the Ramayana, a Shudra (caste oppressed) who dared to practice yoga was murdered so that the sickly child of a priestly family might regain his health. Molten lead must be poured into their ears. An ancient text at the root of the culture that gave birth to the yoga tradition says that if an outcaste person-a Dalit-dares to learn the holy language of Sanskrit, they must be tortured. ![]()
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