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On Hinduism
Through this magisterial volume which she calls the book of my books Wendy Doniger, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest and most original scholars of Hinduism, enlarges our understanding of an ancient and complex religion. Comprising a series of connected essays, On Hinduism examines many of the most crucial and contested issues in Hinduism, from the time of the Vedas to the present day: Are Hindus monotheists or polytheists? Is it possible to reconcile images of god with qualities (saguna) and without qualities (nirguna)? How can atheists be Hindu, and how can unrepentant Hindu sinners obtain salvation? Why have Hindus devoted so much attention to addictions, and why have they always been ambivalent about non-injury (ahimsa)? How have Hindu ideas about death, rebirth and karma changed in the course of history, and what do dogs and cows tell us about Hinduism? How and under what conditions does a pluralistic religion remarkable for its intellectual tolerance foster intolerance?
The book closes with short autobiographical essays in which Doniger looks back upon her academic career complete with its Orientalist heritage, self-critiques and controversies and talks eloquently and movingly about the influence of Hinduism on her own philosophy of life.
Drawing upon Donigers writing over forty years, On Hinduism is scholarship of the highest order, and a compelling analysis of one of the worlds great faiths.
About the Author
Wendy Doniger is the author of several translations of Sanskrit texts and books on Hinduism, which include the acclaimed bestsellers The Hindus: An Alternative History; Siva, the Erotic Ascetic; The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology and translations of the Rig Veda and the Kamasutra. She is currently the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago.
The book closes with short autobiographical essays in which Doniger looks back upon her academic career complete with its Orientalist heritage, self-critiques and controversies and talks eloquently and movingly about the influence of Hinduism on her own philosophy of life.
Drawing upon Donigers writing over forty years, On Hinduism is scholarship of the highest order, and a compelling analysis of one of the worlds great faiths.
About the Author
Wendy Doniger is the author of several translations of Sanskrit texts and books on Hinduism, which include the acclaimed bestsellers The Hindus: An Alternative History; Siva, the Erotic Ascetic; The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology and translations of the Rig Veda and the Kamasutra. She is currently the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago.
664 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
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October 28, 2018
I came to know of Wendy Doniger in 2014, after Penguin decided to withdraw her book The Hindus: An Alternative History from publication and pulp the remaining copies in India. This was after a lawsuit filed by the ‘Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samithi’ (Committee for the Struggle to Save Education) against the book arguing that the work was "riddled with heresies” and that the contents were offensive to Hindus. My antennae went up immediately – controversy to me is like the proverbial spot of honey to the fly! Since I was in the UAE at the time, I immediately obtained a copy and read it.
I was a bit surprised. Instead of a controversial polemic dismantling Hinduism, Ms. Doniger had written a scholarly yet accessible book. The only fault I could find with her (other than her non-traditional reading of Hinduism: for me, not a fault at all) was her snarky humour, the constant effort to make fun of everyone and everything. So I resolved to read her other books too.
This was the second book I picked up – and I must say that I was a tad disappointed. The essays in this volume are of variable quality and lack focus; many of them are too Freudian, with the sexual angle being played for all it’s worth. (Not that this is in itself a bad thing – sex was one very important aspect of ancient Indian culture. But it was only one part. The other diametrically opposing aspect – asceticism – is given short shrift in this work, even though the author mentions the dichotomy as one defining aspect of Indian culture.)
The Essays have been arranged in the following seven sections, loosely based on theme:
1. On Being Hindu: This section sets out define what being Hindu means – not an easy task, as there is no definition (other than self-serving ones of interested parties). Ms. Doniger discusses polytheism; the concept of trivaga, the three-fold path, the concept of heresy and the difficulty in defining it in a culture where “everything goes”; death and rebirth... and so on: the key concepts which have informed the Indian culture. In the last two essays, she touches upon tolerance in Hinduism (which she correctly calls a belligerent pluralism of competing philosophies rather than the benign tolerance it’s taken to be) – and the danger of it being subsumed under the often violently intolerant Hindutva narrative of today.
2. Gods, Humans and Anti-gods: The concept of God, or Gods are the subject of these essays. While the author gives a fascinating insight into the Vedic cosmogonies and the evolution of Hindu religious thought over the years, the philosophical tradition of the Upanishads is hardly touched on. It seems Ms. Doniger is more interested in dissecting the mythology than going beyond it.
3. Women and Other Genders: This section was pretty predictable as far as the woman part was concerned – we all know she didn’t have such a good time in the ancient world. But the stories about the clever wife were interesting, as well as the exhaustive analysis of homosexuality (something which India seems to sweep under the carpet), bisexuality and the ‘third gender”.
4. Kama and Other Seductions: This section is essentially about sex in ancient India concentrating mainly on (yes, you guessed it!) the Kama Sutra; also, the ongoing tussle between asceticism and eroticism in Indian culture. The last essay, From Kama to Karma: the Resurgence of Puritanism in Contemporary India, analyses the attack on India’s open culture by the self-styled moral police of the latest strain of puritanical Hinduism, something the Hindu elite adopted from British Protestantism.
5. Horses and Other Animals: The ambivalence of Hindus between Himsa and Ahimsa, and the significance of various animals in Hindu mythology – the pride of place going to the horse, ironically a non-indigenous animal – are the highlights of this section. The essay on the fire-breathing submarine mare at the bottom of the sea was a fascinating one, I must say. But the essay, Dogs as Dalits, was a bit on the polemical side: too political for my taste – and there was also the obligatory one on the sacred cow, about how Hindus used to be beef-eaters at one time, and how many still are: nothing new, we see these arguments every day on various oped columns.
6. Illusion and Reality in the Hindu Epics: This section contains most probably the best essay of the collection - Impermanence and Eternity in Hindu Epic, Art and Performance - about the ephemeral nature of Indian art, as well as the fluidity of the country’s epics. This is a subject especially dear to my heart, and it was nice to see my views echoed in the words of a person from another culture – how the ephemeral art forms appearing as part of various rituals still maintain eternal existence in the psyche of the artists. The concept of shadows in the Ramayana was intriguing, as well as the analysis of the women of Mahabharata: but the essay on Ekalavya as the persecuted Adivasi was rather old hat.
7. On Not Being Hindu: This section makes it clear why the Hindutva-vadis hate Wendy Doniger (she openly says it). It lays bare the politics behind her studies. After making the case for the honesty of some Orientalist scholars, she says that throwing out Orientalism per se would be like discarding the baby with the bath-water. If this is not enough to set the Hindu Right foaming at the mouth, she has this to say in her penultimate essay, You Can’t Make an Omelette:
So it seems that the right-wingers are justified in saying that Wendy Doniger has an agenda. It’s an agenda that I wholeheartedly approve – as I am sure, would thousands of liberal Hindus.
So, though this book did not meet my expectations as far as the content was concerned, I laud the intention behind it – the celebration of the pluralistic culture of my country, though often flawed and fragmented.
I was a bit surprised. Instead of a controversial polemic dismantling Hinduism, Ms. Doniger had written a scholarly yet accessible book. The only fault I could find with her (other than her non-traditional reading of Hinduism: for me, not a fault at all) was her snarky humour, the constant effort to make fun of everyone and everything. So I resolved to read her other books too.
This was the second book I picked up – and I must say that I was a tad disappointed. The essays in this volume are of variable quality and lack focus; many of them are too Freudian, with the sexual angle being played for all it’s worth. (Not that this is in itself a bad thing – sex was one very important aspect of ancient Indian culture. But it was only one part. The other diametrically opposing aspect – asceticism – is given short shrift in this work, even though the author mentions the dichotomy as one defining aspect of Indian culture.)
The Essays have been arranged in the following seven sections, loosely based on theme:
1. On Being Hindu: This section sets out define what being Hindu means – not an easy task, as there is no definition (other than self-serving ones of interested parties). Ms. Doniger discusses polytheism; the concept of trivaga, the three-fold path, the concept of heresy and the difficulty in defining it in a culture where “everything goes”; death and rebirth... and so on: the key concepts which have informed the Indian culture. In the last two essays, she touches upon tolerance in Hinduism (which she correctly calls a belligerent pluralism of competing philosophies rather than the benign tolerance it’s taken to be) – and the danger of it being subsumed under the often violently intolerant Hindutva narrative of today.
2. Gods, Humans and Anti-gods: The concept of God, or Gods are the subject of these essays. While the author gives a fascinating insight into the Vedic cosmogonies and the evolution of Hindu religious thought over the years, the philosophical tradition of the Upanishads is hardly touched on. It seems Ms. Doniger is more interested in dissecting the mythology than going beyond it.
3. Women and Other Genders: This section was pretty predictable as far as the woman part was concerned – we all know she didn’t have such a good time in the ancient world. But the stories about the clever wife were interesting, as well as the exhaustive analysis of homosexuality (something which India seems to sweep under the carpet), bisexuality and the ‘third gender”.
4. Kama and Other Seductions: This section is essentially about sex in ancient India concentrating mainly on (yes, you guessed it!) the Kama Sutra; also, the ongoing tussle between asceticism and eroticism in Indian culture. The last essay, From Kama to Karma: the Resurgence of Puritanism in Contemporary India, analyses the attack on India’s open culture by the self-styled moral police of the latest strain of puritanical Hinduism, something the Hindu elite adopted from British Protestantism.
5. Horses and Other Animals: The ambivalence of Hindus between Himsa and Ahimsa, and the significance of various animals in Hindu mythology – the pride of place going to the horse, ironically a non-indigenous animal – are the highlights of this section. The essay on the fire-breathing submarine mare at the bottom of the sea was a fascinating one, I must say. But the essay, Dogs as Dalits, was a bit on the polemical side: too political for my taste – and there was also the obligatory one on the sacred cow, about how Hindus used to be beef-eaters at one time, and how many still are: nothing new, we see these arguments every day on various oped columns.
6. Illusion and Reality in the Hindu Epics: This section contains most probably the best essay of the collection - Impermanence and Eternity in Hindu Epic, Art and Performance - about the ephemeral nature of Indian art, as well as the fluidity of the country’s epics. This is a subject especially dear to my heart, and it was nice to see my views echoed in the words of a person from another culture – how the ephemeral art forms appearing as part of various rituals still maintain eternal existence in the psyche of the artists. The concept of shadows in the Ramayana was intriguing, as well as the analysis of the women of Mahabharata: but the essay on Ekalavya as the persecuted Adivasi was rather old hat.
7. On Not Being Hindu: This section makes it clear why the Hindutva-vadis hate Wendy Doniger (she openly says it). It lays bare the politics behind her studies. After making the case for the honesty of some Orientalist scholars, she says that throwing out Orientalism per se would be like discarding the baby with the bath-water. If this is not enough to set the Hindu Right foaming at the mouth, she has this to say in her penultimate essay, You Can’t Make an Omelette:
As I made the selections, I became more and more aware of the need to provide even more substantial textual evidence for the Hinduism that the Hindutvavadis would deny and censor; and what better way to do it than with an anthology of texts? Such a collection would provide ammunition for the Hindu voices of reason that continue to speak out against the Hindutva domination of the Internet. And so, after rounding up the usual suspects, the texts usually presented as representative of Hinduism, I added a number of lesser known texts, including texts from Dalits and Tribals, from ancient women poets and modern women novelists, that reveal the strength and beauty of the other Hinduism that I continue to celebrate.
