Anything intolerant to our tolerant hindu structure should not be tolerated, if the said structure is to survive. Some general context about the limits of inter-cult competition classically imposed within the hindu ecosystem can be considered.
The intolerant generally and eventually overcomes and imposes its values on the tolerant other, even when it is a small minority. This is a law of nature.
Polytheism especially cannot afford secularism. See here.
Freedom of speech and its limitations
One might defend the right of expression of intolerance against ideas or ideologies that are intolerant (and by extension, people who follow or advocate such ideologies). This means, books discussing how one might kill and maim an intolerant “Caliph” are OK, not those discussing how one might do the same for Narendra Modi.
This is in line with limits of traditional hindu tolerance.
Limitations on forced exposure: A significant population that objects to some expression is not exposed to it by force.
The government should not allow indiscriminate loudspeaker use - because: they are forcing a significant number of people to listen to things that are obnoxious to them.
This is why both the muezzin’s “Allah Hu Akbar” noise should not be allowed, just like temples blasting off stotra-s well beyond their premises.
Exceptions should be granted to occasional public festivals/ processions.
Objectionable paintings should be in galleries, not in billboards.
Spengler on the power of press to curtail speech: “”And the other side of this belated freedom — it is permitted to everyone to say what he pleases, but the Press is free to take notice of what he says or not. It can condemn any “truth” to death simply by not undertaking its communication to the world — a terrible censorship of silence, which is all the more potent in that the masses of newspaper readers are absolutely unaware that it exists [He then goes on to note that this is worse than all the books burned by the Chin Shi Huang].””
So, any brazen subversion of society has to necessarily be secret.
It is not a matter of jurisdiction - rather one of breaking the norms without the authorities getting to know it. (rAma for example explicitly claimed jurisdiction when explaining his killing of vAlin.)
Hence, the tAntrika-s were to carry out practices which subert social norms in secret (eg. outside the mainstream society).
Classical doctrine
jayanta-bhaTTa in his AgamADambara (V) illustrates the classical view that a tradition (which might include a religion) should be suppressed within a society that it seeks to subvert (it is all right if it is the practice in a separate foreign state).
अविच्छिन्ना येषां वहति सरणिः सर्वविदिता,
न यत्रार्यो लोकः परिचय-कथालाप-विमुखः।
यदिष्टानुष्ठानं न खलु जनभयं न सभयं,
न रूपं येषां च स्फुरति नवम् अभ्युत्थितम् इव॥
प्रमत्तगीतत्वम् अलौकिकत्वम्
आभाति लोभादि न यत्र मूलम्।
तथाविधानाम् अयम् आगमानाम्
प्रामाण्यमार्गो न तु यत्र तत्र॥
To check: Cakrabhanu.
Some rare authoritative verses motivate curtailment of freedom of expression to a greater degree.
Yet, hindu-s almost never followed up on such verses, and instead tolerated rivals of their deities - by simply labeling them vēda-nindaka-s and pāshaṇḍa-s.
This is of course because hindu-s are an amoral people in this sense: they don’t have a “moral ought” - rather, shAstra’s statements are considered to be opinions; this sentiment is well established in the society.(../Details here.)
Details of the vedabase translation are disputed - even going by the rUpa-gosvAmI tradition (BVP thread).
As shrI shankara notes: “ponder on the context in which those words were uttered. These are the words of SatI who is in the grip of anger and are not SAstric injunctions. Since DakSha is not aware of Siva’s greatness, his abuses can be taken as blasphemous but one must also realize the futility of SatI’s reaction. By immolating herself, not unlike suicide bombers, she not only suffered separation from the very Lord she wanted always to be with but also caused a bloody carnage in which thousands were killed. … To realize this, she had to be reborn as ParvatI. Didn’t Siva himself, in the guise of a vaTu, make the very allegations DakSha previously made? But by this time, continued tapas has made Parvati mature enough to realize that it doesn’t matter if Siva has all the demerits that is made out of him. Neither does she speak of the necessity of violence in tackling the reproachful vaTu nor does she decide to kill herself. She does her best trying to convince the vaTu of Siva’s true nature and when he appears unconvinced, first asks her sakhi to send him off and then decides it would be better for herself to leave the place. It is after this realization that she becomes perpetually inseparable from Siva by becoming his left half. I am sure the goddess, as the mature PArvatI, can never speak in the manner of SatI.”
Kings of various dhArmika persuations tolerated and respected other dhArmika religions.
This tolerance and plurality is a characteristic of paganism in general. For example: Hindu deities in modern Africa!
Barring a few counterreligions, there were no credible patterns of violent strife between traditions with different views about life and liberation from existential suffering.
Terms and conditions imposed on the pArsI refugees (Qissa-i Sanjan) by king jadi rANa ensured that the majority way of life is not threatened - adopt local language, garments, no weapons, marriage only in evening.
If you want to talk about where dharmashAstra stands, examine the actions of one of its greatest lights, hemAdri vis-a-vis the treacherous mahAnubhAva sect. This the peshva-s (who were dharmashAstra basedPDF) also later suppressed (pdf. -MT1.
There are umpteen examples such as the following: “Sometime later, another Nirgrantha follower in Pataliputra drew a similar picture. Ashoka burnt him and his entire family alive in their house. He also announced an award of one dinara (silver coin) to anyone who brought him the head of a Nirgrantha heretic. " from the ashokavadana. Though the tales are almost certainly exaggerated, they indicate that such suppression was certainly not unimaginable.
“The Kosher population represents less than three tenth of a percent of the residents of the United States. Yet, it appears that almost all drinks are Kosher. … In the United Kingdom, where the (practicing) Muslim population is only three to four percent, a very high number of the meat we find is halal. Close to seventy percent of lamb imports from New Zealand are halal. … All Islam did was out-stubborn Christianity, which won thanks to its stubbornness. For, before Islam, the original spread of Christianity in the Roman empire can be largely seen due to… the blinding intolerance of Christians, their unconditional, aggressive and proselyting recalcitrance. Roman pagans were initially tolerant of Christians, as the tradition was to share gods with other members of the empire. But they wondered why these Nazarenes didn’t want to give and take gods and offer that Jesus fellow to the Roman pantheon in exchange for some other gods. What, our gods aren’t good enough for them? But Christians were intolerant of Roman paganism. The “persecutions” of the Christians had vastly more to do with the intolerance of the Christians for the pantheon and local gods, than the reverse. " Nicholas Taleb’s note [FBPDF]
Buddhist intolerance
sthaviravAdin-s: “We have accounts that they burned vajrayANa tantra-s and demolished images of heruka-s such as hevajra at gaya. .. attack on hingula..” [MT16, TW16]
Nagarjunakonda (Andhra) relief of Virapurushaddata (c.230-260) denouncing Brahmanism by stomping on a Shiva linga & Naga serpent - [IMG]
