Tridents (was Re: FreeBSD Version Release numbers)
Bruce R. Montague
brucem at cruzio.com
Fri Jun 13 11:15:19 PDT 2003
Hi, I'm no expert, but my impression is that the
current problem in India with Hindu "tridents" isn't
so much their historical baggage, but that they are,
in fact, being using as weapons _today_:
--
http://www.onlinevolunteers.org/gujarat/reports/children/chapter1.htm
"The Hindus were crying that we Muslims were
responsible for the Godhra incident; so they
would wipe out the entire race. They started
burning all our houses. They killed as many
they could get hold of, with sword and trishul
(trident); after that they poured petrol or
kerosene and burnt all the bodies."
--
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2003/02/20/stories/2003022006231100.htm
"The Chief Minister...
had no doubt about the seriousness of the issue...
asking them to restrain the VHP from distributing "trishuls."
Rajasthan is yet to include "trishuls" under the purview of the Arms
Act, which proscribes a weapon with a sharp blade measuring 10.5
cm long. According to a study by the Rajasthan PUCL, the VHP
trident has a sharpened portion of 8 cm, though its overall length is
13.5 cm.
``This is an eyewash as the rest of it can be sharpened anytime...''
says Kavita Srivastava, general secretary.
The act of arming people through "trishuls'' has increased in..."
--
http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2009/stories/20030509004103000.htm
"Gehlot made it clear that the trishul was not a
religious symbol. While the trident of Siva was an
object of respect, the three-pronged knife distributed
by the VHP was a deadly weapon...
...a matter of concern for the government."
Relatively speaking, there seems to be a lot of
"mob" violence in India with the most primitive of
weapons.
FWIW, on the real nits-that-dont-matter-front, all
the Indian pages that I've seen (and any Indian
newstory that spells it out), attribute the trident
to Shiva. Vishnu's weapon is the discus... I dunno...
(hum, I need an attributed weapon... guess coffee will do!)
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