So it seems that the right-wingers are justified in saying that Wendy Doniger has an agenda. It’s an agenda that I wholeheartedly approve – as I am sure, would thousands of liberal Hindus.
So, though this book did not meet my expectations as far as the content was concerned, I laud the intention behind it – the celebration of the pluralistic culture of my country, though often flawed and fragmented.
March 14, 2016
This is a summary of my longer review on Amazon, where I get into specific examples and details of poor scholarship.
The collection of essays over the years offers more insight into Ms Doniger's evolution as an Indologist than as an authentic description of Hinduism. It is easy to see, based on just specific examples, that some of the more interesting interpretations of Hindu epics and concepts are more fanciful than factual. It is also clear that there is a Freudian undercurrent in all the analysis and interpretations. There is nothing covert about this influence, the author acknowledges it openly.
Of the 43 essays, 10 are explicitly about sex. Another 12 are somewhat about sex – the topics are benign but the interpretations are sexual. Nineteen essays cover perceived oppressors (always Brahmins) and the oppressed (animals, women, dalits). Eight are on other topics (polytheism, Nirguna / Saguna, Ramayana etc). (The numbers add up to more than 43 because some essays are in multiple categories). The thrust is quite clear.
It is also evident that Ms Doniger's sanskrit skills are quite weak. In her public speeches, it is obvious that she has not mastered the diction or learned to pronounce words properly. The book offers plenty of evidence that her ability to translate is very suspect. Ms Doniger appears to have completed some courses in Sanskrit at Harvard where she has been taught sanskrit from a text book and the ability to find other translations. The essays rely way too much on secondary sources.
In the Introduction, she states that she spent a year in India. It appears to have been a lost opportunity. For someone who is so keen on India, she could have sought out the greats who were alive at that time – the Shankaracharyas, the residents of Ramanashram or the monastic order of Ramakrishna. Ms Doniger does not seem to have reached out even to western authors like Paul Brunton who could have given her great insights.
Instead she seems to have visited Konark, Khajuraho and such parts (as Seinfeld would say.. not that there is...). But all the available evidence points to a focus on the fringes of Hindu practice (the legend of cImantini? Really?). Ms Doniger's 'On Hinduism' is exactly what it says: Ms Doniger on hinduism; not actual Hindus or Hindu texts on Hinduism.
With the overemphasis on Freud, the mistranslations, the literal analysis of mythology in a Freudian framework, the book fails at both her stated goals: it neither illustrates Hinduism for a western audience, nor does it illuminate Hinduism for a Hindu audience.
It most closely resembles another myth from India: the svarga created for King Trisankhu by Sage Viswamitra. Illusory projections from a bright mind that has no basis in reality that ends up pissing off more people than it pleases.
One last word on the reviewers who have turned in glowing reviews: they seem to have been taken in by the quantity assuming the quality had to be there. Or, not knowing sanskrit themselves they have been bedazzled by her seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of original sanskrit texts. The examples I have cited are but some of the more egregious ones. The essays have lots more of the same kinds of mistranslations and unsupportable assertions and an inordinate focus on sex / lust etc. In one sense I am quite grateful for Ms Doniger having produced this work - I am able to look at her complete body of work and state with confidence: this empress is wearing no clothes.
The collection of essays over the years offers more insight into Ms Doniger's evolution as an Indologist than as an authentic description of Hinduism. It is easy to see, based on just specific examples, that some of the more interesting interpretations of Hindu epics and concepts are more fanciful than factual. It is also clear that there is a Freudian undercurrent in all the analysis and interpretations. There is nothing covert about this influence, the author acknowledges it openly.
Of the 43 essays, 10 are explicitly about sex. Another 12 are somewhat about sex – the topics are benign but the interpretations are sexual. Nineteen essays cover perceived oppressors (always Brahmins) and the oppressed (animals, women, dalits). Eight are on other topics (polytheism, Nirguna / Saguna, Ramayana etc). (The numbers add up to more than 43 because some essays are in multiple categories). The thrust is quite clear.
It is also evident that Ms Doniger's sanskrit skills are quite weak. In her public speeches, it is obvious that she has not mastered the diction or learned to pronounce words properly. The book offers plenty of evidence that her ability to translate is very suspect. Ms Doniger appears to have completed some courses in Sanskrit at Harvard where she has been taught sanskrit from a text book and the ability to find other translations. The essays rely way too much on secondary sources.
In the Introduction, she states that she spent a year in India. It appears to have been a lost opportunity. For someone who is so keen on India, she could have sought out the greats who were alive at that time – the Shankaracharyas, the residents of Ramanashram or the monastic order of Ramakrishna. Ms Doniger does not seem to have reached out even to western authors like Paul Brunton who could have given her great insights.
Instead she seems to have visited Konark, Khajuraho and such parts (as Seinfeld would say.. not that there is...). But all the available evidence points to a focus on the fringes of Hindu practice (the legend of cImantini? Really?). Ms Doniger's 'On Hinduism' is exactly what it says: Ms Doniger on hinduism; not actual Hindus or Hindu texts on Hinduism.
With the overemphasis on Freud, the mistranslations, the literal analysis of mythology in a Freudian framework, the book fails at both her stated goals: it neither illustrates Hinduism for a western audience, nor does it illuminate Hinduism for a Hindu audience.
It most closely resembles another myth from India: the svarga created for King Trisankhu by Sage Viswamitra. Illusory projections from a bright mind that has no basis in reality that ends up pissing off more people than it pleases.
One last word on the reviewers who have turned in glowing reviews: they seem to have been taken in by the quantity assuming the quality had to be there. Or, not knowing sanskrit themselves they have been bedazzled by her seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of original sanskrit texts. The examples I have cited are but some of the more egregious ones. The essays have lots more of the same kinds of mistranslations and unsupportable assertions and an inordinate focus on sex / lust etc. In one sense I am quite grateful for Ms Doniger having produced this work - I am able to look at her complete body of work and state with confidence: this empress is wearing no clothes.
May 19, 2018
Want to read? Not anymore! On the list only to avoid its purchase. This book is a mockery of the Sanatana Dharma. Due to its attention on sex, lust, etc., it will only lead you astray from uniting with the Divine.
As Cynic elaborates:
"This is a summary of my longer review on Amazon, where I get into specific examples and details of poor scholarship.
Suppose someone from India wrote a big fat book called "Christianity in America" describing the life and teachings of Jim Jones of the People's Temple, the suicidal cult in Waco, the under-the-radar polygamy practiced by some Mormons, the dancing with poisonous snakes in some Pentecostal Churches, the practice of exorcism that are reported once every few years, and the widespread sexual abuse of children by some priests over decades and tolerated by Catholic Church elders, and presenting these as principal examples of the practice of Christianity. The mirror image of this is what Prof Wendy Doniger has done in her book "On Hinduism." She is notorious for similar writings. When a group in India filed a lawsuit claiming an earlier book by her to contain vulgar misrepresentations, her publisher withdrew the book from circulation in India essentially conceding the charge. Doniger could be the reincarnation of Katherine Mayo who was compared to a drain inspector by Gandhi after publication of her book in 1927.
The collection of essays over the years offers more insight into Ms Doniger's evolution as an Indologist than as an authentic description of Hinduism. It is easy to see, based on just specific examples, that some of the more interesting interpretations of Hindu epics and concepts are more fanciful than factual. It is also clear that there is a Freudian undercurrent in all the analysis and interpretations. There is nothing covert about this influence, the author acknowledges it openly.
Of the 43 essays, 10 are explicitly about sex. Another 12 are somewhat about sex – the topics are benign but the interpretations are sexual. Nineteen essays cover perceived oppressors (always Brahmins) and the oppressed (animals, women, dalits). Eight are on other topics (polytheism, Nirguna / Saguna, Ramayana etc). (The numbers add up to more than 43 because some essays are in multiple categories). The thrust is quite clear.
It is also evident that Ms Doniger's sanskrit skills are quite weak. In her public speeches, it is obvious that she has not mastered the diction or learned to pronounce words properly. The book offers plenty of evidence that her ability to translate is very suspect. Ms Doniger appears to have completed some courses in Sanskrit at Harvard where she has been taught sanskrit from a text book and the ability to find other translations. The essays rely way too much on secondary sources.
In the Introduction, she states that she spent a year in India. It appears to have been a lost opportunity. For someone who is so keen on India, she could have sought out the greats who were alive at that time – the Shankaracharyas, the residents of Ramanashram or the monastic order of Ramakrishna. Ms Doniger does not seem to have reached out even to western authors like Paul Brunton who could have given her great insights.
Instead she seems to have visited Konark, Khajuraho and such parts (as Seinfeld would say.. not that there is...). But all the available evidence points to a focus on the fringes of Hindu practice (the legend of cImantini? Really?). Ms Doniger's 'On Hinduism' is exactly what it says: Ms Doniger on hinduism; not actual Hindus or Hindu texts on Hinduism.
With the overemphasis on Freud, the mistranslations, the literal analysis of mythology in a Freudian framework, the book fails at both her stated goals: it neither illustrates Hinduism for a western audience, nor does it illuminate Hinduism for a Hindu audience.
It most closely resembles another myth from India: the svarga created for King Trisankhu by Sage Viswamitra. Illusory projections from a bright mind that has no basis in reality that ends up pissing off more people than it pleases.
One last word on the reviewers who have turned in glowing reviews: they seem to have been taken in by the quantity assuming the quality had to be there. Or, not knowing Sanskrit themselves they have been bedazzled by her seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of original Sanskrit texts. The examples I have cited are but some of the more egregious ones. The essays have lots more of the same kinds of mistranslations and unsupportable assertions and an inordinate focus on sex / lust etc. In one sense I am quite grateful for Ms Doniger having produced this work - I am able to look at her complete body of work and state with confidence: this empress is wearing no clothes. "
From Amazon's review:
"Mayo had no scholarly standing but Doniger cannot be dismissed so easily - she is on the faculty of the University of Chicago. After spending five decades studying ancient Sanskrit texts, she has learned a lot of dirty facts but doesn't know the essential truth. She is like an American sports journalist in England describing the English game of cricket as a poor imitation of American baseball. She is unable to cross the cultural divide - she does not realize that these are different games. During the course of human evolution, several civilizations with their own world views flourished in different regions of the earth. The Abrahamic concept of religion that developed in the Middle East 1400 to 3000 years ago and the ancient Indian concept of Dharma developed thousands of years earlier are different. The Sanskrit word "Dharma" is derived from the verb "dhri" - to hold. What holds you is your Dharma. It is more personal. Some Indian scholars have taken to calling the Abrahamic religions as "organized religions."
