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Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America
India, once a major civilizational and economic power that suffered centuries of decline, is now newly resurgent in business, geopolitics and culture. However, a powerful counterforce within the American Academy is systematically undermining core icons and ideals of Indic Culture and thought. For instance, scholars of this counterforce have disparaged the Bhagavad Gita as “a dishonest book”; declared Ganesha’s trunk a “limp phallus”; classified Devi as the “mother with a penis” and Shiva as “a notorious womanizer” who incites violence in India; pronounced Sri Ramakrishna a pedophile who sexually molested the young Swami Vivekananda; condemned Indian mothers as being less loving of their children than white women; and interpreted the bindi as a drop of menstrual fluid and the “ha” in sacred mantras as a woman’s sound during orgasm.
Are these isolated instances of ignorance or links in an institutionalized pattern of bias driven by certain civilizational worldviews?
Are these academic pronouncements based on evidence, and how carefully is this evidence cross-examined? How do these images of India and Indians created in the American Academy influence public perceptions through the media, the education system, policymakers and popular culture?
Adopting a politically impartial stance, this book, the product of an intensive multi-year research project, uncovers the invisible networks behind this Hinduphobia, narrates the Indian Diaspora’s challenges to such scholarship, and documents how those who dared to speak up have been branded as “dangerous”. The book hopes to provoke serious debate. For example:
How do Hinduphobic works resemble earlier American literature depicting non-whites as dangerous savages needing to be civilized by the West?
Are India’s internal social problems going to be managed by foreign interventions in the name of human rights?
How do power imbalances and systemic biases affect the objectivity and quality of scholarship?
What are the rights of practitioner-experts in “talking back” to academicians?
What is the role of India’s intellectuals, policymakers and universities in fashioning an authentic and enduring response?
Are these isolated instances of ignorance or links in an institutionalized pattern of bias driven by certain civilizational worldviews?
Are these academic pronouncements based on evidence, and how carefully is this evidence cross-examined? How do these images of India and Indians created in the American Academy influence public perceptions through the media, the education system, policymakers and popular culture?
Adopting a politically impartial stance, this book, the product of an intensive multi-year research project, uncovers the invisible networks behind this Hinduphobia, narrates the Indian Diaspora’s challenges to such scholarship, and documents how those who dared to speak up have been branded as “dangerous”. The book hopes to provoke serious debate. For example:
How do Hinduphobic works resemble earlier American literature depicting non-whites as dangerous savages needing to be civilized by the West?
Are India’s internal social problems going to be managed by foreign interventions in the name of human rights?
How do power imbalances and systemic biases affect the objectivity and quality of scholarship?
What are the rights of practitioner-experts in “talking back” to academicians?
What is the role of India’s intellectuals, policymakers and universities in fashioning an authentic and enduring response?
545 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2007
11 people are currently reading
330 people want to read
About the author
Krishnan Ramaswamy
3 books2 followersKrishnan Ramaswamy, Ph.D., is a scientist with a background in psychometric research. His areas of research include clinical outcomes trials in major mental and neurological illnesses. He is active in rural education projects in India, particularly among disadvantaged children. He works with the Infinity Foundation and is a student of the Vedas, Vedanta, Sanskrit and Panini, and has had a lifelong interest in bhakti poetry from various regions of India, particularly Maharashtra.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 25, 2015
Imagine you are a professor at a reputed university and you published a book that the university and others may select as a text book for graduate or masters student.
Now imagine someone raises an objection to the content of your work. What would you do ? Defend your position based on your research and intellect or defend it based on ‘right-to-free-speech’ ?
More importantly, what does it say about your work that you have to resort to free speech and not intellectual merits to defend it from criticism ?
In any other subject, if you tried the ‘free-speech’ to defend an academic work, you would be called a crackpot. But apparently, studying Indian history, particularly Hinduism is subject to different academic standards in the western universities. The University of Chicago seems to be the most notorious. This book explains the reasons and the motives behind that.
