Talk:Ashvamedha

Some changes on what exactly the Ashwamedha involved.

The article used to state the following when detailing the parts of the Ashwamedha:

The chief queen ritually called on the king's fellow wives for pity. The queens walked around the dead horse reciting mantras and obscene dialogue with the priests. The chief queen then had to spend a night with the dead horse and simulate sexual intercourse.

Two sources were cited, with Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans - A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and Proto-Culture. Part I: The Text. Part II: Bibliography, Indexes - By Gamkrelidze, Ivanov, Jakobson, and Johanna (which I will call "IE and IEs" for brevity) stating that:

"The Queen was symbolically married to the dead horse[...]. The queen lay down with the dead horse and was covered with a blanket."

and the other source, Vedic India, by Louis Renous, translated by Philip Spratt, stating that:

"... the principal wife lies down beside it in a position simulating copulation..."

To better reflect the statements by these two sources, I've edited the sentence "The chief queen ritually called on the king's fellow wives for pity. The queens walked around the dead horse reciting mantras and obscene dialogue with the priests. The chief queen then had to spend a night with the dead horse and simulate sexual intercourse."

and changed it to:

"The chief queen ritually called on the king's fellow wives for pity. The queens walked around the dead horse reciting mantras and obscene dialogue with the priests.[16] The chief queen then had to lie beside the dead horse in a position simulating sexual intercourse and was covered with a blanket."

Aathish S | talk | contribs 10:44, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

The chief queen did not mimic any kind of sexual position with dead horse. That is just bizarre and doesn’t make sense.

This is bogus as hindu history and vedic translations have been heavily manipulated by many anti hindu historians.

After the horse sacrifice it was offered to agni and nothing obscene happened in this ritual.

If I am wrong and all those disgusting rituals did happen then sorry to say but Ashwamedha is purely disgusting and unacceptable in every aspect. RajatGupta72528 (talk) 05:08, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

There are no primary sources cited by the above 2 books. One was written by a French Indologist translated by the founder of Communist Party of India. How can these be the only 2 sources cited by Wikipedia ? We should look for local translations into Hindi and other Indian languages and give them as references here. Rajesh1112 (talk) 15:28, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

All the information here is given by wrong interpretation and ill-translation. The historians always tried to manipulate our vedic texts and we fools never raised fingure or questioned that. As a result, younger generation will read these things only and assume that we had a wrong culture and hence, the historians are successful in their plans. Vibhavkishor (talk) 12:09, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Vibhavkishor, I can see why you might think that the sources are wrongly translated and interpreted. Reading them for the first time definitely surprised me as well.
However, these are the few English sources that we have! If you have access to any other sources that you feel are more trustworthy, let me know.
In order to change any of the statements that are already reasonably sourced, such as what the Ashwamedha procedure involved, we'll have to source it with reliable, written sources by trustworthy publishers. Again, if you can find some sources on this that you believe are trustworthy and better, don't hesitate to mention them on this talk page! Aathish S | talk | contribs 13:16, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

I think that "to spend a night" should be kept, as it makes it clearer the queen spent the entire night with the horse's corpse. Chariotrider555 (talk) 16:59, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

I couldn't verify that statement that the queen spent the entire night in three sources ("IE and IEs", "Vedic India", and "View of The Aśvamedha_ in the context of early South Asian socio-political development"), and so I removed it. I may have just missed that sentence though. If you can find a source that explicitly says she spent the entire night with the dead horse, then feel free to add it back. Aathish S | talk | contribs 17:45, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

"the queen had to spend one night near the dead horse". Chariotrider555 (talk) 18:58, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

You cannot just say these are the English sources we have. India and Hinduism has been colonized. Citing only the colnoizers' texts as the only source is not only misleading but peddling the colinizer agenda. Louis Renou was a french Indologist, his French book does not cite any primary sources at all. The English translation to that was done by Philip Spratt, who was a Communist at that time and was sent to India as a Communist spy. He later founded the Communist Part of India. We all know the motivations of communists w.r.t Hinduism. It's not fair that Wikipedia cites such sources devoid of any Indian sources at all. This kind of a bile propaganda about Aswamedha Yagna has been a constant point of the Dravidian movement in Tamilnadu for the past 100 years. We all know the Dravidian ideology was formented by the missionaries like Caldwell in the 1800s. Rajesh1112 (talk) 13:33, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

For example, this is from the Mahabharata itself and there is no mention of any of these nonsense claims https://archive.org/details/mahabharataofkri0004unse/page/152/mode/2up?q=horse. The chapter itself is called Ashvamedha parva and I don't think there can be any text more authoritative than the Mahabhartha (except the Vedas). I have also looked into this entire chapter for any references to this Queen claims and there's none. So, Wikipedia article should be corrected ASAP from these dubious claims without any primary source @Aathish S. Rajesh1112 (talk) 09:17, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Check this link and this link. The Hindi translation also gives a word by word translation. These translations are very clear and their meaning converges with the rest of the theme of the verses. Their meaning is not remotely close to this ridiculous and malicious claims of the queen story.

How come all the Indian authors have no problem translating these verses while the western sources in the 1870s+ only has this problem ?

Are you guys now going to say that 3 different Indian authors are wrong and wikipedia only trusts the colonial western ones ?

Rajesh1112 (talk) 01:24, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Here's a source from an Indian government website with a Hindu translator. In page 999, there's descriptions that's more graphic than this article goes into.

[1] Srini1999 (talk) 11:33, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

You cannot just say these are the English sources we have. India and Hinduism has been colonized. Citing only the colnoizers' texts as the only source is not only misleading but peddling the colinizer agenda. Louis Renou was a french Indologist, his French book does not cite any primary sources at all. The English translation to that was done by Philip Spratt, who was a Communist at that time and was sent to India as a Communist spy. He later founded the Communist Part of India. We all know the motivations of communists w.r.t Hinduism. It's not fair that Wikipedia cites such sources devoid of any Indian sources at all. This kind of a bile propaganda about Aswamedha Yagna has been a constant point of the Dravidian movement in Tamilnadu for the past 100 years. We all know the Dravidian ideology was formented by the missionaries like Caldwell in the 1800s. Rajesh1112 (talk) 13:32, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

References

what was ashwamedha yagna ?

,mnjk 122.173.0.14 (talk) 12:58, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Wrong misleading information.

The information given is misleading, and is inciting hate towards hinduism. Please correct it. 2A02:6B66:F80C:0:DCBF:2BE0:CEF1:1A88 (talk) 02:34, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 September 2024

This is not a horse sacrifice ritual. The horse returned after one year is not sacrificed. There is no mention of horse sacrifice in Mahabharata where the Aswamedha Yaga is described. 96.248.87.127 (talk) 17:25, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. kemel49^{(connect)(contri)} 18:38, 26 September 2024 (UTC)