This confusion is natural and understandable in scholars not specializing in the study of religions. In July 1930, there was a meeting between two intellectual giants when the Indian polymath Tagore visited Einstein in his home near Berlin. Einstein is known as the greatest theoretical physicist of all time. Tagore was called Gurudev - Great Teacher - by Mahatma Gandhi. During the meeting, Tagore explained his point of view in response to Einstein's questions. Transcript of this conversation is available on the web, and also in the book, "Science and the Indian Tradition" by David Gosling. In this brief conversation, Tagore explained the essence of the Hindu point of view that Doniger has never understood. Near the end of the conversation, Einstein made a curious comment that he is more religious than Tagore. On the face of it, this seems absurd. Tagore got his Nobel Prize because of his collection of devotional poems and songs (Gitanjali in Bengali, Songs Offerings in English) based on ancient Indian religious philosophy What Einstein meant is that Tagore's spirituality originating in his individual mind did not conform to the Judeo-Christian concept of organized religion. But Einstein was not a religious scholar; he was not familiar with Eastern philosophy. This ignorance is unforgivable for Doniger who professes to be an expert on Hinduism.
Doniger would do well to study this transcript till she gets it. Tagore was talking to Einstein; the elegant formulation he used may be unintelligible to Doniger. With apologies to Tagore, let me present the same ideas in simplified form.
Start with a simple question: What is Reality? We live in a real world but a little thinking shows that each of us has our own perception of Reality. They are sufficiently similar so that we can interact with one another without confusion most of the time. But there can be occasional disagreements on specific issues even among close friends - their perceptions may be different. Some unfortunate people perceive Reality in a totally different way than others all the time - we call them mad. Actually we are all mad when we dream in our sleep, become delusional reacting to some event or hallucinate under the influence of some substance. Reality is relative.
Next think of a specific real person - call him John. He is well known to several dozen people - his parents, his uncles and aunts and their families, his siblings and cousins and their families, his wife and children, his teachers and bosses and coworkers and subordinates, his close friends and golfing buddies, and so on. Each of them knows John well but there are distinct differences in the way they think about him - their perceptions of John are different. Which one is real? The only meaningful answer is that all of these are. For each person, his perception of John is the correct one, even though it may evolve with time.
Now consider an abstract concept: God, or Truth, or Beauty. What Tagore said to Einstein is that like Reality in the first example, like everyone's individual perceptions of the person called John in the second example, the perceptions of God, Truth and Beauty are in our minds. It is impossible to see or describe God. In Abrahamic religions, the religious teachings prescribe a specific way to think of Him. In ancient Indian philosophy, we have the right and duty to form His perceptions in our own minds. (We also have the right to ignore His existence - as Buddha did.) So, there can be a whole host of them. Growing up in Bengal, I used to hear the expression that there are 33 Koti (330 million) inhabitants of India and 33 Koti Gods (the current population is around a Billion each.) This is not polytheism any more than the different perceptions of the person called John is poly-John-ism. It is also common for important Hindu Gods (e.g. Krishna) to have 108 names describing 108 aspects, and someone somewhere may worship any one of these as his personal God (for some reason, 108 is a sacred number.) The Krishna Consciousness Society that has developed primarily in this country worships Krishna as a lover; young Krishna was a heartthrob and a playboy. The Krishna described in Gita was a wise counselor who pronounced the best and earliest theory of Just War over 5000 years ago when civilization had not yet started in the rest of the world. Doniger writes about a shrine that most Hindu households have in their homes, but she does not know why it is there. It expresses the family's personal relationship with God.
Because of this freedom of thought and belief, Hindus tend to allow others to follow their own conscience; unlike in the Abrahamic religions, sectarian violence is virtually unknown among the Hindu sects - nothing like the Catholic-Protestant, or Sunni-Shia conflicts. Gandhi's son, in youthful rebellion, had converted to Islam; Gandhi was nonplussed, the son came back to the family after some time. The greatest Hindu sage in the last few centuries was Ramakrishna - one of his favorite sayings was, in Bengali, "Jawto Mawt, tawto pawth," meaning, as many opinions (religions), so many paths (to God.) He had converted to Islam and to Christianity for brief periods, because, as he said, he wanted to experience God in different ways. Another example of Doniger's ignorance is that in this 700 page book, she has only one paragraph on Ramakrishna, that too in a negative portrayal. (She could start to educate herself by reading "Life of Ramakrishna" by the French philosopher-author, Romaine Rolland.) Other people are crossing the cultural divide. The resident monk of the Hindu Vedanta Center of Greater Washington DC is an American Jew. The senior minister of the Cedar Lane Unitarian Church in Bethesda, MD is a practicing Hindu from India; his mother was Hindu, his father Muslim.
The University of Chicago is in violation of its social compact to maintain a rigorous level of scholarship; it owes an apology to the students misled by Prof Doniger over the years. Ironically it was in Chicago that the Hindu monk Vivekananda electrified the audience in 1893 at the Parliament of Religions. There is a little story behind this. Vivekananda was in Boston and Prof John Henry Wright of Harvard invited him to give a lecture at the university. Impressed with what he heard, Prof Wright suggested that Vivekananda attend the Parliament of Religions as a delegate in Chicago. When Vivekananda said the he did not have the credentials that the Parliament required, Prof Wright said, "To ask you for credentials is like asking the sun to state its right to shine in the heavens." Prof Wright arranged for Vivekananda to be a delegate and the rest is history. The Harvard professor recognized something in a few days that the Chicago professor has failed to understand in fifty years to studies and research. Shame on Chicago."
As Cynic elaborates:
"This is a summary of my longer review on Amazon, where I get into specific examples and details of poor scholarship.
Suppose someone from India wrote a big fat book called "Christianity in America" describing the life and teachings of Jim Jones of the People's Temple, the suicidal cult in Waco, the under-the-radar polygamy practiced by some Mormons, the dancing with poisonous snakes in some Pentecostal Churches, the practice of exorcism that are reported once every few years, and the widespread sexual abuse of children by some priests over decades and tolerated by Catholic Church elders, and presenting these as principal examples of the practice of Christianity. The mirror image of this is what Prof Wendy Doniger has done in her book "On Hinduism." She is notorious for similar writings. When a group in India filed a lawsuit claiming an earlier book by her to contain vulgar misrepresentations, her publisher withdrew the book from circulation in India essentially conceding the charge. Doniger could be the reincarnation of Katherine Mayo who was compared to a drain inspector by Gandhi after publication of her book in 1927.
The collection of essays over the years offers more insight into Ms Doniger's evolution as an Indologist than as an authentic description of Hinduism. It is easy to see, based on just specific examples, that some of the more interesting interpretations of Hindu epics and concepts are more fanciful than factual. It is also clear that there is a Freudian undercurrent in all the analysis and interpretations. There is nothing covert about this influence, the author acknowledges it openly.
Of the 43 essays, 10 are explicitly about sex. Another 12 are somewhat about sex – the topics are benign but the interpretations are sexual. Nineteen essays cover perceived oppressors (always Brahmins) and the oppressed (animals, women, dalits). Eight are on other topics (polytheism, Nirguna / Saguna, Ramayana etc). (The numbers add up to more than 43 because some essays are in multiple categories). The thrust is quite clear.
It is also evident that Ms Doniger's sanskrit skills are quite weak. In her public speeches, it is obvious that she has not mastered the diction or learned to pronounce words properly. The book offers plenty of evidence that her ability to translate is very suspect. Ms Doniger appears to have completed some courses in Sanskrit at Harvard where she has been taught sanskrit from a text book and the ability to find other translations. The essays rely way too much on secondary sources.
In the Introduction, she states that she spent a year in India. It appears to have been a lost opportunity. For someone who is so keen on India, she could have sought out the greats who were alive at that time – the Shankaracharyas, the residents of Ramanashram or the monastic order of Ramakrishna. Ms Doniger does not seem to have reached out even to western authors like Paul Brunton who could have given her great insights.
Instead she seems to have visited Konark, Khajuraho and such parts (as Seinfeld would say.. not that there is...). But all the available evidence points to a focus on the fringes of Hindu practice (the legend of cImantini? Really?). Ms Doniger's 'On Hinduism' is exactly what it says: Ms Doniger on hinduism; not actual Hindus or Hindu texts on Hinduism.
With the overemphasis on Freud, the mistranslations, the literal analysis of mythology in a Freudian framework, the book fails at both her stated goals: it neither illustrates Hinduism for a western audience, nor does it illuminate Hinduism for a Hindu audience.
It most closely resembles another myth from India: the svarga created for King Trisankhu by Sage Viswamitra. Illusory projections from a bright mind that has no basis in reality that ends up pissing off more people than it pleases.
One last word on the reviewers who have turned in glowing reviews: they seem to have been taken in by the quantity assuming the quality had to be there. Or, not knowing Sanskrit themselves they have been bedazzled by her seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of original Sanskrit texts. The examples I have cited are but some of the more egregious ones. The essays have lots more of the same kinds of mistranslations and unsupportable assertions and an inordinate focus on sex / lust etc. In one sense I am quite grateful for Ms Doniger having produced this work - I am able to look at her complete body of work and state with confidence: this empress is wearing no clothes. "
From Amazon's review:
"Mayo had no scholarly standing but Doniger cannot be dismissed so easily - she is on the faculty of the University of Chicago. After spending five decades studying ancient Sanskrit texts, she has learned a lot of dirty facts but doesn't know the essential truth. She is like an American sports journalist in England describing the English game of cricket as a poor imitation of American baseball. She is unable to cross the cultural divide - she does not realize that these are different games. During the course of human evolution, several civilizations with their own world views flourished in different regions of the earth. The Abrahamic concept of religion that developed in the Middle East 1400 to 3000 years ago and the ancient Indian concept of Dharma developed thousands of years earlier are different. The Sanskrit word "Dharma" is derived from the verb "dhri" - to hold. What holds you is your Dharma. It is more personal. Some Indian scholars have taken to calling the Abrahamic religions as "organized religions."
This confusion is natural and understandable in scholars not specializing in the study of religions. In July 1930, there was a meeting between two intellectual giants when the Indian polymath Tagore visited Einstein in his home near Berlin. Einstein is known as the greatest theoretical physicist of all time. Tagore was called Gurudev - Great Teacher - by Mahatma Gandhi. During the meeting, Tagore explained his point of view in response to Einstein's questions. Transcript of this conversation is available on the web, and also in the book, "Science and the Indian Tradition" by David Gosling. In this brief conversation, Tagore explained the essence of the Hindu point of view that Doniger has never understood. Near the end of the conversation, Einstein made a curious comment that he is more religious than Tagore. On the face of it, this seems absurd. Tagore got his Nobel Prize because of his collection of devotional poems and songs (Gitanjali in Bengali, Songs Offerings in English) based on ancient Indian religious philosophy What Einstein meant is that Tagore's spirituality originating in his individual mind did not conform to the Judeo-Christian concept of organized religion. But Einstein was not a religious scholar; he was not familiar with Eastern philosophy. This ignorance is unforgivable for Doniger who professes to be an expert on Hinduism.
Doniger would do well to study this transcript till she gets it. Tagore was talking to Einstein; the elegant formulation he used may be unintelligible to Doniger. With apologies to Tagore, let me present the same ideas in simplified form.