Yes, we are talking about Wendy Doniger and her books. Apparently she is at the head of a whole bunch of crackpot academics who buy credibility by their connections and ability to influence the debate rather than merit. Together they are referred to as Wendy’s children.
This book analyses the process that led to the acceptance of academic papers and alternative histories published by self-confessed ‘non-historians’, psycho-analyses done by academics with no background in the subject of psychology or the subject they are analyzing, re-translations of works already translated by other people done by orientalists who can barely understand the language they are translating from and the smokescreen of academia they use to deflect any criticism their work justifiably attracts. It lays bare, with methodical research and citations, the sham peer-review process which supposedly bestows academic credibility to some of these publications, and exposes it as merely mutual back slapping by a cabal of well-connected people with vested interests.
It also strips the veneer of hypocritical championing of free speech by these purported intellectuals by showing how they all unite to silence dissenting voices, numerous examples are provided. The distribution of scholarship is carefully controlled and only members of the ‘syndicate’ are allowed a free pass.
The irony of it all is that, this bunch keep quoting each other ad nauseam to prop up their dangerously misinformed opinions. Like how Wendy Doniger's department awards Paul Cartwright's book and he acknowledges her in his foreword.
Other key strategies seem to be:
· Denying Indians and Hindus their agency. For instance, any biography of Sri Ramakrishna cannot be authoritative without someone from RamaKrishna Matt reviewing it.
o That means, these books and papers, which get prescribed as text books to graduate students on religious studies, are not independently reviewed.
· Insisting that there is only one single Rationality and that is based on Eurocentric Judeo-Christian theology and ideals. Antonio de Nicolas calls it conceptual imperialism.
· Co-opting certain Indians by offering them grants, foreign positions or even ‘plain free drinks’ to propagate their theories.
· Equating any attempt to question their scholarship as Hindu chauvinism and ascribing association with BJP.
· Playing victim, like Wendy Doniger did when Microsoft Encarta purged her toxic contribution about Hinduism. Just reading the chapter about that episode in this book is enough to get an idea on her duplicity.
. Refusing to enter into a debate or discussion with critics, even resorting to name calling when challenged.
While the arguments and conclusions of the likes of Doniger, Paul Courtright, J Kripal etc are worth debating and most of them are outlandish, that is not *really* the most troublesome point here. It is the different standards applied to the two sides of the debate, the hypocrisy, the duplicity and even the bigotry with which some of these *scholars* get away with and how universities like Chicago and Emory are complicit in the whole charade.
The research done by the authors, along with Sri Rajiv Malhotra on this subject is exhaustive and leaves no scope for rhetoric and argumentation.
Anyone who is interested in India, Hindusim and the Hinduphobia that characterizes the western academic studies of these subjects in the last 50 years would benefit from reading this book.
Now imagine someone raises an objection to the content of your work. What would you do ? Defend your position based on your research and intellect or defend it based on ‘right-to-free-speech’ ?
More importantly, what does it say about your work that you have to resort to free speech and not intellectual merits to defend it from criticism ?
In any other subject, if you tried the ‘free-speech’ to defend an academic work, you would be called a crackpot. But apparently, studying Indian history, particularly Hinduism is subject to different academic standards in the western universities. The University of Chicago seems to be the most notorious. This book explains the reasons and the motives behind that.
Yes, we are talking about Wendy Doniger and her books. Apparently she is at the head of a whole bunch of crackpot academics who buy credibility by their connections and ability to influence the debate rather than merit. Together they are referred to as Wendy’s children.
This book analyses the process that led to the acceptance of academic papers and alternative histories published by self-confessed ‘non-historians’, psycho-analyses done by academics with no background in the subject of psychology or the subject they are analyzing, re-translations of works already translated by other people done by orientalists who can barely understand the language they are translating from and the smokescreen of academia they use to deflect any criticism their work justifiably attracts. It lays bare, with methodical research and citations, the sham peer-review process which supposedly bestows academic credibility to some of these publications, and exposes it as merely mutual back slapping by a cabal of well-connected people with vested interests.
