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The Origins Of Justice |
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by Gaurang Bhatt, MD |
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Workshop # 17 Quoting directly from Wikipedia under Maat –
The heart of a dead person was weighed on a scale by Maat against her ostrich feather. If the heart was lighter than the feather, it passed the test and was granted eternal life. If not it was devoured by the lioness by her side and the soul set adrift into chaos. The idea of order signifying righteousness and equity was developed by other ancient civilizations. In the Rig Veda of the Hindus was the concept of “Rta”. Its etymology as quoted in Wikipedia – Finally the Greek precursor of the same goddess is Themis, the daughter of Uranus and Gaia, and thus a Titan, whose daughters by Zeus are the three fates Clothos, Lachesis and Atropos (see my article “A Dirge For The Republic”. Once again the word theme in English and the name Themis in Greek comes from the base of “tithenai” meaning place like in Sanskrit “tishthatey” to sit in place. The Chinese have the concept of the Mandate of Heaven which sustains the rule of a just ruler. The Egyptian view had a concept of the day of final judgment. In Greek mythology and their concept of gods was that of all powerful immortal beings who behaved in a purely selfish manner according to their whims. It explains the repeated seductions of human females by Zeus using guile, disguise and deception and the punishments inflicted on human beings without rhyme or reason. The Jewish concept of god is that of a jealous tyrant who demands the sacrifice of his son from Abraham, overlooks fratricide as in Cain and Abel and mercilessly tortures Job. The Islamic concept of God has the title of the compassionate and merciful, but the Koran’s description of God is that of a god pretty much the same as the Jewish Tyrannotheos Prepucephilus. The ghastly primitive story of Kelaiya in Hindu mythology is an avatar of the same god. It is in the originally atheistic Buddhism that one first comes across the greater emphasis on kindness, compassion and self-sacrifice for others like Boddhisatvas postponing their own Nirvana (extinction defined as salvation) to guide the less knowledgeable and suffering to the path of righteousness. It is in Paul’s version and not Jesus Christ’s Christianity that salvation is offered to non-Jews (read Robert Wright’s book – The Evolution of God). In Greek mythology, Clotho, the first fate spun the thread of life, Lachesis measured it and Atropos decided when to cut it and end life for everyone. The earliest variation of justice was more punitive vengeance and was the responsibility of Tisiphone (avenger of murder), Megaera (jealousy) and Alecto (constant anger), who chased offenders usually through out the night. They were born from the blood of the titan Uranus when his son Chronos castrated his father and threw his testicles into the sea. Their birth is from a crime and their pursuit is vengeance more than justice. They were ugly with snakes growing from their head instead of hair like the Gorgon Medusae. The idea of justice was more a question of determining punishment or compensation. See my old article “The Truth About Legal Codes & Political Power”. It is much late and mainly in the last thousand years that better formulations of justice have been formed. Etymologically once again the Sanskrit word “Pramana” literally means measure and the Sanskrit and modern Indian language word “Pramanika” meaning one who measures (well) has come to mean equitable and hence just. A similar etymology from the English word “Ratio” (the proper relationship or measure of comparison to discriminate the weight, length etc. of two entities) gives rise to the word “Rational and Rationality” which becomes the base of justice. The irony of life is that the word for base in Arabic is “Qaeeda” which in Hindi means the Law or Rule, but to us Americans means “Terror”. The neoliberal Washington consensus and Islamist terrorism have changed justice and its meaning. The problem at present is that the idea of justice has morphed and been corrupted to the point that the rich and privileged are treated preferentially and their losses (banks) socialized to be borne by the public, while the ordinary citizens lose their homes and retirement and are subjected to cutthroat capitalistic survival in a Hobbesian jungle, marooned on a high wire without a safety net. The newly evolved version of the Goddess of Justice would have her thumb manipulating the scale to benefit the powerful as she peeped from her blindfold and cheated to use all the secret and clandestine evidence to favor her chosen groups and used the sword to threaten, browbeat and intimidate the deserving from attaining or approaching justice, as in giving Corporations the rights of an immortal person and applying the First Amendment to Corporations as in the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission. Workshop # 17 Act! Oh, Goddess of Justice! by G. Venkatesh Advocacy by Dr. Raj Vatsya Against All Odds by Shernaz Wadia Animal Farm Again by T. A. Ramesh Before The Bench by Kamal Wadhwa Blind Justice Symbolism by Rajha Rajesuwari Subhramanium Blind to Hypocrisy by Jayaprakash Raghavan Pillai Can Justice Reach India’s Toiling Masses? by Dr. Uddipan Mukherjee Coomaraswamy’s Last Stand by Kamal Wadhwa Encounter by Shernaz Wadia Give Humanity A Chance by Rupradha Mookerjee Gizzards by Afanwi Stella How Long, Oh Goddess of Justice! by Dr. Kumarendra Mallick In A World of Big Lies... by N. S. Murty In Defense of A Committed Judiciary by Kamal Wadhwa In(Justice) by Ramesh Anand Is Justice Blind? by Nikhil Sharda Is Justice Humane? by Shibsankar Bagchi Is the Statue of Lady Justice Relevant in India Today? by Ganesh Joshi Just Justice by Dr. Madhavi Godavarthy Justice Delayed: Justice Denied by Bharat B. Trivedi Justice Delivered by Janaki Janar Justice for All by Mukesh Williams Justice in Adversarial System by Dr. Raj Vatsya Justitia Versus Justice by Ramesh Anand Lady Justice by Ramesh Anand Lady Justice’s a Pretty Nice Girl by Dipankar Dasgupta Lost is Our Humanity by Rupradha Mookerjee Miss Justice, a Villanelle by Steve Talbert Mother Justice by Prof. Siva Prasad Peddi On Her Blindness by G Swaminathan Order by Dr. Raj Vatsya Reform or Perish by Rajinder Puri Reforming India’s Judiciary by Rajinder Puri Rejoice! by Pavalamani Pragasam Righteousness is Divine ... by Deepak Yadav Self-realization through Internal Justice by Prof. Siva Prasad Peddi Shall We? (Tyburn) by Ramesh Anand She Laughs at It! (Senryu) by Ramesh Anand Strength of a Woman by Yogita Tripathi The Lady Justice's Lament by Ramesh Anand The Lady of Justice by Supriya Bhandari The Origins Of Justice by Gaurang Bhatt, MD The President's Pardon by Jayaprakash Raghavan Pillai The Public Prosecutor by Kamal Wadhwa The Social Base by Prof. Siva Prasad Peddi Universal Justice (NONET) by Ramesh Anand Whatsoever (Limerick) by Ramesh Anand Who Am I? by Dr. Shirisha Dabiru Why? by Pavalamani Pragasam |
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07-Nov-2010 | ||||
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dirk dominick 04/14/2016 15:13 PM |
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