Start with a simple question: What is Reality? We live in a real world but a little thinking shows that each of us has our own perception of Reality. They are sufficiently similar so that we can interact with one another without confusion most of the time. But there can be occasional disagreements on specific issues even among close friends - their perceptions may be different. Some unfortunate people perceive Reality in a totally different way than others all the time - we call them mad. Actually we are all mad when we dream in our sleep, become delusional reacting to some event or hallucinate under the influence of some substance. Reality is relative.
Next think of a specific real person - call him John. He is well known to several dozen people - his parents, his uncles and aunts and their families, his siblings and cousins and their families, his wife and children, his teachers and bosses and coworkers and subordinates, his close friends and golfing buddies, and so on. Each of them knows John well but there are distinct differences in the way they think about him - their perceptions of John are different. Which one is real? The only meaningful answer is that all of these are. For each person, his perception of John is the correct one, even though it may evolve with time.
Now consider an abstract concept: God, or Truth, or Beauty. What Tagore said to Einstein is that like Reality in the first example, like everyone's individual perceptions of the person called John in the second example, the perceptions of God, Truth and Beauty are in our minds. It is impossible to see or describe God. In Abrahamic religions, the religious teachings prescribe a specific way to think of Him. In ancient Indian philosophy, we have the right and duty to form His perceptions in our own minds. (We also have the right to ignore His existence - as Buddha did.) So, there can be a whole host of them. Growing up in Bengal, I used to hear the expression that there are 33 Koti (330 million) inhabitants of India and 33 Koti Gods (the current population is around a Billion each.) This is not polytheism any more than the different perceptions of the person called John is poly-John-ism. It is also common for important Hindu Gods (e.g. Krishna) to have 108 names describing 108 aspects, and someone somewhere may worship any one of these as his personal God (for some reason, 108 is a sacred number.) The Krishna Consciousness Society that has developed primarily in this country worships Krishna as a lover; young Krishna was a heartthrob and a playboy. The Krishna described in Gita was a wise counselor who pronounced the best and earliest theory of Just War over 5000 years ago when civilization had not yet started in the rest of the world. Doniger writes about a shrine that most Hindu households have in their homes, but she does not know why it is there. It expresses the family's personal relationship with God.
Because of this freedom of thought and belief, Hindus tend to allow others to follow their own conscience; unlike in the Abrahamic religions, sectarian violence is virtually unknown among the Hindu sects - nothing like the Catholic-Protestant, or Sunni-Shia conflicts. Gandhi's son, in youthful rebellion, had converted to Islam; Gandhi was nonplussed, the son came back to the family after some time. The greatest Hindu sage in the last few centuries was Ramakrishna - one of his favorite sayings was, in Bengali, "Jawto Mawt, tawto pawth," meaning, as many opinions (religions), so many paths (to God.) He had converted to Islam and to Christianity for brief periods, because, as he said, he wanted to experience God in different ways. Another example of Doniger's ignorance is that in this 700 page book, she has only one paragraph on Ramakrishna, that too in a negative portrayal. (She could start to educate herself by reading "Life of Ramakrishna" by the French philosopher-author, Romaine Rolland.) Other people are crossing the cultural divide. The resident monk of the Hindu Vedanta Center of Greater Washington DC is an American Jew. The senior minister of the Cedar Lane Unitarian Church in Bethesda, MD is a practicing Hindu from India; his mother was Hindu, his father Muslim.
The University of Chicago is in violation of its social compact to maintain a rigorous level of scholarship; it owes an apology to the students misled by Prof Doniger over the years. Ironically it was in Chicago that the Hindu monk Vivekananda electrified the audience in 1893 at the Parliament of Religions. There is a little story behind this. Vivekananda was in Boston and Prof John Henry Wright of Harvard invited him to give a lecture at the university. Impressed with what he heard, Prof Wright suggested that Vivekananda attend the Parliament of Religions as a delegate in Chicago. When Vivekananda said the he did not have the credentials that the Parliament required, Prof Wright said, "To ask you for credentials is like asking the sun to state its right to shine in the heavens." Prof Wright arranged for Vivekananda to be a delegate and the rest is history. The Harvard professor recognized something in a few days that the Chicago professor has failed to understand in fifty years to studies and research. Shame on Chicago."
November 29, 2016
Reading this book was a task! but a task I wanted to complete. A good non-fiction always makes you work extra hard. It challenges your views, gives you new perspectives and makes you realize that how shallow are the trumpet-beating-pseudo-specialists who exist in the society. When Doniger throws proofs after proofs for each theory she states, it isn't to prove you wrong but to make you see that more than one ways could exist to interpret ancient history and culture. I have always been skeptical and critical about fundamentalists, whichever religion/political party/cult they might be from. Accepting an established norm just numbs your thinking power and blinds you with rage against whoever tries to dispel your views. In my opinion, one should check everything he/she holds with such belief.
This book must have been hard work. After more than 40 years of research of Indian mythology/history, Doniger presents this book like a boss. It was worth putting this much effort in this book.
This book must have been hard work. After more than 40 years of research of Indian mythology/history, Doniger presents this book like a boss. It was worth putting this much effort in this book.
November 16, 2020
Wendy Doniger has come out with yet another gigantic volume on Hinduism as a self-proclaimed historian and expert. Like her other books, the author displays strong bias against mainstream Hindu ideas and mythological interpretations. But more disturbing is her willingness to compromise integrity at the cost of pushing her biases forward. The entire work seems like a mild denigration of Hinduism at best and blatant fact-bending at worst. Many of her statements have no substantial sources provided and she blithely tends to view every "God" and every mythological story from the lens of sex, hedonism, abuse, and violence.
Stay away from works by this author. She is biased and although comes armed with a plethora of "information", completely misses the essence and doctrine of Hinduism. There are better works on Hinduism out there!!
Stay away from works by this author. She is biased and although comes armed with a plethora of "information", completely misses the essence and doctrine of Hinduism. There are better works on Hinduism out there!!
June 4, 2015
I don't understand the other bad reviews of this book-however, I don't understand much about Hinduism, perhaps the point. This book will add and not take away from the mystery of the third largest religion on the planet.
Currently reading
March 22, 2016This books is not at all a good guide that can give true representation of what Hinduism really is all about. The author here continuously keeps on defaming Hinduism and criticising it's values. This book is a total misinterpretation of facts and it's distortion. I as a Hindu is very hurt while reading the book. I swear! And these type of biased, paid authors should be unmasked. She misquoted and misinterpreted the Vedas, the Puranas and the Upanishadas shamelessly.
December 31, 2016
Wendy Doniger dropped a bombshell on Indian intellectual circles with her 2009 book ‘The Hindus – An Alternative History’. Blowing up the sexuality and inconsistencies present in any ancient religious text out of all proportions, Doniger published the book as if to offer an alternative history against the established wisdom of the times. Widespread condemnation of the abominable references to Hinduism’s most revered characters ensued in India and abroad. That volume was banned in India and the publishers destroyed all copies in the country. Doniger claims that this book, which came out in 2013, is written with the Indian audience in mind, whereas the previous text was for an American scholarly readership. The writer argues that she didn’t expect Hindus would read it and thought that they wouldn’t take information on their religion from an American woman. In this regard, this book is an apology in place of the censure contained in the previous one. Whereas the earlier book was a structured one – whatever charges one may bring up against the content – this book is simply a collection of essays the author had composed over the years on Hinduism. 63 out of the 140 essays on the author’s thoughts on Hinduism are included in this book. The chapters were thus written beforehand over a span of decades and this breaks the chain of continuity running across the chapters. On the other hand, readers get a golden opportunity to sample the varied sources of stories they had only a brief exposure to, from other publications. Interested readers can find my earlier review of ‘The Hindus – an Alternative History’ here.
What differentiates Hinduism from other modern world religions is its polytheism and primacy of tolerance to differing creeds. Doniger develops both ideas in some detail. The religion’s most sacred book is the Rig Veda, which is also the oldest extant work of literature of any kind in India. The Veda is polytheistic, but with a monistic hue. Numerous gods are mentioned and praised in it, but the devotees could select among the pantheon and pray to a particular god at a time suited to his present need. Each god was considered to be supreme as far as the devotee is concerned. Even with so many gods on call, so to say, the substance that pervades the universe is thought to be divine and inherently unitary, which is called brahma (not to be confused with the creator god). This vague monism discernible in the Rig Veda was sharpened by the systematized monism of Vedanta. Doniger claims that a polytheistic religion is inherently tolerant as compared to a monistic one. At the same time, a monistic religion is more tolerant than a monotheistic one! But there is also an undeniably intolerant strain in Hinduism, which the author attributes to the intellectual and philosophical ascendancy of the monistic ideals of Vedanta. If only Hinduism, or any religion for that matter, was rather simple for such easy categorizations! The book also states that what western intellectuals have thought the Hindus have done has given rise to the idea of Hindu tolerance, without much evidence on the ground. The Hindu fundamentalists are aping Protestant evangelical strategies. In spite of all these, we see many people following the benevolent practices and rituals of other religions like Islam or Christianity, though Doniger chides them with the sarcastic remark that those syncretists keep the feasts of both religions and the fasts of neither! The Hindu pluralist world was not orthodox, but primarily orthopraxy, as it didn’t insist on doctrine (doxis) as long as ritual and social behaviour (praxis) satisfied the standards of the particular group.
The book is just a collection of essays written over a period of several years and has not much interconnection between the themes of succeeding chapters. There is an interesting observation made by Doniger in one of these articles. Any discussion on Hindu society invariably touches upon Manu Smriti, the dharmashastra attributed to a pseudonym author. This book is at the heart of the controversy between upper and lower castes in contemporary India. The lower castes put all blame for their historical backwardness at the doors of Manu on account of the repressive measures suggested in his law book against them. However, Doniger raises doubt on the primacy of Manu Smriti in Indian jurisprudence of the ancients. The goal of Manu’s laws, like Hindu culture, is not consistency, but totality. There are several instances of doctrinal inconsistency in it. There are nine commentaries on Manu, but none of them was used as a legal system. Rural panchayats decided legal disputes based on local custom and rules of precedence. The current prominence of Manu is ascribed to the British. The administrators of British India, beginning with Warren Hastings, wanted to use Manu as the basis of a legal system, though he himself doesn’t claim so, and adds that Manu lives on in the darker shadows of Hinduism. Doniger puts undue stress in developing the varied concepts of sexuality that can be expected in a book as ancient as the puranas. Some of the titles are selected with gross insensitivity to the sentiments of the targeted audience like ‘Bisexuality and trans-sexuality among the Hindu gods’. Passages from the Kama Sutra which are sexually explicit are reproduced in the book. Narrative imagination has produced many examples of gender transformation in the puranic stories that are in fact to be taken as just a myth, but the author does extensive pedantry on the stories and brings out exaggerated philosophical analyses. The coverage is also narrow and boring at times. What are we to make of titles like ‘Changing ethical implications of Hindu cosmologies’ and ‘The Scrapbook of undeserved salvation – the Kedara Khanda of Skanda Purana’?
