Raiders112390 said:
Do you have anything better to do in your life than troll on the boards of a series you don't really like? Can't you read some Batman slash fiction or something?
He can no more stop 'trolling' than you can stop recreating the same threads over and over again.
Point of order: I just finished watching
Temple of Doom for the second time today. At no point during the movie is the term Hindu/Hinduism/whatever mentioned. By anybody. Which is important because the more demonstratively inclined members here are, like with the cuisine of India, conflating Hinduism with a monolithic set of values. This is, of course, a false assumption.
But first, it should be mentioned that geography is our
first clue that
Temple of Doom doesn't take place in India. No, it takes place in an "India" of the popular imagination; a concept rather a concrete physical place.
Note the movie's
lone travel sequence: The Ford Tri-Motor takes off from Shanghai, flies over the Great Wall despite being nowhere near it, and ostensibly refuels in Chungking (modern spelling: Chongqing) before heading west. Each place is specifically mentioned on the map. Yet the rather infamous red line peters out and disappears somewhere over Tibet/Bhutan. This happens nowhere else in the series. Even the unnamed island where Belloq & Co. meet their demise is given concrete representation on the map; i.e., the red line has its terminus on the island's shore.
But let's get back to Hinduism for moment...
Hinduism has no central authority and as a result has no set of tenets that followers must adhere to. In order to make headway into the disorder, it has been broken down into four major denominations:
Vaishnavism,
Shaivism,
Smartism, &
Shaktism.
Vaishnavism
Vaishnavites venerate the Lord Vishnu as supreme God. No other god is above him; though, like other denominations, they recognize many other lesser gods and demi-gods.
Shaivism
Shaivism is the second largest congregation in contemporary India.
Shaivites, of course, consider Shiva to be the supreme deity. It's also the oldest set of beliefs in Hinduism and can be found throughout the sub-continent and Southeast Asia.
Smartism
Smartism is the true polytheistic denomination amongst Hindus. Adherents of this tradition viewed all gods and goddesses as equals and individuals. Despite this, one particular deity (usually Ganesh, Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, or Surya) could be venerated above others depending on the individual practitioner's preference. And as a non-dualistic tradition, there is no difference to adherents between the actual self and transcendental self.
Shaktism
Shaktism concerns itself with venerating
Devi (lit: "the Goddess); by and large, the Goddess is the ultimate, absolute deity.
Devi can take the form of one of several goddesses --
Mahadevi,
Durga,
Saraswati,
Shri-Lakshmi,
Parvati, &
Kali.
There are aspects of all four denominations on display in the Thuggee's worship of
Kali, but there is an older form of religion that heavily influences the film's spirit. More on that next time. I need to flip through a few more
vedas.
I've only recently delved into the whole podcast phenomenon, but this subject could make a very interesting Indycast if it hasn't already been attempted.