It also strips the veneer of hypocritical championing of free speech by these purported intellectuals by showing how they all unite to silence dissenting voices, numerous examples are provided. The distribution of scholarship is carefully controlled and only members of the ‘syndicate’ are allowed a free pass.
The irony of it all is that, this bunch keep quoting each other ad nauseam to prop up their dangerously misinformed opinions. Like how Wendy Doniger's department awards Paul Cartwright's book and he acknowledges her in his foreword.
Other key strategies seem to be:
· Denying Indians and Hindus their agency. For instance, any biography of Sri Ramakrishna cannot be authoritative without someone from RamaKrishna Matt reviewing it.
o That means, these books and papers, which get prescribed as text books to graduate students on religious studies, are not independently reviewed.
· Insisting that there is only one single Rationality and that is based on Eurocentric Judeo-Christian theology and ideals. Antonio de Nicolas calls it conceptual imperialism.
· Co-opting certain Indians by offering them grants, foreign positions or even ‘plain free drinks’ to propagate their theories.
· Equating any attempt to question their scholarship as Hindu chauvinism and ascribing association with BJP.
· Playing victim, like Wendy Doniger did when Microsoft Encarta purged her toxic contribution about Hinduism. Just reading the chapter about that episode in this book is enough to get an idea on her duplicity.
. Refusing to enter into a debate or discussion with critics, even resorting to name calling when challenged.
While the arguments and conclusions of the likes of Doniger, Paul Courtright, J Kripal etc are worth debating and most of them are outlandish, that is not *really* the most troublesome point here. It is the different standards applied to the two sides of the debate, the hypocrisy, the duplicity and even the bigotry with which some of these *scholars* get away with and how universities like Chicago and Emory are complicit in the whole charade.
The research done by the authors, along with Sri Rajiv Malhotra on this subject is exhaustive and leaves no scope for rhetoric and argumentation.
Anyone who is interested in India, Hindusim and the Hinduphobia that characterizes the western academic studies of these subjects in the last 50 years would benefit from reading this book.
July 13, 2016
I wrote a quasi-book review of this thing over on my blog. But it was too long to paste into here. So i'll just give the first couple paragraphs and the following link: http://videshisutra.wordpress.com/201...
Those who have read this blog since its inception know that I have, shall we say, a “heterodox” perspective on Hinduism. I empathize with Duryodhana and Karna in the Mahabharata, and find Arjuna’s despondency to be justified. I’m deeply interested in naastik sects, and I’m critical of the conception of female morality, which has been derived from characters like Sita or Draupadi. This is the critique of a highly skeptical student of the Hindu philosophical tradition, not the kneejerk response of a blindly reverent follower.
Furthermore, I don’t wholly dismiss the work of the scholars I’m about to criticize. I’ve cited some of their work on this blog before. Western scholars viewing Hinduism from the outside provide a useful perspective. To quote Wendy Doniger’s introduction to her and Brian Smith’s translation of The Laws of Manu:
“Of course, both native commentators and Orientalists have axes to grind, but they are different sorts of axes. The axe of the native commentator is honed on a more intense and immediate personal involvement in the text, which may give him good reasons to want to misread the text, to fudge or misinterpret the verse in order to make it mean what he thinks it ought to mean. The axe of the Orientalist, on the other hand is sharpened by cultural ignorance and lack of empathy, or a distancing from the culture, which may lead to misinterpretations of a very different sort.”[2]
Doniger isn’t a fool. She understands that she and her colleagues are coming from outside the tradition they study, and that this will necessarily introduce certain biases into their scholarship.