Two aspects of ancient India that finds exceeding interest from Doniger are Kamasutra and (non)-vegetarianism. Truly, the author attests Kama Sutra to be the only sophisticated text produced by India. This is the only work that elicits favourable response from her, who also claims that this text embarrasses Hindus to no end. Richard Francis Burton published the first translation of it in 1883, at a time when Hindus were disheartened at the scorn of Protestant proselytizers and wanted to keep the Kama Sutra under the Upanishadic rug. What Burton did to Kama Sutra was what Max Muller earlier did to the Rig Veda and Upanishads. But here, a crucial Indian contribution goes overlooked. Burton used Forster Arbuthnot’s text, which in essence relied upon the work of Bhagavanlal Indrajit and Shivram Bhide. The attribution came out unintentionally, when Arbuthnot claimed that the text was translated by two Indians to get the censors off his back. Indians always put forward the Upanishadic speculations over any non-religious text and for them, it was the fall of Kama and the rise of Karma as noted in the Upanishads.
Though most of the Hindus eat meat except beef today, the author argues that flesh-eating was much more common in the past. People ate flesh, including that of sacrificial animals. Contrary to popular belief, it was the rise of Buddhism and Jainism that was instrumental in the slow transition to vegetarianism, at least for the upper castes. These religions promoted ahimsa (non-violence). Ashoka’s inscriptions shed some light on this, but what he did have in mind was avihimsa (absence of desire to kill). Ashoka continued the system of capital punishment and torture of criminals. Moreover, killing animals for the royal kitchen continued with reduced numbers. Manu Smriti is ambivalent on non-vegetarianism. It says that “The eater who eats creatures with the breath of life who are to be eaten does nothing bad, even if he does it day after day; for the Creator himself created creatures with the breath of life, some to be eaten and some to be eaters” (p. 421, Manu 5:28-30). His comment against meat eating is “You can never get meat without violence to creatures with the breath of life, and the killing of creatures with the breath of life does not get you to heaven; therefore you should not eat meat” (p.422, Manu 5:48-53). The references against meat-eating are more prominent in Manu’s law book that has three pro- and twenty-five anti-meat verses. There are some instances cited in the book which shows the cow was also eaten. “The Brahmanas say that a bull or cow should be killed when a guest arrives, a cow should be sacrificed to Mitra and Varuna, and a sterile cow to the Maruts, and that twenty-one sterile cows should be sacrificed in the horse sacrifice. The grammarian Panini, who may have lived as early as the fifth or sixth century BCE, glossed the word go-ghna (literally, cow killer), as one for whom a cow is killed, that is, a guest” (p. 502).
The book is a huge one, but with a fine collection of notes, bibliography and index. The narration veers totally off track at some points, particularly when the author argues that the finer details of Mahmud of Ghazni’s sacking of Somanatha and what he did to the idol kept there are just mythologizing. This tramples upon the hurt feelings of the victim rather than readjusting a medieval wrong in the glow of the enlightenment of a future era. Doniger also inadvertently promotes a commercial product manufactured by Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala in Kerala with her offhand comment that the organization manufactures Chyavanaprasha with scrupulous care and attention as if the other companies are not that attentive to the quality of their products.
The book is recommended.
What differentiates Hinduism from other modern world religions is its polytheism and primacy of tolerance to differing creeds. Doniger develops both ideas in some detail. The religion’s most sacred book is the Rig Veda, which is also the oldest extant work of literature of any kind in India. The Veda is polytheistic, but with a monistic hue. Numerous gods are mentioned and praised in it, but the devotees could select among the pantheon and pray to a particular god at a time suited to his present need. Each god was considered to be supreme as far as the devotee is concerned. Even with so many gods on call, so to say, the substance that pervades the universe is thought to be divine and inherently unitary, which is called brahma (not to be confused with the creator god). This vague monism discernible in the Rig Veda was sharpened by the systematized monism of Vedanta. Doniger claims that a polytheistic religion is inherently tolerant as compared to a monistic one. At the same time, a monistic religion is more tolerant than a monotheistic one! But there is also an undeniably intolerant strain in Hinduism, which the author attributes to the intellectual and philosophical ascendancy of the monistic ideals of Vedanta. If only Hinduism, or any religion for that matter, was rather simple for such easy categorizations! The book also states that what western intellectuals have thought the Hindus have done has given rise to the idea of Hindu tolerance, without much evidence on the ground. The Hindu fundamentalists are aping Protestant evangelical strategies. In spite of all these, we see many people following the benevolent practices and rituals of other religions like Islam or Christianity, though Doniger chides them with the sarcastic remark that those syncretists keep the feasts of both religions and the fasts of neither! The Hindu pluralist world was not orthodox, but primarily orthopraxy, as it didn’t insist on doctrine (doxis) as long as ritual and social behaviour (praxis) satisfied the standards of the particular group.
The book is just a collection of essays written over a period of several years and has not much interconnection between the themes of succeeding chapters. There is an interesting observation made by Doniger in one of these articles. Any discussion on Hindu society invariably touches upon Manu Smriti, the dharmashastra attributed to a pseudonym author. This book is at the heart of the controversy between upper and lower castes in contemporary India. The lower castes put all blame for their historical backwardness at the doors of Manu on account of the repressive measures suggested in his law book against them. However, Doniger raises doubt on the primacy of Manu Smriti in Indian jurisprudence of the ancients. The goal of Manu’s laws, like Hindu culture, is not consistency, but totality. There are several instances of doctrinal inconsistency in it. There are nine commentaries on Manu, but none of them was used as a legal system. Rural panchayats decided legal disputes based on local custom and rules of precedence. The current prominence of Manu is ascribed to the British. The administrators of British India, beginning with Warren Hastings, wanted to use Manu as the basis of a legal system, though he himself doesn’t claim so, and adds that Manu lives on in the darker shadows of Hinduism. Doniger puts undue stress in developing the varied concepts of sexuality that can be expected in a book as ancient as the puranas. Some of the titles are selected with gross insensitivity to the sentiments of the targeted audience like ‘Bisexuality and trans-sexuality among the Hindu gods’. Passages from the Kama Sutra which are sexually explicit are reproduced in the book. Narrative imagination has produced many examples of gender transformation in the puranic stories that are in fact to be taken as just a myth, but the author does extensive pedantry on the stories and brings out exaggerated philosophical analyses. The coverage is also narrow and boring at times. What are we to make of titles like ‘Changing ethical implications of Hindu cosmologies’ and ‘The Scrapbook of undeserved salvation – the Kedara Khanda of Skanda Purana’?
Two aspects of ancient India that finds exceeding interest from Doniger are Kamasutra and (non)-vegetarianism. Truly, the author attests Kama Sutra to be the only sophisticated text produced by India. This is the only work that elicits favourable response from her, who also claims that this text embarrasses Hindus to no end. Richard Francis Burton published the first translation of it in 1883, at a time when Hindus were disheartened at the scorn of Protestant proselytizers and wanted to keep the Kama Sutra under the Upanishadic rug. What Burton did to Kama Sutra was what Max Muller earlier did to the Rig Veda and Upanishads. But here, a crucial Indian contribution goes overlooked. Burton used Forster Arbuthnot’s text, which in essence relied upon the work of Bhagavanlal Indrajit and Shivram Bhide. The attribution came out unintentionally, when Arbuthnot claimed that the text was translated by two Indians to get the censors off his back. Indians always put forward the Upanishadic speculations over any non-religious text and for them, it was the fall of Kama and the rise of Karma as noted in the Upanishads.
Though most of the Hindus eat meat except beef today, the author argues that flesh-eating was much more common in the past. People ate flesh, including that of sacrificial animals. Contrary to popular belief, it was the rise of Buddhism and Jainism that was instrumental in the slow transition to vegetarianism, at least for the upper castes. These religions promoted ahimsa (non-violence). Ashoka’s inscriptions shed some light on this, but what he did have in mind was avihimsa (absence of desire to kill). Ashoka continued the system of capital punishment and torture of criminals. Moreover, killing animals for the royal kitchen continued with reduced numbers. Manu Smriti is ambivalent on non-vegetarianism. It says that “The eater who eats creatures with the breath of life who are to be eaten does nothing bad, even if he does it day after day; for the Creator himself created creatures with the breath of life, some to be eaten and some to be eaters” (p. 421, Manu 5:28-30). His comment against meat eating is “You can never get meat without violence to creatures with the breath of life, and the killing of creatures with the breath of life does not get you to heaven; therefore you should not eat meat” (p.422, Manu 5:48-53). The references against meat-eating are more prominent in Manu’s law book that has three pro- and twenty-five anti-meat verses. There are some instances cited in the book which shows the cow was also eaten. “The Brahmanas say that a bull or cow should be killed when a guest arrives, a cow should be sacrificed to Mitra and Varuna, and a sterile cow to the Maruts, and that twenty-one sterile cows should be sacrificed in the horse sacrifice. The grammarian Panini, who may have lived as early as the fifth or sixth century BCE, glossed the word go-ghna (literally, cow killer), as one for whom a cow is killed, that is, a guest” (p. 502).
The book is a huge one, but with a fine collection of notes, bibliography and index. The narration veers totally off track at some points, particularly when the author argues that the finer details of Mahmud of Ghazni’s sacking of Somanatha and what he did to the idol kept there are just mythologizing. This tramples upon the hurt feelings of the victim rather than readjusting a medieval wrong in the glow of the enlightenment of a future era. Doniger also inadvertently promotes a commercial product manufactured by Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala in Kerala with her offhand comment that the organization manufactures Chyavanaprasha with scrupulous care and attention as if the other companies are not that attentive to the quality of their products.
The book is recommended.
October 26, 2019
Didn't finish but a sort of dry look at Hinduism some interesting tidbits here and there but I couldn't finish the whole thing
August 8, 2025
#Reviewing my previous reads, #Overrated Books To Roast:
If your aim was to see how far Western academic fashion can stretch before it snaps entirely, On Hinduism by Wendy Doniger is Exhibit A. Opening the book feels less like entering a world of layered dharmic wisdom and more like stepping onto a Freudian soap-opera set draped in Sanskrit, where every pagan symbol becomes a psychological Rorschach blot.
The essays tumble out in sections like “Kama and Other Seductions” or “Horses and Other Animals,” promising thematic exploration but often devolving into cultural reductionism. Yes, Doniger is encyclopedic—her mind darts from ring motifs in Shakuntala to clay horses in West Bengal—but knowledge isn’t the same as understanding. She treats myth like raw fragments to be remolded into whatever ideological sculpture suits her.
There’s certainly brilliance in her interwoven structure; the book invites wandering rather than marching through it. Her ear for story is real—she can see how stories stitch together meaning across centuries. But that gift is commonly sabotaged by her choice of lens.
You’d expect a toolbox approach—structuralism, formalism, and Freudianism used strategically—but instead, it often feels like Freudianism is her default. Interesting metaphysical motifs like karma, maya, or advaita disappear beneath quips about “phallic Shiva” or lustful Krishna. Complex concepts get fluffed into digestible bite-size voyeurism.
