Hinduism Studies in America: Crisis of quality in Western scholarship

If ignorance is bliss, there should be more happy people -- Victor Cousin, (1792-1867) French philosopher and historian
S. Kalyanaraman, Sarasvati Research Center

31 March 2011 kalyan97@gmail.com http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97

Letter from scholars

Doniger's hate-speech exposed in letter signed by many scholars

Following the letter, Wendy Doniger failed to win a literary award

March 31, 2011

Is Wendy Doniger obsessed with sex?

Throughout the book, Doniger analyzes Hindu Gods and Goddesses using discredited psychosexual Freudian theories, resulting in speculations
Doniger sees sexual themes where none exist Judeo-Christian faith gets used to dish out voyeurism and the tradition gets eroticized.
March 31, 2011

Factual errors, anachronisms

Pg. 67 - It is claimed that the entire Harappan culture had a population of 40,000! COMMENT: This is estimated as the population of Mohenjo-Daro alone. The population of the entire culture is estimated around 500,000. Pg 112 - Wheat is mentioned as a food item in the Rigvedic period. COMMENT: Wheat is not mentioned in the Rigveda at all. It first occurs in the Maitrayani Samhita of the Yajurveda.
March 31, 2011

Factual errors, anachronisms

Pg 130 - The author claims that there are no Gods in the Vedas who are Shudras. COMMENT: It is anachronistic to assign castes to Rigvedic deities, but nevertheless, Pushan, Vesmapati and others have been considered Shudra deities in later times. Pg 194 fn.- Gandhi's commentary on the Gita (a sacred Hindu scripture) was titled 'Asakti Yoga' (translated as the science of deep attachment). COMMENT: The title of Gandhis work is 'Anasakti Yoga' (trans. Science of non-Attachment).

Factual errors, anachronisms

Pg 441 - The book claims that Firoz Shah redeemed a number of Hindu slaves
COMMENT: A misrepresentation of the fact that he employed (not redeemed) 12,000 of his 180,000 slaves forcibly in royal factories for producing articles of consumption by Muslim elites. No manumission was involved. Pg 459 - King Ala-ud-din Husain of Bengal patronized Saint Chaitanya.

COMMENT: Saint Chaitanya never met the king, and left his kingdom to avoid persecution, as did his disciples. The king had destroyed Hindu temples in Orissa.
March 31, 2011

Factual errors, anachronisms

Pg 537-8 - The Sikh teacher Guru Govind Singh was assassinated in 1708, while 'attending Emperor Aurangzeb'. Emperor Aurangzeb died in 1707. \ COMMENT: Guru Gobind Singh was assassinated in 1708 during the reign of Aurangzebs successor, Emperor Bahadur Shah I. It is insulting to say that the Guru was attending on the Emperor.
Pg 550 - The book claims that Mirabai lived from 1498-1597, and then on p. 568, the author claims that Mirabai lived from 14501525! COMMENT: Both dates are wrong and the commonly accepted dates are 1498-1547.

Factual errors, anachronisms

Section on Bibliography: Shekhawat, V. Origin and Structure of purushartha Theory: An attempt at Critical Appraisal. Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research 7:1 (1900), 63-67. COMMENT:The correct issue and year of this Journal issue are actually 8:2 and 1991. The bibliography has dozens of errors. Some references cited by Doniger simply do not exist.

o Doniger o Not

should get a C+ for sloppy editing.

a good role model for graduate students.

March 31, 2011

Many in West seek awards and champion Dalit politics using wrong claims
Pages 634-635 1. Not 5 million but 0.5 million Mahars converted to Buddhism under Ambedkar in 1956. 2. And Dalits do not convert to Jainism, but to neo-Buddhism, Sikhism, and to Abrahamic faiths (mainly Christianity).

Pages 633-634 3. Also, Brahmins were not the only ones who immolated themselves in protest against the Mandal commission. The majority were non-Brahmins. (Can anyone find a list of the 150+ people who committed suicide in 1989-1990?).
Pages 634-635 4. The statement that thousands of Dalits protested the anti-coversion laws in MP and Gujarat is a juvenile exaggeration.

Denigration of Hinduism
Doniger uses selective quotations from obscure and non-original, peripheral and ignorant references with a bizarre emphasis on sexuality and eroticism.
Pg 40 If the motto of Watergate was Follow the money, the motto of the history of Hinduism could well be Follow the monkey or, more often Follow the horse. COMMENT: Very derogatory and offensive. The motto of Hinduism is to follow the truth and unite with God.

Evidence for obsession with sex

Pg 112 - The author alleges that in Rigveda 10.62, it is implied that a woman may find her own brother in her bed! COMMENT: The hymn has no such suggestion. It is offensive to suggest that the sacred text of Hindus has kinky sex in it. Pg 128 - The book likens the Vedic devotee worshipping different Vedic deities to a lying and a philandering boyfriend cheating on his girlfriend(s). COMMENT: This is offensive and ignores that fact that in the Rigveda, the gods are said to be all united, born of one another, and from the same source. 2011

More evidence of Wendy's obsession

Pg 225 -Dasharathas son is certainly lustful... Rama knows all too well what people said about Dasharatha; when Lakshmana learns that Rama has been exiled, he says, The king is perverse, old, and addicted to sex, driven by lust (2.18.3) COMMENT: Sri Rama is revered and worshipped as a deity. The highly acclaimed and critical edition of Valmikis Ramayana records no such statement attributed to Lakshmana. An imagined phrase, 'kama-sakta' is mistranslated as 'addicted to sex' by the author whereas it normally means filled with desires. Valmiki uses a phrase 'samani-madhah' (trans. Possessed of passion).

Racism: Calls Hindus 'monkeys' (Remember 'macaca'?)

Pg 468-469 -The mosque, whose serene calligraphic and geometric contrasts with the perpetual motion of the figures depicted on the temple, makes a stand against the chaos of India, creating enforced vacuums that India cannot rush into with all its monkeys and peoples and colors and the smells of the bazaar COMMENT: It is simply unacceptable that a scholar can flippantly, pejoratively and derogatorily essentialize the Hindus as monkeys and peoples, colors and smells.., and chaos in most insulting manner with the aspersion thrown at the entire Hindu culture and community all over the world. Such generalization has no place in serious scholarly work.

Even more evidence...

Pg 509 - Shankara and the philosophers wifeThis tale contrasts sex and renunciation in such a way that the renunciant philosopher is able to have his cake and eat it, to triumph not only in the world of the mind (in which, before this episode begins, he wins a series of debates against the nonrenouncing male Mimamsa philosopher) but in the world of the body, represented by the philosophers wife (not to mention the harem women who clearly prefer Shankara to the king in bed). The author attributes the tale to Shankaradigvijaya of Madhava and to Ravichandra's commentary on Amarushataka.

COMMENT: The author concocts the story as a sexual orgy in which the Saint Adi Shankara and King Amruka take turns making love to the latters wives after he is tired. Both her sources however state that the King was already dead and the Saint transferred his soul into the dead Kings body through his yogic powers. There is no suggestion in the texts that the queens prefer Shankara to the king in bed.

An Alternative History?
No, it is an alternative sex manual, forcing readers to see sex everywhere. Experts say Wendy Doniger is clearly obsessed with sex.

Clear intent to vent racist claims. Nothing Hindu about the contents.

WD pushes Religious Myth as History (Quote from Hindus: An Alternative History, pp. 366-367)
When Jesus appeared to him in a vision that night, Thomas said, "Whithersoever thou wilt, our Lord, send me; only to India I will not go." Jesus nevertheless eventually indentured him, for twenty pieces of silver, to an Indian merchant, who took him to work on the palace of the ruler of Gandhara, sometime between about 19 and 45 CE. After a second voyage, in 52 CE, Thomas landed in Kerala or Malabar and there established the Syrian Christian community that thrives there today; he then traveled overland to the east coast, where he was martyred in the outskirts of Chennai. As usual, the interchange went in both directions; in exchange for the goods and ideas that the Christians brought to India, they took back, along with Kerala's pepper and cinnamon, always in demand in Rome, equally palatable stories -elements of Ashvagosha's life of the Buddha (in the second century CE), such as the virgin birth and the temptation by the devil -- that may have contributed to the narratives of the life of Christ.

Why is WDs Thomas Myth poor scholarship?

Portuguese Myth Truth: There was no character called Thomas Chennai church built by 6th c. Armenians Bad scholarship as she assigns dates to miracles No explanation for conjuring up dates of 19 CE, 45 CE or 52 CE Uses religious terms like Martyr and Christ Uses quotes from Christian Mythology texts

March 31, 2011

Anti-Semitism and Hatred

Wolpert and others accept Thomas Myth but question Jewish history of arriving in India in 1st c. In reality, Jewish claims are based on scholarship

This is standard procedure in Western universities

Wendy Doniger is praised on website of neo-Nazi group Stormfront as leftist WN [White Nationalist] who highlights White Pride :

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t690954/
March 31, 2011

Evidence of bias against Hindus

Microsoft Encarta investigated Donigers article after accusations of racism and bigotry Investigation resulted in article being pulled

Q: Lack of scholarship and proof of bias established: So how did Doniger get faculty position?
A: Affirmative action: Studies show White women are biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action
March 31, 2011

Will Wendy Doniger dare write a book with the title "The Christians or "The Muslims" ?
Patrick French is critical of attitudes of Western academics towards Indian history and Hinduism in his book India: A Portrait (Allen Lane/Penguin 2010, last chapter entitled 'Only in India'):
He cites Wendy Doniger's views on the water tank of Mohenjo-daro: Well, its a big building, true, but why couldnt it be a dorm, or a hotel, or a hospital, or even a brothel? (p.79)

He comments:"They are an example of a scholarly tendency to write about India, and particularly about Hinduism, in a way that would not be tried when writing about Christianity or Islam. Indeed, the blanket title of Doniger's book, The Hindus, is hard to imagine transposed to The Christians or to The Muslims. What type of alternative history writing is this?