Knowing that she acknowledges her bias, at least in theory, lets proceed to the criticism:
The Short Version:
The main problem, which many Hindus have with her work, and the work of her students, lies in their Freudian approach. Hindu critics posit that this methodology is not intellectually rigorous, and often is used to formulate bizarre and (to a believer) denigrating portrayals of the religion based on untested psychological speculation. More damningly, either in order to substantiate their perspective, or out of casual sloppiness, Fruedian scholars have committed an array of factual inaccuracies and translation errors throughout their work. Worst of all, since these scholars form a sort of “cartel,” the peer review process is ineffective and these errors are not corrected prior to publication. To the contrary, such works are praised, awarded, and sometimes even become bestsellers. These portrayals which are of a decidedly outsider’s perspective form the basis of Hinduism as portrayed in encyclopedias, textbooks, and museums.
However, the response of Doniger and her Freudian colleagues to their critics is what truly raises the moralistic ire of the Hindu community. When critics such as Rajiv Malhotra, Swami Tyagananda, or S.N. Balagangadhara point out their denigrating portrayals and inaccuracies, these critics are not treated as “insiders” giving a critique which might be biased in the opposite direction, but which nevertheless deserves a response. They are instead accused of religious radicalism, bigotry, and a proclivity towards violence. Thus, their critiques aren’t even recognized as legitimate much less addressed.
Sounds like a pretty outlandish narrative right? Well let me substantiate it for you.
The Long Version: Here are some passages from Paul Courtwright’s book, Gan̤̊eśa: Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings:
“But, from a psychoanalytical perspective, there is meaning in the selection of an elephant head. Its trunk is the displaced phallus, a caricature of Siva’s linga. It poses no threat because it is too large, flaccid, and in the wrong place to be useful for sexual purposes… So Ganesa takes on the attributes of his father but in an inverted form, with an exaggerated phallus– ascetic and benign– where Siva’s is ‘hard’ [urdhvalinga], erotic, and destructive.”[3]
“Finally, his insatiable appetite for sweetmeats [modaka]– a source of many amusing tales– raises the question (from a psychoanalytical perspective) of whether this tendency towards oral erotic gratification may not serve as compensation for his arrested development at not reaching the phallic stage as well as the severing of the maternal bond he underwent at the beheading hand of his father. Gaanath Obeyesekere interprets Ganesa’s celibacy, like his broken tusk, as the punishment he receives for incestuous fixation on his mother.”[4]
Courtwright goes on to claim that Ganesha represents: “a primal Indian male longing: to remain close to the mother and to do so in a way what will protect her and yet remain acceptable to the father. This means that the son must retain access to mother but not attempt to possess her sexually.”[5]
Here are some more passages, this time from Sarah Caldwell’s research paper The Bloodthirsty Tongue and the Self-Feeing Breast: Homosexual Fellatio Fantasy in a South Indian Ritual Tradition:
“This essay demonstrates that in Kerala, symbolism of the fierce goddess [Kali] does not represent abreactions of the primal scene fantasies of a Kleinian ‘phallic mother’ or the introjection of the father’s penis; rather, we will show that themes of eroticism and aggression in the mythology are male transsexual fantasies reflecting intense preoedipal fixation on the mother’s body and expressing conflicts over primary feminine identity.