Critics—notably within academic circles—have flagged this. Indologists like Michael Witzel have questioned her grasp of Vedic Sanskrit, and scholars like Nicholas Kazanas accuse her of being obsessed with only the sexual interpretations of myth.
A deeper disappointment is how Doniger often overlooks or sidelines indigenous interpretive traditions—Smṛti commentary, classical schools, local oral storytellers—choosing instead psychoanalysis in place of bhāvana (insight born of lived tradition). When she does engage something like Yakshagana imagery or folk clay effigies, she’s admirably curious, but the moment quickly turns theoretical rather than devotional or contextual.
It’s like watching someone wander through a temple, admire its beauty, and then paint over it with their own agenda.
Then there's the free speech drama around her research. Doniger’s earlier work, The Hindus: An Alternative History, didn’t just ruffle feathers—it was recalled and pulped in India after legal action alleging it hurt religious sentiments.
That incident alone won’t determine the quality of On Hinduism, but it does bleed into how the author’s frames are received: as ideological, even alienating, rather than invitational. The controversy revealed the wider context—free-speech tensions, cultural guardianship, and the fragile space for controversial scholarship in India.
Ultimately, On Hinduism is not a fresco of faith; it's a stained-glass window with very selective transparency. When Doniger’s prose sparkles—when she connects a folktale motif to a cosmological insight—she writes with wit and occasional wisdom. But it’s as though she walks through a sacred forest, collects rich, mossy bark, and then returns to sculpt a minimalistic, psychoanalytic installation. The temple remains; she redecorates it in her own style.
Doniger's voice confronts tradition—but too often from the balcony of academic authority, not on the ground of cultural intimacy. It’s a distinctly Western perspective camped just outside dharmic streams, watching reflections and writing commentary, but forgetting sometimes to touch the water. The result is a book that dazzles the offworlder but feels almost glib to the insider and might leave them longing for scholarship with both sweetness of insight and reverence of tradition.
It’s not worthless—there’s real erudition here and narrative curiosity—but it’s a cocktail shaken with sophistication yet missing the depth, the resonance, and the cumulative wisdom that makes Indian traditions speak for themselves.
So if you're hoping to enter Hinduism, read the living tradition.
If you want to watch someone spectrally interpret it from afar, On Hinduism will deliver—but don’t expect enlightenment.
If your aim was to see how far Western academic fashion can stretch before it snaps entirely, On Hinduism by Wendy Doniger is Exhibit A. Opening the book feels less like entering a world of layered dharmic wisdom and more like stepping onto a Freudian soap-opera set draped in Sanskrit, where every pagan symbol becomes a psychological Rorschach blot.
The essays tumble out in sections like “Kama and Other Seductions” or “Horses and Other Animals,” promising thematic exploration but often devolving into cultural reductionism. Yes, Doniger is encyclopedic—her mind darts from ring motifs in Shakuntala to clay horses in West Bengal—but knowledge isn’t the same as understanding. She treats myth like raw fragments to be remolded into whatever ideological sculpture suits her.
There’s certainly brilliance in her interwoven structure; the book invites wandering rather than marching through it. Her ear for story is real—she can see how stories stitch together meaning across centuries. But that gift is commonly sabotaged by her choice of lens.
You’d expect a toolbox approach—structuralism, formalism, and Freudianism used strategically—but instead, it often feels like Freudianism is her default. Interesting metaphysical motifs like karma, maya, or advaita disappear beneath quips about “phallic Shiva” or lustful Krishna. Complex concepts get fluffed into digestible bite-size voyeurism.
Critics—notably within academic circles—have flagged this. Indologists like Michael Witzel have questioned her grasp of Vedic Sanskrit, and scholars like Nicholas Kazanas accuse her of being obsessed with only the sexual interpretations of myth.
A deeper disappointment is how Doniger often overlooks or sidelines indigenous interpretive traditions—Smṛti commentary, classical schools, local oral storytellers—choosing instead psychoanalysis in place of bhāvana (insight born of lived tradition). When she does engage something like Yakshagana imagery or folk clay effigies, she’s admirably curious, but the moment quickly turns theoretical rather than devotional or contextual.
It’s like watching someone wander through a temple, admire its beauty, and then paint over it with their own agenda.
Then there's the free speech drama around her research. Doniger’s earlier work, The Hindus: An Alternative History, didn’t just ruffle feathers—it was recalled and pulped in India after legal action alleging it hurt religious sentiments.
That incident alone won’t determine the quality of On Hinduism, but it does bleed into how the author’s frames are received: as ideological, even alienating, rather than invitational. The controversy revealed the wider context—free-speech tensions, cultural guardianship, and the fragile space for controversial scholarship in India.
Ultimately, On Hinduism is not a fresco of faith; it's a stained-glass window with very selective transparency. When Doniger’s prose sparkles—when she connects a folktale motif to a cosmological insight—she writes with wit and occasional wisdom. But it’s as though she walks through a sacred forest, collects rich, mossy bark, and then returns to sculpt a minimalistic, psychoanalytic installation. The temple remains; she redecorates it in her own style.
Doniger's voice confronts tradition—but too often from the balcony of academic authority, not on the ground of cultural intimacy. It’s a distinctly Western perspective camped just outside dharmic streams, watching reflections and writing commentary, but forgetting sometimes to touch the water. The result is a book that dazzles the offworlder but feels almost glib to the insider and might leave them longing for scholarship with both sweetness of insight and reverence of tradition.
It’s not worthless—there’s real erudition here and narrative curiosity—but it’s a cocktail shaken with sophistication yet missing the depth, the resonance, and the cumulative wisdom that makes Indian traditions speak for themselves.
So if you're hoping to enter Hinduism, read the living tradition.
If you want to watch someone spectrally interpret it from afar, On Hinduism will deliver—but don’t expect enlightenment.
August 2, 2019
This book is a collection of essays on Hinduism by the author Wendy Doniger. She is an American Indologist with dozens of publication under her name. Unlike her previous work this was specifically aimed at the Indian audience.
It has seven sections based on the different themes. I found it noteworthy out of 44 essays 10 are explicitly about sex, 12 are related to sex. Sex is the only adequately covered topic here. Add to it, various passages in other essays and you have a lot of it. This work tried to establish Hinduism as a sex crazed society until the arrival of foreigners who solidified the Puritan strain.
It is written in a descriptive manner. She is not a scholar in Sanskrit hence mistranslates words, meanings. Many myths are taken at face value. Various points are in fact contrary to other scholarly work I read.
Her arguments may sound persuasive to newcomer to the faith but upon reading the wider scholarships it fails to hold ground. For instance, Rammohun Roy of the Brahmo Samaj is credited with the ban on Sati (burning of widows). While true, it is only a half truth. Many kingdoms earlier have banned the practice. It was mostly practiced by the Upper castes. The prevalence was high if land,money was at stake. It is a disservice to hide the complexity of the practice. She also misunderstands Nagarjuna's concept of samsara=nirvana. Though I give this a pass because she is not a Buddhist and many Buddhist themselves have trouble with it.
In another instance she contradicts herself in the next paragraph itself. The chapter "Death and Rebirth in Hinduism" (Theme: On Being Hindu) has this quote "Like the Brahmanas, the Upanishads speak of a re-death(punar mrityu) long before they begin speaking of rebirth (punar janma). The Buddha, preaching at roughly the same time, taught that misery (dukkha) is not so much suffering as the inevitable loss of happiness, a chaos from which nirvana (the Buddhist equivalent of moksha) offered deliverance.
While the next paragraph "the first explicit discussion of the doctrine of rebirth in Indian literature occurs in the Upanishads"
There is big problem with this. There are no detailed explanations for re birth in Upanishads. It only had mentions of re death which was unexplained. Buddha on the contrary gives a detailed explanation of punabbhava in Sangutta Nikaya 163.
Apart from this, dukkha is not misery. Though it is commonly translated as suffering/stress it fails to capture the full meaning behind it. Joseph Goldstein beautifully explains this as The word dukkha is made up of the prefix du and the root kha. Du means “bad” or “difficult.” Kha means “empty.” “Empty,” here, refers to several things—some specific, others more general. One of the specific meanings refers to the empty axle hole of a wheel. If the axle fits badly into the center hole, we get a very bumpy ride. This is a good analogy for our ride through saṃsāra
Later in the book Nathuram Godse the infamous assassin of Mohandas Gandhi is linked to RSS. It is evident here this essay was meant to non-Indian audience cause Nathuram's fall out with RSS is well known. He criticized RSS for the softening stance on communals. He left RSS in 1946 while remaining a member of Hindu Mahasabha and Hindu Rashtra Dal simultaneously during the assassination in 1948.
Christianity is credited to developing social movements in defence of human rights, women and lower castes. This betrays the countless examples of forced conversions, slave trade, kidnapping, criminalizing tribes, encouraging tensions along castes, stratifying the caste system, etc. carried out by Church in collaboration with the colonizers. Their interest in lower castes and women was limited to harvesting souls. Despite this, Christianity failed to eradicate castes. Christianity from the arrival to India till today is riddled with caste system.
Some sexist passages from Buddhist scriptures which are clearly later addition is inserted. It was unnecessary.
I expected it would be very derogatory to Hinduism judging by the backlash for her earlier book. I was pleasantly surprised with her unbiased attitude towards controversial issues surrounding today. I feel Hindus would learn a great deal from this work.
It has seven sections based on the different themes. I found it noteworthy out of 44 essays 10 are explicitly about sex, 12 are related to sex. Sex is the only adequately covered topic here. Add to it, various passages in other essays and you have a lot of it. This work tried to establish Hinduism as a sex crazed society until the arrival of foreigners who solidified the Puritan strain.
It is written in a descriptive manner. She is not a scholar in Sanskrit hence mistranslates words, meanings. Many myths are taken at face value. Various points are in fact contrary to other scholarly work I read.
Her arguments may sound persuasive to newcomer to the faith but upon reading the wider scholarships it fails to hold ground. For instance, Rammohun Roy of the Brahmo Samaj is credited with the ban on Sati (burning of widows). While true, it is only a half truth. Many kingdoms earlier have banned the practice. It was mostly practiced by the Upper castes. The prevalence was high if land,money was at stake. It is a disservice to hide the complexity of the practice. She also misunderstands Nagarjuna's concept of samsara=nirvana. Though I give this a pass because she is not a Buddhist and many Buddhist themselves have trouble with it.
In another instance she contradicts herself in the next paragraph itself. The chapter "Death and Rebirth in Hinduism" (Theme: On Being Hindu) has this quote "Like the Brahmanas, the Upanishads speak of a re-death(punar mrityu) long before they begin speaking of rebirth (punar janma). The Buddha, preaching at roughly the same time, taught that misery (dukkha) is not so much suffering as the inevitable loss of happiness, a chaos from which nirvana (the Buddhist equivalent of moksha) offered deliverance.
While the next paragraph "the first explicit discussion of the doctrine of rebirth in Indian literature occurs in the Upanishads"
There is big problem with this. There are no detailed explanations for re birth in Upanishads. It only had mentions of re death which was unexplained. Buddha on the contrary gives a detailed explanation of punabbhava in Sangutta Nikaya 163.