The essential rituals of the Bhagvati cult all point to the aggressive and fatal erotic drinking of the male by the female, the infamous orgy of blood sacrifice of male ‘cocks’ at the Kodungallur Bhagavati temple; the male veliccappatu’s cutting of his head in a symbolic act of self castration…[Kali] is herself, first of all, a phallic being, the mother with a penis…she is the bloodied image of the castrating and menstruating (thus castrating) female… In this time of analysis the phallic abilities of the goddess disguise castration anxieties ultimately directed toward the father as well as homosexual desire for the father’s penis. Following Freud, such analyses stress the father-son polarity of the oedipal conflict as the central trauma seeking expression. As Alter and O’Flaherty amply demonstrate, milk and breastfeeding are also symbolically transformed in the male imagination into semen and phallus…The ascetic male who retains the semen becomes like a pregnant female with breasts and swollen belly; the semen rises like cream to his head and produces extraordinary psychic powers…Not only are the fluids of milk and semen, symbolic equivalents, but the act of ‘milking’ or breastfeeding becomes a symbolic equivalent to the draining of semen from the phallus in intercourse.”[6]
If you’ve ever read the psychoanalytical literature on Hinduism produced in the British colonial era, this will all seem strikingly familiar. Caldwell is in basic agreement with C.D. Daly, who wrote in his 1927 article “Hindu Mythology and Castration Complex” (Originally in German.) His article claimed that Kali worship was evidence to the fact that:
“The Hindu race succumbed to a regression on the basis of their abnormal reaction to the castration complex, which appears later than the menstruation complex. This made it a race that is dominated by possessions and compulsive ideas similar in nature to those found in neurotics.”[7]
Read the rest at http://videshisutra.wordpress.com/201...
Those who have read this blog since its inception know that I have, shall we say, a “heterodox” perspective on Hinduism. I empathize with Duryodhana and Karna in the Mahabharata, and find Arjuna’s despondency to be justified. I’m deeply interested in naastik sects, and I’m critical of the conception of female morality, which has been derived from characters like Sita or Draupadi. This is the critique of a highly skeptical student of the Hindu philosophical tradition, not the kneejerk response of a blindly reverent follower.
Furthermore, I don’t wholly dismiss the work of the scholars I’m about to criticize. I’ve cited some of their work on this blog before. Western scholars viewing Hinduism from the outside provide a useful perspective. To quote Wendy Doniger’s introduction to her and Brian Smith’s translation of The Laws of Manu:
“Of course, both native commentators and Orientalists have axes to grind, but they are different sorts of axes. The axe of the native commentator is honed on a more intense and immediate personal involvement in the text, which may give him good reasons to want to misread the text, to fudge or misinterpret the verse in order to make it mean what he thinks it ought to mean. The axe of the Orientalist, on the other hand is sharpened by cultural ignorance and lack of empathy, or a distancing from the culture, which may lead to misinterpretations of a very different sort.”[2]
Doniger isn’t a fool. She understands that she and her colleagues are coming from outside the tradition they study, and that this will necessarily introduce certain biases into their scholarship.
Knowing that she acknowledges her bias, at least in theory, lets proceed to the criticism:
The Short Version:
The main problem, which many Hindus have with her work, and the work of her students, lies in their Freudian approach. Hindu critics posit that this methodology is not intellectually rigorous, and often is used to formulate bizarre and (to a believer) denigrating portrayals of the religion based on untested psychological speculation. More damningly, either in order to substantiate their perspective, or out of casual sloppiness, Fruedian scholars have committed an array of factual inaccuracies and translation errors throughout their work. Worst of all, since these scholars form a sort of “cartel,” the peer review process is ineffective and these errors are not corrected prior to publication. To the contrary, such works are praised, awarded, and sometimes even become bestsellers. These portrayals which are of a decidedly outsider’s perspective form the basis of Hinduism as portrayed in encyclopedias, textbooks, and museums.
However, the response of Doniger and her Freudian colleagues to their critics is what truly raises the moralistic ire of the Hindu community. When critics such as Rajiv Malhotra, Swami Tyagananda, or S.N. Balagangadhara point out their denigrating portrayals and inaccuracies, these critics are not treated as “insiders” giving a critique which might be biased in the opposite direction, but which nevertheless deserves a response. They are instead accused of religious radicalism, bigotry, and a proclivity towards violence. Thus, their critiques aren’t even recognized as legitimate much less addressed.
Sounds like a pretty outlandish narrative right? Well let me substantiate it for you.