Apart from this, dukkha is not misery. Though it is commonly translated as suffering/stress it fails to capture the full meaning behind it. Joseph Goldstein beautifully explains this as The word dukkha is made up of the prefix du and the root kha. Du means “bad” or “difficult.” Kha means “empty.” “Empty,” here, refers to several things—some specific, others more general. One of the specific meanings refers to the empty axle hole of a wheel. If the axle fits badly into the center hole, we get a very bumpy ride. This is a good analogy for our ride through saṃsāra
Later in the book Nathuram Godse the infamous assassin of Mohandas Gandhi is linked to RSS. It is evident here this essay was meant to non-Indian audience cause Nathuram's fall out with RSS is well known. He criticized RSS for the softening stance on communals. He left RSS in 1946 while remaining a member of Hindu Mahasabha and Hindu Rashtra Dal simultaneously during the assassination in 1948.
Christianity is credited to developing social movements in defence of human rights, women and lower castes. This betrays the countless examples of forced conversions, slave trade, kidnapping, criminalizing tribes, encouraging tensions along castes, stratifying the caste system, etc. carried out by Church in collaboration with the colonizers. Their interest in lower castes and women was limited to harvesting souls. Despite this, Christianity failed to eradicate castes. Christianity from the arrival to India till today is riddled with caste system.
Some sexist passages from Buddhist scriptures which are clearly later addition is inserted. It was unnecessary.
I expected it would be very derogatory to Hinduism judging by the backlash for her earlier book. I was pleasantly surprised with her unbiased attitude towards controversial issues surrounding today. I feel Hindus would learn a great deal from this work.
January 21, 2020
Amazon persuaded me to get this ebook through it's Sunday bestsellers notification.
Why would one need to a book on Hinduism? We any way belong to the land of hinduism, but then the current times have become so cacophonous as everyone claiming to be the true Hindus, and the rest psuedo.... Etc etc
This tome which took me a year to read made me respect many aspect of the texts, the vedas. The nirguna god and its progression. Further, it also says so many layers of text, the characters in the epic texts. The shruti and smriti tradition of propogating culture is just unique, of course she pokes some uncomfortable questions on Manu in the course.
In the end this book made me appreciate the diversity of Hindu wisdom, it's plurality, it's inspiration to spawn varieties of stories.
I dunno if there is a better way to know this culture in a non reverential way. Thanks Wendy mam 🙏
Why would one need to a book on Hinduism? We any way belong to the land of hinduism, but then the current times have become so cacophonous as everyone claiming to be the true Hindus, and the rest psuedo.... Etc etc
This tome which took me a year to read made me respect many aspect of the texts, the vedas. The nirguna god and its progression. Further, it also says so many layers of text, the characters in the epic texts. The shruti and smriti tradition of propogating culture is just unique, of course she pokes some uncomfortable questions on Manu in the course.
In the end this book made me appreciate the diversity of Hindu wisdom, it's plurality, it's inspiration to spawn varieties of stories.
I dunno if there is a better way to know this culture in a non reverential way. Thanks Wendy mam 🙏
January 22, 2017
A potpourrie of scholarship, deep attachment with the subject, humour, some limericks of questionable quality, some understandable but unnecessary defensiveness on account of past attacks on her, some nonsense, a lot of lusty writing and lust. Horsenessofallhorse (Ha ha , Joyce. And apologies to Plato) galore in the service of the last component mentioned. A person brought up on Hindu mythology would relate quite well with the book- mostly admiring, frequently smiling, occasionally frowning.
Wendy Doniger has been warmhearted and true enough to the subject. That lets us know where we unnecessarily shy away from parts of our cultural history and how ignorant most of us are of our mythology and past. Her erudition is delightful. She even mentions Finnegans Wake, that Weapon of Mass Destruction created by James Joyce when he got over enthusiastic. Only a dogged academician could have waded through that bog in search of gems. Ha, ha.
A very good one for those interested in Indian past, want depth in the knowledge acquired, and are willing to run through fat books.
Wendy Doniger has been warmhearted and true enough to the subject. That lets us know where we unnecessarily shy away from parts of our cultural history and how ignorant most of us are of our mythology and past. Her erudition is delightful. She even mentions Finnegans Wake, that Weapon of Mass Destruction created by James Joyce when he got over enthusiastic. Only a dogged academician could have waded through that bog in search of gems. Ha, ha.
A very good one for those interested in Indian past, want depth in the knowledge acquired, and are willing to run through fat books.
June 16, 2020
Comprising a series of connected essays, On Hinduism examines many crucial and contested issues in Hinduism from Vedic times to current day :
- Are Hindus monotheists or
Polytheists?
- Is it possible to reconcile images of God both with qualities (saguna) and without qualities (Nirguna)?
- How can atheists be Hindu and how can unrepentant Hindu sinners attain salvation?
- Why have Hindus devoted so much attention to addiction and why have we been ambivalent about Ahimsa?
- How have ideas about death, rebirth and karma changed over the course of History and what do dogs and cows tell us about Hinduism?
- How and under what conditions does a pluralistic religion, remarkable for its intellectual tolerance, foster intolerance?
A long time scholar of Indian culture and Hinduism whose proficiency in Sanskrit is at expert level, this book provides deep insights. However, a little bit of heavy reading and, to properly assimilate the arguments, read it over 4 weeks in bits and pieces!
- Are Hindus monotheists or
Polytheists?
- Is it possible to reconcile images of God both with qualities (saguna) and without qualities (Nirguna)?
- How can atheists be Hindu and how can unrepentant Hindu sinners attain salvation?
- Why have Hindus devoted so much attention to addiction and why have we been ambivalent about Ahimsa?
- How have ideas about death, rebirth and karma changed over the course of History and what do dogs and cows tell us about Hinduism?
- How and under what conditions does a pluralistic religion, remarkable for its intellectual tolerance, foster intolerance?
A long time scholar of Indian culture and Hinduism whose proficiency in Sanskrit is at expert level, this book provides deep insights. However, a little bit of heavy reading and, to properly assimilate the arguments, read it over 4 weeks in bits and pieces!
July 4, 2025
Wendy Doniger’s book, “On Hinduism,” is excellent but demands concentrated reading. Her earlier book, which focused on ‘an alternative history of Hindus,’ was controversial, and I have not yet read it. I mention the book because she acknowledges its predecessor in her preface and writes about the differences between the two books.
This book provides a wealth of learning material; however, some of the material is dense. The first section is fascinating, in which Wendy writes about how the various census activities the British carried out changed ‘Indian society ‘forever.’ Forever is a long word, and I use it with caution. It is fair to say that the census had a massive impact on Indian society – caste and religious divide hardened, and the ‘priestly’ classes wrote the laws, and based them on the Manusmriti and the Sharia.
Wendy Doniger also writes about how British perceptions of local beliefs, for example, the lingam, changed the way we perceive symbols like the lingam. From the text, it appears that British attitudes affected our self-belief and prompted a deep search to understand what, or who, a Hindu is in reality. What we do not realize, or acknowledge, is that ‘Hinduism’ is a vast sprawling system that is impossible to categorize and define. The book also stated that the British created the word ‘Hinduism,’ extrapolating the old geographical term and making it a religious word.
The book explores various facets of Hindu and Vedic myths and beliefs, ranging from food to women, sexuality, and social interaction.
Anyone who studies this book must take the time to read the text carefully and understand that, while it provides a wealth of information, it is just one study resource. Do not assume that everything written here is perfectly accurate. I say this while acknowledging that Wendy’s contribution to this field is marvelous. Wendy Doniger’s approach, in contrast with many Western ‘experts,’ is sympathetic and respectful, and her approach puts the book on a high pedestal.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in studying Hinduism
This book provides a wealth of learning material; however, some of the material is dense. The first section is fascinating, in which Wendy writes about how the various census activities the British carried out changed ‘Indian society ‘forever.’ Forever is a long word, and I use it with caution. It is fair to say that the census had a massive impact on Indian society – caste and religious divide hardened, and the ‘priestly’ classes wrote the laws, and based them on the Manusmriti and the Sharia.
Wendy Doniger also writes about how British perceptions of local beliefs, for example, the lingam, changed the way we perceive symbols like the lingam. From the text, it appears that British attitudes affected our self-belief and prompted a deep search to understand what, or who, a Hindu is in reality. What we do not realize, or acknowledge, is that ‘Hinduism’ is a vast sprawling system that is impossible to categorize and define. The book also stated that the British created the word ‘Hinduism,’ extrapolating the old geographical term and making it a religious word.
The book explores various facets of Hindu and Vedic myths and beliefs, ranging from food to women, sexuality, and social interaction.
Anyone who studies this book must take the time to read the text carefully and understand that, while it provides a wealth of information, it is just one study resource. Do not assume that everything written here is perfectly accurate. I say this while acknowledging that Wendy’s contribution to this field is marvelous. Wendy Doniger’s approach, in contrast with many Western ‘experts,’ is sympathetic and respectful, and her approach puts the book on a high pedestal.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in studying Hinduism
July 20, 2024
This is a truly gigantic book in scope, and its dry & often deeply academic tone is not for the casual reader. It deals with various facets and quirks of the ancient Hindu way of life, bringing in the usual suspects of caste, misogyny, meat eating, sexuality etc, in addition some more esoteric topics around sacrifices, the treatment of animals, the role of parallel narratives in our stories, and the surgical take down of several of our popular stories.
Like all humongous books, there are long chapters that are extremely dry and devoid of any interesting reading, while also containing several essays with sharp, incisive, and insightful critiques on Hinduism.
The timelines of the mahabharat are mentioned as 300bce to 300ce, which seems off by a huge factor. (Indian accounts place the actual date around 5500 BCE).
Considering the buddha was present in 500bce, and there's no reference to him in the epic, or to any of the contemporary institutions like nalanda etc, it's hard to take this timeline at face value.
The same problem with timelines exists for all important milestones of Hindu history, the rig Veda is mentioned as a 1500BCE document and the other ones more recent, as early as 6th century BCE. Again this number seems off by a few thousand years given the findings of Hancock and others, not only in India but the revisionism of almost all early history dates around the world.
Like all humongous books, there are long chapters that are extremely dry and devoid of any interesting reading, while also containing several essays with sharp, incisive, and insightful critiques on Hinduism.
The timelines of the mahabharat are mentioned as 300bce to 300ce, which seems off by a huge factor. (Indian accounts place the actual date around 5500 BCE).
Considering the buddha was present in 500bce, and there's no reference to him in the epic, or to any of the contemporary institutions like nalanda etc, it's hard to take this timeline at face value.
The same problem with timelines exists for all important milestones of Hindu history, the rig Veda is mentioned as a 1500BCE document and the other ones more recent, as early as 6th century BCE. Again this number seems off by a few thousand years given the findings of Hancock and others, not only in India but the revisionism of almost all early history dates around the world.
April 19, 2023
Having read a substantial part of O'Flaherty/Doniger's oeuvre many, many years ago as part of my PhD dissertation, I have always had mixed feelings about her work: on the one hand, I admired and envied her encyclopedic knowledge of Sanskrit mythology; on the other, I felt that her writing was sometimes sloppy, shallow, and sensationalist.
After many years without reading her stuff, I decided to give this huge collection of articles a chance and venture into an overview of her work with as little prejudice as possible, hoping that a two-decade hiatus would offer me new insights into Sanskrit myths and a new opinion on her contributions to Indian mythology. I had read some of the essays included in this collection, but as the author makes it clear in the introduction, these are not the original articles anymore: the originals were shortened, expanded, merged with other articles, edited, redacted, and updated to meet contemporary sensibilities - for instance, 'Untouchables' have become 'Dalits' and gender issues have been given more salience (Indian Muslims, however, are still depicted as foreigners and invaders, in spite of Doniger's recurring remarks on the perils of Hindutva discourse).
Some of the articles, especially the first ones, could be seen as good introductions to classical Indological debates (e.g. polytheism vs monism vs monotheism, etc.), but are hardly exciting for anyone who has read more than a couple of lines on these subjects. Although these first articles tackle important issues, they lack finesse and depth - and this, unfortunately, sets the tone for most of the following pages. In one of the Introduction's most interesting passages, the author confesses that writing has always been a great pleasure to her because she believes readers will be on her side; without a hostile ideal-reader in her mind, it seems, Doniger simply does not try harder, which helps to explain the 140-essay list at the end of the book and some of the problems that plague the articles in this collection.
Doniger's writing is often sloppy, self-indulgent and lacking in analytical rigor. A paragraph in the volume's article on heresy, for instance, focuses on the absorption of the Buddha into the Dasavatara list as an example of a historical shift in mainstream Hinduism's attitude towards heretics, but then suddenly argues that the worship of Queen Victoria's statue following a plague in 19th-century Bombay is yet another iteration of the same process. While one could perhaps forgive the 'India-absorbs-all' cliché, Doniger's work is often based upon vague associations like this. Her self-indulgence is clearly demonstrated in the article on food interdictions: rather than drawing on the various detailed studies that have been published on food, cooking, and commensal relations in Hindu literature and society, this essay merely compiles some quotes from Manu, interspersed with some asides and jokes, without providing any serious insight or reflection on the topic. But the low point in this collection is the article on karma, in which Doniger spends more time discussing her personal semi-mystical views on transmigration than presenting the nuances of the theory itself. A hostile ideal-reader would do wonders for Doniger.
After a few articles on generic topics, perhaps aimed at non-specialists, we finally enter Doniger's field of choice - mythology. And although things get a lot more serious in these essays, her methodological approach is rather unsatisfying. In spite of her structuralist leanings, Doniger is much closer to Alan Dundes than she is to Lévi-Strauss. In other words, she is more interested in motifs than in mythemes, which prevents her from exploring deeper connections between different narratives - let alone interpretations of meaning. A good example of this is the impressively detailed article on the Doomsday Mare, in which the author lists a dizzying number of stories involving horses/mares, fire and water, but rarely, if ever, pauses to explore these narratives beyond the immediate congruence of motifs/elements and venture into deeper structural readings (like Biardeau and Hiltebeitel have done) or an analysis of the logical operations underlying those myths (which, to my knowledge, has not been done with Indian materials).
The best piece in this collection is by far the article on sacrificial surrogates, which Doniger co-wrote with Brian K. Smith. Despite the article's (both fascinating and pathetic) struggle to sustain the validity of the hierarchical model when discussing different kinds of sacrificial victims in ancient Indian literature, it offers an entirely different approach to most pages in this collection: suddenly, arguments are explored in depth, details are provided in order to substantiate rather than to obfuscate, and there is an actual interpretive discussion rather than the mere listing of multiple instances of the same motif or character (pace, say, MacDonnell's Vedic Mythology). In other words, the most valuable article in this collection was not written by Doniger, but by Brian K. Smith, and when she finally makes her contribution (in the final section of the article), the contrast could not be clearer: suddenly the writing is no longer tight, the arguments become vague and rushed, and the text becomes sloppy again.
One of the articles I was looking forward to the most was the essay, in the final section of this collection, in which Doniger tries to come to terms with what she calls "Anti-Orientalism" - a text in which she tries to fend off (imaginary?) accusations that her work reproduces the interpretive biases and imperial designs of 19th-century Indologists. The result, however, and perhaps not surprisingly, is terribly unsatisfying, as the author does not seem interested in engaging seriously with such criticisms (her attack on the 'imagined India' argument, for instance, is embarrassingly mediocre, even on an undergraduate level) nor does she seem to have the theoretical muscle to do more than beg for the benefit of the doubt.
.
After many years without reading her stuff, I decided to give this huge collection of articles a chance and venture into an overview of her work with as little prejudice as possible, hoping that a two-decade hiatus would offer me new insights into Sanskrit myths and a new opinion on her contributions to Indian mythology. I had read some of the essays included in this collection, but as the author makes it clear in the introduction, these are not the original articles anymore: the originals were shortened, expanded, merged with other articles, edited, redacted, and updated to meet contemporary sensibilities - for instance, 'Untouchables' have become 'Dalits' and gender issues have been given more salience (Indian Muslims, however, are still depicted as foreigners and invaders, in spite of Doniger's recurring remarks on the perils of Hindutva discourse).
Some of the articles, especially the first ones, could be seen as good introductions to classical Indological debates (e.g. polytheism vs monism vs monotheism, etc.), but are hardly exciting for anyone who has read more than a couple of lines on these subjects. Although these first articles tackle important issues, they lack finesse and depth - and this, unfortunately, sets the tone for most of the following pages. In one of the Introduction's most interesting passages, the author confesses that writing has always been a great pleasure to her because she believes readers will be on her side; without a hostile ideal-reader in her mind, it seems, Doniger simply does not try harder, which helps to explain the 140-essay list at the end of the book and some of the problems that plague the articles in this collection.
Doniger's writing is often sloppy, self-indulgent and lacking in analytical rigor. A paragraph in the volume's article on heresy, for instance, focuses on the absorption of the Buddha into the Dasavatara list as an example of a historical shift in mainstream Hinduism's attitude towards heretics, but then suddenly argues that the worship of Queen Victoria's statue following a plague in 19th-century Bombay is yet another iteration of the same process. While one could perhaps forgive the 'India-absorbs-all' cliché, Doniger's work is often based upon vague associations like this. Her self-indulgence is clearly demonstrated in the article on food interdictions: rather than drawing on the various detailed studies that have been published on food, cooking, and commensal relations in Hindu literature and society, this essay merely compiles some quotes from Manu, interspersed with some asides and jokes, without providing any serious insight or reflection on the topic. But the low point in this collection is the article on karma, in which Doniger spends more time discussing her personal semi-mystical views on transmigration than presenting the nuances of the theory itself. A hostile ideal-reader would do wonders for Doniger.
After a few articles on generic topics, perhaps aimed at non-specialists, we finally enter Doniger's field of choice - mythology. And although things get a lot more serious in these essays, her methodological approach is rather unsatisfying. In spite of her structuralist leanings, Doniger is much closer to Alan Dundes than she is to Lévi-Strauss. In other words, she is more interested in motifs than in mythemes, which prevents her from exploring deeper connections between different narratives - let alone interpretations of meaning. A good example of this is the impressively detailed article on the Doomsday Mare, in which the author lists a dizzying number of stories involving horses/mares, fire and water, but rarely, if ever, pauses to explore these narratives beyond the immediate congruence of motifs/elements and venture into deeper structural readings (like Biardeau and Hiltebeitel have done) or an analysis of the logical operations underlying those myths (which, to my knowledge, has not been done with Indian materials).
The best piece in this collection is by far the article on sacrificial surrogates, which Doniger co-wrote with Brian K. Smith. Despite the article's (both fascinating and pathetic) struggle to sustain the validity of the hierarchical model when discussing different kinds of sacrificial victims in ancient Indian literature, it offers an entirely different approach to most pages in this collection: suddenly, arguments are explored in depth, details are provided in order to substantiate rather than to obfuscate, and there is an actual interpretive discussion rather than the mere listing of multiple instances of the same motif or character (pace, say, MacDonnell's Vedic Mythology). In other words, the most valuable article in this collection was not written by Doniger, but by Brian K. Smith, and when she finally makes her contribution (in the final section of the article), the contrast could not be clearer: suddenly the writing is no longer tight, the arguments become vague and rushed, and the text becomes sloppy again.
One of the articles I was looking forward to the most was the essay, in the final section of this collection, in which Doniger tries to come to terms with what she calls "Anti-Orientalism" - a text in which she tries to fend off (imaginary?) accusations that her work reproduces the interpretive biases and imperial designs of 19th-century Indologists. The result, however, and perhaps not surprisingly, is terribly unsatisfying, as the author does not seem interested in engaging seriously with such criticisms (her attack on the 'imagined India' argument, for instance, is embarrassingly mediocre, even on an undergraduate level) nor does she seem to have the theoretical muscle to do more than beg for the benefit of the doubt.
.
November 19, 2021
This is one thorough and fair treatment of Hinduism.
More honest than you’ll generally get out of an Indian scholar and less naive than you’ll get out of your average western scholar.
Doniger deserves her accolades, she has written quite the collection here.
I recommend reading the Mahabharata and Ramayana before reading this however.
More honest than you’ll generally get out of an Indian scholar and less naive than you’ll get out of your average western scholar.
Doniger deserves her accolades, she has written quite the collection here.
I recommend reading the Mahabharata and Ramayana before reading this however.
December 10, 2023
It's a good book only if you want to hear some stories about Hinduism over tea. If you're looking to dive deep into Hinduism, to understand its complexities, essence, or creed, you shouldn't invest your time in this 600-page work.
December 30, 2016
Thought provoking writing.
June 5, 2014
If you want to know everything about the history of Hinduism in great deal with lots of examples and quotes and footnotes, than this is the book for you
April 18, 2017
In the section, On Women she has compiled a lot of stories with key roles: as mother of the human race (why is she not popular ?), as a wife, as a rejected wife,as a clever wife, as a widow, as a mistress. Who wrote these and who were the authority figures. What are the arguments given for the moral code and subjugation. How many diverse views are there to women's roles. The book is a little dry but I like it for that fact alone, given that this area is just steeped in emotions. She steers clear of it, commenting on the story and the excerpts only.
It can be said that the compilations are biased to serve her goal. People have said that her interpretation is wrong. But then who will decide what interpretation is right. And what compilation is the right one. Who do you trust to do that? A Hindu religious figure, a Hindu follower, or a non Indian, non Hindu person who has spent 40 years studying Indian mythology . I think I will stick with her.
It can be said that the compilations are biased to serve her goal. People have said that her interpretation is wrong. But then who will decide what interpretation is right. And what compilation is the right one. Who do you trust to do that? A Hindu religious figure, a Hindu follower, or a non Indian, non Hindu person who has spent 40 years studying Indian mythology . I think I will stick with her.
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