The Long Version: Here are some passages from Paul Courtwright’s book, Gan̤̊eśa: Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings:
“But, from a psychoanalytical perspective, there is meaning in the selection of an elephant head. Its trunk is the displaced phallus, a caricature of Siva’s linga. It poses no threat because it is too large, flaccid, and in the wrong place to be useful for sexual purposes… So Ganesa takes on the attributes of his father but in an inverted form, with an exaggerated phallus– ascetic and benign– where Siva’s is ‘hard’ [urdhvalinga], erotic, and destructive.”[3]
“Finally, his insatiable appetite for sweetmeats [modaka]– a source of many amusing tales– raises the question (from a psychoanalytical perspective) of whether this tendency towards oral erotic gratification may not serve as compensation for his arrested development at not reaching the phallic stage as well as the severing of the maternal bond he underwent at the beheading hand of his father. Gaanath Obeyesekere interprets Ganesa’s celibacy, like his broken tusk, as the punishment he receives for incestuous fixation on his mother.”[4]
Courtwright goes on to claim that Ganesha represents: “a primal Indian male longing: to remain close to the mother and to do so in a way what will protect her and yet remain acceptable to the father. This means that the son must retain access to mother but not attempt to possess her sexually.”[5]
Here are some more passages, this time from Sarah Caldwell’s research paper The Bloodthirsty Tongue and the Self-Feeing Breast: Homosexual Fellatio Fantasy in a South Indian Ritual Tradition:
“This essay demonstrates that in Kerala, symbolism of the fierce goddess [Kali] does not represent abreactions of the primal scene fantasies of a Kleinian ‘phallic mother’ or the introjection of the father’s penis; rather, we will show that themes of eroticism and aggression in the mythology are male transsexual fantasies reflecting intense preoedipal fixation on the mother’s body and expressing conflicts over primary feminine identity.
The essential rituals of the Bhagvati cult all point to the aggressive and fatal erotic drinking of the male by the female, the infamous orgy of blood sacrifice of male ‘cocks’ at the Kodungallur Bhagavati temple; the male veliccappatu’s cutting of his head in a symbolic act of self castration…[Kali] is herself, first of all, a phallic being, the mother with a penis…she is the bloodied image of the castrating and menstruating (thus castrating) female… In this time of analysis the phallic abilities of the goddess disguise castration anxieties ultimately directed toward the father as well as homosexual desire for the father’s penis. Following Freud, such analyses stress the father-son polarity of the oedipal conflict as the central trauma seeking expression. As Alter and O’Flaherty amply demonstrate, milk and breastfeeding are also symbolically transformed in the male imagination into semen and phallus…The ascetic male who retains the semen becomes like a pregnant female with breasts and swollen belly; the semen rises like cream to his head and produces extraordinary psychic powers…Not only are the fluids of milk and semen, symbolic equivalents, but the act of ‘milking’ or breastfeeding becomes a symbolic equivalent to the draining of semen from the phallus in intercourse.”[6]
If you’ve ever read the psychoanalytical literature on Hinduism produced in the British colonial era, this will all seem strikingly familiar. Caldwell is in basic agreement with C.D. Daly, who wrote in his 1927 article “Hindu Mythology and Castration Complex” (Originally in German.) His article claimed that Kali worship was evidence to the fact that:
“The Hindu race succumbed to a regression on the basis of their abnormal reaction to the castration complex, which appears later than the menstruation complex. This made it a race that is dominated by possessions and compulsive ideas similar in nature to those found in neurotics.”[7]
Read the rest at http://videshisutra.wordpress.com/201...
June 29, 2016
Disturbing and mind opening.....Gives a whole new prospective ...
June 13, 2012
If you ask a Hindu studies professor they will probably give you a free copy or two.
March 9, 2016
This is a ground breaking book exposing American Orientalism. A must read for all Hindus.
March 26, 2018
Eye-opening!
July 15, 2020
Intense and a must read book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews