To get Vishal Agarwal's book, click on the following links:
http://pothi.com/pothi/book/
ISBN:
9781312111547I deem it a privilege to present a review of a work which should be titled: On a Drain Inspector's Report which itself is a dirty job. In using this metaphor, I take a cue from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who offered a devastating critique a comparable tract called Mother India: 'Drain Inspector's Report'.
Vishal Agarwal ji has rendered a service par excellence to sanatana dharma which is a living guidepost for all Hindus, all people worlwide.
For generations to come, Hindus who hoist the flag of dharma, will be beholden to Vishal ji for his contributions in protection of dharma.
Namaskaram
S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
April 7, 2015
Comments on Chapter 13, “Bhakti in South India”
A Review of Chapter 6 of the book ‘The Hindus, an Alternative History’ by Wendy Doniger (2009): Penguin Books
Chapter Title: “Sacrifices in the Brahmanas”
CONTENTS:
1. Introduction – ....................................................................................……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
2. Some Comments on the Chapter 6 ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…….
- Introduction:
A vast number of Brahmanas are lost, but the existing literature is fairly copious.[1] Unfortunately, Doniger uses only a select few of the above texts,[2] and relies quite significantly on secondary works of non-specialists like Romila Thapar, Keay and Gavin Flood, who have themselves relied on piecemeal translations and other secondary or tertiary sources. This chapter of Doniger’s book is essentially a cut and paste of sections from her earlier books (‘Hindu Myths’, ‘Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism,’ and ‘Jaiminiya Brahmana – Tales of Sex and Violence.” The only difference is that whereas her earlier books do not deal with the history of Hindus except tangentially, she has tied together these cut and paste sections pretentiously with ‘historical’ interpretations that are largely again cut and paste from other secondary works of Keay, Thapar and Mitter.
Her own translations of the Brahmanas have also been criticized severely. To quote Michael Witzel, no friend of the Hindus:
“(W.D. O'Flaherty, Tales of Sex and Violence. Folklore, Sacrifice, and Danger in the Jaiminiya Brahmana. U. of Chicago Press 1985)
There are many points I would take issue with in this book (starting from the title and the time limit she gives to JB, 900 BC, without any justification, etc. etc., -- for the moment, see H. Bodewitz, in his introd. to vol. II of his JB translation).
And of course, the translation, again is a *re*-translation, for all of O.'s selections had been translated by Hans Oertel and Willem Caland into English/German long before; see her own bibliography. O. merely added a fashionable(?) Freudian coating.
I select for commentary: "The rejuvenation of Cyavana" (JB 3.120-29), O. p. 64 sqq.;
The trouble again is that O. did not follow up the secondary literature well, not even with the help of the students she mentions.
* if, -- she would have noticed that the 19th century "western scorn for the brahmanas" has long been overcome, see K. Hoffmann, Aufsaetze zur Indo-Iranistik,vol. III, ed. S Glauch et al., Wiesbaden 1992, p. 709, -- a 1959 piece, following up Oldenberg and St. Schayer -- and Hoffmann's school at Erlangen, among which my lamented friend, A.Benke, MA thesis Erlangen 1976, and M. Witzel: On Magical Thought in the Veda. Leiden: Universitaire Pers, 1979 (where the literature is given; incidentally, all provided by the editor to B.K. Smith for his article in Indo-Iranian Journal: "The unity of ritual: The place of the domestic sacrifice in Vedic ritualism", IIJ 29,(1986) 79-96, and only partially used in his book "Reflections on resemblance, ritual, and religion." New York-Oxford 1989.-- which again lambasts our predecessors without making clear that their attitudes had long been overcome.)
* And, -- if the sec. lit. had been used -- the translation would have turned out much better.
In JB 3.120 sqq. (p. 64 sqq.) there are several cases where this would have helped: p. 64 (JB 3.120): O's "the thrice returning departure" versus W. Rau, MSS 39, p. 159, 161 n. 1 tells us that this is part of the trekking procedure of the Vedic Indo-Aryans: Two days travel, one day rest (yoga-kSema). Thus: 3 times a period of double marching days (trih punahprayaaNam). -- NB. see already his book: Staat und Gesellschaft im alten Indien nach den Brahmana-Texten dargestellt, Wiesbaden 1957, again largely unread west of the Atlantic...).
Further, the graama, which treks with wild west style wagons, is not a "clan" as O. translates repeatedly but a group of people under a graamanii "trek leader": including brahmins, ksatriyas, vaisyas and others -- for example the dumb carpenter of O. p.107, JB 2.272).
The old Cyavana (3.120, p. 65) is not "on his last legs" but a niSThaava, a "spitter" due to loss of front teeth, see again W. Rau, MSS 39, 160-161
I also leave aside her predilection for street language colloquialisms "balls of cowshit, balls of shit" (or: the balls of Indra) or: hanta
"hell!" (p. 65, 3.121), normal meaning: "let's do (something)" -- all cases where Vedic slang is not seen in the Sanskrit but the standard expressions, and I also leave aside the many gaps in the translations where words or whole sentences have been forgotten (e.g.: p. 64 As he was left behind :vaastau; p. 64 His sons have left him: nuunam; etc . etc. -- the last section, JB 3.125, only receives a short paraphrase, not a translation -- but O. does not tell us).
I rather move to more serious grammatical business: O. does not know the function of the "future" imperative in -taad (Delbrueck, Altindische Syntax, 1888 (!) p. 263 sqq. Thus in par. 123-124, where a serious of commands is given, they should be translated by: do this, AND THEN do that -- the normal meaning of -taad in the Veda.
O. always calls the members of Zaaryaata's wagon train (graama) "Zaryaati", misunderstanding the 'first-year Sanskrit' Vrddhi formation in the text which has zaaryaatya- .
Difficult sentences, such as: saa yadiitiiyaayayaditi (p. 65, 3.121 end) are simply left out without telling us so.
And p. 66 (JB 3.124) abibhede (MSS: abhibede/Talavakara Brahmana parallel: abhipede!!) is not (with Caland) "she could tell them apart" (from bhid???) but a typical JB mistake for *abhipede "she touched him by the arm, baahau)", see K. Hoffmann, MSS 23 (1968!), p., 41-43 = Aufsaetze p. 504-5.
Simple question: if *that* much is wrong in just one story (and this is a small selection only!) -- what about the rest of this book and her other translations?
Face it: It might have been better to have used the old translations and to have added her Freudian interpretation to them...
In sum: The "translation" simply is UNREALIABLE.”[3]
The chapter makes an interesting reading, but only from the perspective of literature. As a tool for understanding the history of Hindus, it is worthless. Or rather, as Hans Bakker said, it is like fast-food that has no substance although it pleases the tongue (or let us coin the phrase, ‘Quickie Indology’). The comments pointed in this chapter review are merely illustrative.
The Brahmanas have a wealth of information related to cosmogony,[4] culture,[5] legal and political institutions[6] and rituals[7] that has been studied systematically by scholars. Unfortunately, Doniger’s bibliography shows that she has not used them.
Doniger cherry picks statements from these texts, distorting them and quoting them out of context. And indeed, for anything that she quotes, a contradictory statement might be quoted from the same texts. Contrary to Doniger’s politically correct claim, the central theme of this chapter (as well as the others in the book) is certainly not animals, or women or low castes; the contributions made by them; or even the diversity of perspectives reflected in these texts. The reader can see only three over-arching principles: Tales of sex and violence, and of oppression.
The chapter is written purely under an Aryan Invasion paradigm. In this paradigm, the Brahmanas are all dated roughly within the period 900 – 600 BCE. Doniger cuts and paste the history of this period from the works of other generalists (who in turn have given a very speculative account in an empirical vacuum, and relying largely on Marxist or colonial paradigms).
The Brahmanas were succeeded by a very vast literature of the six Vedangas. These texts number literally in hundreds, and contain a mass of valuable information on the history, culture, society, politics, and religion etc. of the Vedic peoples. Scholars have demonstrated how even the seemingly technical works of ritual (Kalpasutras)[8] and grammar like those of Panini[9] have valuable information on the history of India. The Vedangas draw their inspiration and the basic material from the Vedas and the Brahmanas. Doniger practically ignores them in this and all other chapters of the book
2. Some Comments on Chapter 6:
# | Page # | Statement in the book | Comments | |
1 | 135 | 1 | “1100 – 1000 Vedic texts mention the Doab (the area between the two rivers, the Ganges and the Yamuna.” | This is an inaccurate remark. The region, and the rivers are mentioned from the oldest parts of the Rigveda. In fact, the Ganga is mentioned in the oldest layers of the Rigveda, and so is the Yamuna.[10] |
2 | 136 | 2 | “…For the Brahmanas were composed during one of the most significant geographical and social shifts in the history of Hinduism, a period that has been called the second urbanization7….” | Doniger works within the ‘Aryan Invasion happened around 1500 BCE’ paradigm and calculates all dates of scriptures from this premise. It ignores an earlier, archaeologically well attested migration of the Mature Harappan period populations into the Indo-Gangetic watershed during the late Harappan period, and thence further east in the later times. It stands to reason that if these Harappans spoke Dravidian or Munda languages, then why is it that the residents of the Ganga plains today speak IA languages? A more parsimonious explanation is that the IA speakers lapsed into a rural culture after the collapse of the Harappan culture, and it took them several centuries to develop cities again – this time in the Ganga plains. The continuity of the Harappan and the Vedic peoples who lived in the Ganga plains is suggested by evidence of many types (see reviews of chapters 3-4). |
3 | 137 | 2 | “The Brahmanas must have been composed a few centuries after the founding of these cities [Kashi, Hastinapur, Kaushambi], for considerable time must have passed since the composition of the Rig Veda….” | Again, this claim is made under Aryan invasionist paradigms. If the Brahmanas were composed several centuries after the founding of these cities, then they should have been mentioned repeatedly in the Brahmanas. Hastinapur is not mentioned in the Brahmanas at all.[11]Kaushambi is not mentioned directly, although a late book of the late Shatapatha Brahmana[12] mentions a person named Proti Kaushambeya, who may have been from Kaushambi or just a descendant of Kushamba, a person mentioned in Tandya Brahmana 8.6.8 and also later in the Mahabharata. Kashi is mentioned several times, but then, it is mentioned as early as the Atharvaveda (Paippalada Samhita) 5.22.14. Doniger’s evidence is therefore inconclusive in dating the Brahmanas and follows a circular logic.[13] |
4 | 137 | 3 | “During the first millennium BCE, the Vedic people settled down and built things to last….First they moved east from the Punjab to Magadha (Bihar) and the lower Ganges and later, in a backflow, west from the Ganges to Gujarat…” | There is no evidence to prove that the Aryans moved in a backflow from the lower Ganga valley to Gujarat when they could have simply moved south along the Indus river valley and reached Gujarat via Kutch! In fact, that is what archaeology shows. Kutch has numerous early Harappan sites, but there are none in Saurashtra and Gujarat. Then, during the Mature Harappan period, we see numerous Harappan sites in Saurashtra. Historically too, people have moved frequently from Sindh into Gujarat and the languages of the two regions are more closely related than Gujarati with north Indian languages. |
5 | 137 | 4 | “They [Vedic Aryans] moved partly in search of deposits of iron, which they developed from about 800 BCE (though a better quality was developed by about 60011); its use was predominant in the western Ganges plain in the first millennium BCE and spread from the Indo-Gangetic watershed to the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna.12 In the Rig Veda, the word ayas means “bronze”; later the Atharva Veda distinguishes red ayas (“bronze”) from the dark ayas (“iron”). First used for pins and other parts of horse harnesses, as well as for weapons, iron was not imported but was developed in India, primarily from rich lodes in what is now southern Bihar.13 11 Thapar, Early India, 112 12. Ibid., 89-90 13Flood, An Introduction, 33; Keay, India, 41. | This is another example of how Doniger uses her sources carelessly. Thapar does not say on page 112 of her book at all that a better quality of iron was developed around 600 BCE. Nor does she say that the Vedic Aryans moved in search of the deposits of iron. All she says is that use of iron for objects other than weapons does not seem widespread before 800 BCE. Also, it is entirely questionable that the word ‘ayas’ in the Rigveda means bronze or that even dark ayas (shyaman) means iron. The Vedic Index (Volume II, page 398), says that syaamaayasa (dark metal) in the Atharvaveda Samhita denotes iron ‘in all probability’, which clearly indicates that it was a conjecture made by the authors of the Index[14]. In a study on gold in Vedic texts, even Jan Gonda[15] treats the equation ‘syaamasa = iron’ with reservation, and in fact, suggests that the word could mean bronze. There is considerable literature on this subject but Doniger has relied on outdated generalist works[16] and has presented a very simplistic picture. She seems to presume that the use of iron spread from the Indo-Gangetic watershed eastwards, but the archaeological evidence is just the opposite.[17] |
6 | 140 | 3 | “The move down from the Punjab to the Ganges also sowed the seeds of a problem that was to have repercussions throughout the history of Hinduism: The Vedic people no longer had good grazing lands for their horses, and so it was no longer possible for every member of the tribe to keep a horse.” | It is pure fantasy that every member of the Aryan tribe ever kept a horse! In fact, scholars from Edmund Leach to Romila Thapar have stated in their works that the horse was a prized and a relatively rare animal even in the Rigvedic period! Loose and historically amateurish statements like these abound in Doniger’s book. The Hindus continued to rule the Punjab till Mahmud Ghaznavi overthrew the rule of the Shahis in late 10th century, but they were still importing horses from further northwest. In any case, Punjab was under the rule of the Delhi Sultans and the Moghuls but they still had to import good horses. The reason is that Punjab did not have any significant good grazing lands. |
7 | 140-142 | Doniger then narrates the story of the Brahmana charioteer Vrisha and King Triyaruna (as told in the Jaiminiya Brahmana, book III). A dispute between the Ikshavaku king and the charioteer is resolved in the king’s favor by the judges, who are his fellow Ikshavakus. Doniger extrapolates this single instance, and generalizes (on page 142, para 2): “The point of this story of Vrisha seems to be that royal power trumps priestly power in the courts, since the jury is stacked; the only way that the priest can avoid punishment is by using priestly power to erase the entire crime.” | Once again, a very loose statement because the earliest Dharmasutras are all by Brahmanas, and the jury is not comprised merely of Kshatriyas! Ancient India had numerous institutions that enforced law even if the King were the upholder of the law.[18]Jaiminiya Brahmana 2.217 text says that only those of Bharadvaja Gotra can execute penalty in the court of law.[19] | |
8 | 142 | 1 | Quoting the Katha Upanishad 3.3-6, Doniger says, “In the Upanishads, we will soon see, the intellect/charioteer reins in the senses/horses that pull the chariot of the mind.” | The Katha Upanishad does not talk about the ‘chariot of the mind.’ In fact, the reins are the mind, and the chariot represents the body (not the mind). Doniger gets even elementary facts about the Upanishads wrong. |
9 | 145 | 3 | “A dog too played a part in keeping evil out of the [Ashwamedha] sacrifice, and the negative role of the dog is evidence that the lower castes were still essential to the ritual…..Another factor in the fall of the dog’s status may have been the progressive decline of the Vedic gods Indra, Yama, and Rudra, who were associated with dogs.”33 33 Debroy, Sarama and her Children | It is quite questionable if the dog can be equated to the lower castes as she has done throughout the book. Data from the Brahmanas indicates a different story. It is the sheep that is said to be like the Shudras (Jaiminiya Brahmana 1.69). But in any case, does that hypothesis make any sense? The logic that the dog declined in status because of the progressive decline in the status of Rudra, Indra and Yama is questionable. First, the only dog (or rather bitch) associated with Indra is Sarama. This Devata is more closely associated with his bay horses in the Rigveda, or with bulls etc. Second, Yama is a minor Deity in the Vedas. Only 3 of the 1028 hymns in the Rigveda are dedicated to Rudra, although the Shatarudriya (called by other names like the Rudraprashna) is exalted in the Yajurvedic and Atharvavedic traditions (and also in the Shankhayana Rigvedic traditions of Naagara Brahmins). In general, Rudra is an ‘outsider’. Doniger has relied on the hypothesis of Debroy in associating the decline of the dog to the decline of the Vedic deities and caste system. Debroy notes that Rudra was replaced by Shiva and the dog is still hallowed in that tradition (especially in the streams associated with Bhairava) and also by the worshippers of Dattatreya, but dismisses the latter as being inconsequential as if the worship of Yama was widespread in Vedic India.[20] However, whereas Debroy gives a more nuanced and a multifaceted argument, Doniger does not. Debroy gives one specific argument that makes more sense – Dogs are more useful to pastoralists than to settled agriculturalists. The increasing sedentarization of populations in ancient India is a better explanation as to why the status of the dog declined gradually. |
10 | 150 | 2 | After some discussion on the question of eating beef in ancient India, Doniger then cites a passage from the Shatapatha Brahmana: “On the other hand, one Brahmana passage forbids the eating of either of either cow or bull… concluding that anyone who did eat them would be reborn as something so strange that people would say, “He committed a sin, he expelled the embryo from his wife.” The text then adds, “However, Yajnavalkya said, ‘I do eat [the meat of both cow and bull], as long as it’s tasty.’”53 53 Shatapatha Brahmana 3.1.2.21 | As Witzel (quoted above) noted, Doniger’s knowledge Sanskrit does not exceed that of a first year Sanskrit student. The passage, when seen in the context refers to the yajamāna avoiding milk and milk products, to which Yajnavalkya says, “But I will eat it (milk products) if it is nourishing.” The grammar and Koshas explain this passage in the same way, and so does Sayana. The word amsala does not mean ‘flesh of an animal’, but rather ‘nourising and strength bestowing’ (Ashtadhyayi 5.2.98). Likewise, Amarkosha 2.6.44 also explains it as nourishing fruit, milk products, sweets etc.[21] |
11 | 151 | 2 | “The ancient Indians thus defined animals according to the manner in which they killed them, either in a hunt (mrigas) or in a sacrifice (pashus).” | Again, this generalization is untenable. First, the division of animals is not into those that are slaughtered in a sacrifice versus those that are hunted, but rather into those that are domesticated (grāmya) verses those that are in the wilderness (āranya). In fact, they are referred to as ‘grāmya pashavah’ and āranyāh pashavah’.[22] In other words, the word ‘pashu’ is used not just for domesticated animals but also for wild animals. And there is a third category of animals that are neither of these – like the frog (Taittiriya Samhita 5.4.4.4). Secondly, Doniger’s tendency to use sex and violence as overarching hermeneutical devices has no basis because the ‘grāmya vs. āranya’ divide is used in many other Vedic spheres – e.g. the melodies of the Samaveda. Now sure, it is absurd to say that the Samavedic melodies are sacrificed or hunted! And in fact, the Brahmanas clearly declare that the wild animals are not to be slaughtered (Tandya Brahmana 6.8.14), and contrary to Doniger’s focus on the ‘addiction’ to hunting, scholars have pointed out that the wild animals were released during Vedic sacrifices.[23] Hunting as a means to get food and sport is not very well articulated in the Brahmanas. |
12 | 153 | 2 | “The sacrificial quality that goes from the man to the horse, bull, ram, and goat sets the pattern for the myth in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1.4.3-4) in which the father god rapes his daughter, who flees from him the form of a cow, a mare, a donkey, a goat, and a ewe, only to be caught and raped by him in the form of a bull, stallion, male donkey, goat and ram.” | The rapes are a figment of Doniger’s perverse imagination, and there are numerous places in the book where she tends to imagine rapes. Let us reproduce the exact translation:[24] “He [Purusha], verily, had no delight. Therefore he who is alone has no delight. He desired a second. He became as large as a woman and a man in close embrace. He caused that self to fall into two parts. From that arose husband and wife. Therefore, as Yajnavalkya used to say, this (body) is one half of oneself, like one of the two halves of split pea. Therefore this space is filled by a wife. He became united with her. From that human beings are produced. She thought, “How can he unite with me after having produced me from himself?” Well, let me hide myself. She became a cow, the other became a bull and was united with her and from that cows were born. The one became a mare, the other a stallion. The one became a she-ass, the other a he-ass and was united with her; and from that one-hoofed animals was born. The one became a she-goat, the pother a he-goat, the one became a ewe, the other became a ram and was united with her and from that goats and sheep were born. Thus indeed, he produced everything whatever exists in pairs, down to the ants.” I do not see any hint for a rape that Doniger imagines, and secondly, the text speaks not just of these five animals but every creature down to the ant. The point is that creation exists in pairs. And at worst, as Purusha did not just create his daughter, but himself split into two (husband and wife), he can only be assumed to have raped himself, if Doniger insists on imagining a rape. |
13 | 154 | 1 | “An early Upanishad, shortly after the composition of the Brahmanas, spelled out the malevolent implications of the inclusion of humans as sacrificial victims: “Whoever among gods, sages, or men become enlightened became the very self of the gods, and the gods have no power to prevent him. But whosoever worships a divinity as other than himself is like a sacrificial animal (pashu] for the gods, and each person is of use to the gods just as many animals would be of use to a man. Therefore it is not pleasing to those [gods] that men should become enlightened.”69 Thus, human men and women are the gods’ sacrificial sheep.70 69 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10, Shatapatha Brahmana 14.4.2.21-22; Doniger O’ Flaherty, Origins of Evil, 91 70 Doniger O’ Flaherty, Origins of Evil, 171-73 | This is again a fantastic interpretation, contrary to the context of the Upanishad. What the passages in question imply is that Brahman is the source of all, including the gods. When a man finds this out and realizes that even the Devas are subordinate to and originate from Brahman, they stop making offerings to Brahman and instead devote themselves to Brahman alone. There is no hint of ‘humans sacrificing themselves to gods’, nor is there any description of ‘malevolent implication of the inclusion of humans as sacrificial victims.’ Doniger’s totally lose methodology (Freudian free association) enables her to make fantastic and untenable interpretations of everything, in total violation of the context.[25] One can read the preceding passage (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.9), the earlier part of this same passage, and also the succeeding passage (1.4.11) to understand this point, which is totally contrary to what Doniger is making out to be by seeing animals only as sacrificial victims. |
14 | 161 | 1 | “The need for a substitute for the consciousness-altering soma may have led to the development of other ways of creating unusual psychic states, such as yoga, breath control, fasting, and meditation.” | This one sentence betrays Doniger’s view of Hindu spirituality – that is merely a psychic state. Yogis will never accept this view of Bhogis that the state they attain during meditation can ever be attained through the use of substances like Soma (that presumably Doniger things of as something similar to marijuana or heroin in its mode of effect). Even in Patanjali’s Yogasutra 4.1, where ‘aushadhi’ is said to lead to Samadhi, the result is said to be very different from the true Samadhi resulting from the eightfold path of Yoga. Doniger’s desiccated view of Hindu philosophies and spirituality leads her gross misinterpretations of chapters on the Upanishads (chapter 7) and Darshanas (chapter 18). Unfortunately, Doniger’s pseudo-history is also at variance with what other scholars of history say. The standard paradigm is that Yoga, meditation, pranayama (we wonder why Doniger separates these three aspects of one and the same practice – Yoga) arose from the Shramanic communities whereas the Vedic ceremonies were led by the Brahmanas. Furthermore, whereas these Indologists point to the northwestern origins of Soma, they argue that Yoga emerged from communities living further east, in the interior of India. Secondly, clay figurines depicting Yogic asanas have been unearthed in Harappan sites, and reputable Indologists like Iravatham Mahadevan have likened to the unicorn seals’ pedestal in front of the creature as a representation of the Soma filter. For more details, see the reviews of chapter 3-4. To conclude, Doniger’s comment is extremely naïve and takes a reductionist view of the spiritual philosophies and practices of Hinduism. |
15 | 162-163 | Doniger narrates a tale from the Jaiminiya Brahmana in which the gods put evil, sleep, carelessness, anger, hunger, love of dice and desire for women in men, so that they are not able to reach heaven. Then, she concludes, “The gods here do not merely accidentally burden humans with evil that they themselves, the gods, cannot manage; they do it purposely, to prevent humans from going to heaven…..Why does this change take place at this moment? The hardening of the lines between states, the beginning of competition for wealth and power, the scrambling for the supremacy of the rich Ganges bottomland may have introduced into the myths a more cynical approach to the problem of dealing with evil. And the growth of both power and the abuse of power among the two upper classes may explain why the gods at this time came to be visualized less like morally neutral (if capricious and often destructive) forces of nature – the fire, soma, rain, and the rivers of the Veda – or brutal and sensually addicted but fair-minded human chieftains and more like wealthy and powerful kings and Brahmins, selfish, jealous, and vicious.” | Oh, but there is a little problem, because the Jaiminiya Brahmana 1.97-98 is placed not in the Gangetic plains, but in the Chambal region![26] So there evaporates Doniger’s pseudo-history. And all that Doniger sees in the Brahmins and Kshatriyas are jealousy, viciousness and selfishness! It is as if they cannot lead virtuous lives. Her book is replete with these types of hate filled stereotypical statements against different sections of the Hindus. Contrary to Doniger’s assertion that Brahmanas and Kshatriyas are depicted as vicious, selfish and jealous, the texts themselves give a more positive picture. The Brahmanas for instance are required to be knowledgeably and studious, of pure conduct and descent, and cooperative with other priests.[27] Bad priests are criticized.[28] The importance of faith and knowledge is emphasized.[29]Kings not only had privileges, but duties as well.[30] They were supposed to act respectfully, and not snatch someone’s sister, wife (or other women), wealth, or speak lies.[31] In fact, there is considerable material on ethical and spiritual values for all in the Brahmanas.[32] |
Copyright: Permission is granted to reproduce this PDF on other websites.
REV A: March 20th, 2014.
For any questions and corrections, please write to the reviewers Vishal Agarwal vishalsagarwal@gmail.com
[1] The Brahmana texts available today under the four Vedas are:
· Rigveda: Aitareya, Shankhayana (along with the slightly differing Kaushitaki version)
· Shukla Yajurveda: Shatapatha (in two versions: Kanva and Madhyandina)
· Krishna Yajurveda: Taittiriya, and fragments of Katha Brahmana. Additionally, long Brahmana sections are embedded in the available Samhitas (Taittiriya, Maitrayaniya, Kathaka and Kapishthala). The Vadhula Anvakhyana is considered an additional Brahmana of the Taittiriya Shakha by some scholars.
· Atharvaveda: Gopatha Brahmana
· Samaveda: The Jaiminiya tradition has the Jaiminiya Brahmana, Upanishad Brahmana and Arsheya Brahmana. The Kauthuma-Ranayaniya tradition have 8 Brahmanas – the Tandya, Shadvimsha, Arsheya, Samhitopanishad, Samavidhana, Vamsha, Mantra Brahmana, Devatadhyaya.
[2] For example, her leaving out of Chhandogya Mantra Brahmana belies her claim that her book is about women, because this Brahmana has a considerable grhya material related to women.
[3] Available online at http://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology_list.indology.info/1995-November/003511.html <checked on 20 March 2014>. Witzel wrote two other criticisms, one each for her translations of the Rigveda and Manusmriti. Amusingly, it appears that after this public criticism, Witzel has reconciled with Doniger, who wrote a superlative blurb on the back cover of Witzel’s latest book “The Origins of World Mythologies” (OUP: 2013)
[4] Konrad Klaus (1986), Die Altindische Kosmologie – Nach den Brahmanas Dargestellt. Indica et Tibetica Verlag (Bonn)
Umesh Chandra Pandey (1991-1992), The Cosmogonic Legends of the Brahmanas, Shivaniketanam (Gorakhpur, India)
[5] Sunanda Tilak (1990), Cultural Gleanings from the Brahmana Literature, Yaska Publishers and Distributors (New Delhi)
Jogiraj Basu (1969), India in the Age of Brahmanas, Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar (Calcutta)
[6] Hari Pada Chakraborti (1981), Vedic India – Political and Legal Institutions in Vedic Literature, Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar (Calcutta)
In this regard, the omission by Doniger of the numerous works of Wilhelm Rau, who has written extensively on the Brahmanas, is a real lacuna.
[7] G U Thite (1975), Sacrifice in the Brahmana Texts, University of Poona (Pune). [Doniger has referenced a 19th century work by Sylvan Levi instead].
[8] Ram Gopal (1983), India in the Age of Vedic Kalpasutras, Motilal Banarsidass (New Delhi)
[9] Vasudeva Sharan Agrawal (1952), India as Known to Panini, University of Lucknow (Allahabad)
[10] In this regard, see Shrikant Talageri (2000), The Rigveda a Historical Analysis, Aditya Prakashan (New Delhi) that discounts the general ‘Aryans went from the west to east’ dogma of some Indologists.
[11] A town Asandivat is mentioned in the Aitareya and the Shatapatha Brahmanas, and is taken by some scholars to mean Hastinapura. However, the two towns are distinct, and Asandivat is a different town that is identified with modern Asandh close to the city of Karnal in Haryana. See: Devendra Handa, “Identification of Asandivat”, pages 278-281 in Vishveshvaranand Indological Journal, vol 3, part 2 (Sept 1965)
[12] Shatapatha Brahmana 12.2.2.13
[13] The Vedic Index can be checked regarding this information.
[14] The Saunakiya Samhita mentions ‘dark’ to denote a dark metal at two places -9.5.4; 11.3.7. In his translation, although Whitney glosses ‘dark metal’ as ‘doubtlessly iron’ for the latter occurrence, nothing compels us to accept this meaning. It could very well mean bronze (knife). He does not comment on the identity of the dark metal at 9.5.4. although the context again refers to a knife made out of the same. It may be noted that bronze and copper knives and blades have been found in the Harappan sites.
[15] Jan Gonda (1991), The Functions and Significance of Gold in the Veda, E. J. Brill (Leiden/New York)
[16] For a more contemporary overview, refer: Deo Prakash Sharma (2012), Science and Metal Technology of Harappans, Kaveri Books (New Delhi)
[17] Erdosy, George (1995), “The prelude to urbanization: ethnicity and the rise of late Vedic chiefdoms”, In F.R. Allchin (ed.), The Archaeology of the Early Historic South Asia : The Emergence of Cities and States, pp. 75–98. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge); pages 83-84
[18] See Chakraborti (1981), page 241onwards.
[19] Tilak, p. 122
[20] And in modern times, the worshippers of Sai Baba recall the association of two dogs with the saint.
[21] For more details, refer to pages 212-214 of “A Review of Beef Eating in Ancient India” (1970) published by Gita Press (Gorakhpur)
[22] Tilak, p. 63
[23] Charles Malamoud, “Village and Forest in the Ideology of Brahmanic India”, pp. 74-91 in Cooking the World – Ritual and Thought in Ancient India (1996), translated by David White, Oxford University Press (New Delhi). Doniger has referenced this work elsewhere in her book.
[24] S. Radhakrishnan (1953), The Principal Upanishads, Harper and Brothers Publishers (New York), p. 164-165
[25] Refer, S. Radhakrishnan (1953), The Principal Upanishads, Harper and Brothers Publishers (New York), p. 168-169
[26] Michael Witzel, Tracing the Vedic dialects in Dialectes dans les litteratures Indo-Aryennes ed. Pierre Caillat, Paris, 1989, 97–265
[27] Thite, pp. 217-218
[28] Thite, p. 220
[29] Thite 319-322
[30] Basu, p. 17 - 20
[31] Taittiriya Brahmana 1.7.2.14
[32] Tilak, pp. 156-173
General Comments: ‘Bhakti is Violence’
Throughout the chapter, Doniger tries to prove the following four things -
1. Bhakti equates to violence and adherents of Bhakti indulged in frequent persecutions of the Jains and the Buddhists,
2. Bhakti did not really liberate women and low-castes,
3. The better aspects of Bhakti are due to influences from Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity and Islam.
Doniger does not know any of the four major South Indian languages, and has relied completely on partial translations of Tamil sources by a handful of Western Scholars like A K Ramanujan (her colleague), John Carman and McGlasham. She has completely ignored even complete translations of the works of Nayanars and Alwars by Indian scholars. Her chapter is largely a cut and paste from second-hand generalist works of Romila Thapar, John Keay, Gavin Flood, Herman Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund and Partha Mitter. She has largely ignored the works of Alwars, because they do not easily fit her paradigm of Bhakti as sex and violence. These omissions result in a very slanted, desiccated and a negative treatment of south Indian Bhakti. Let us discuss some of the agendas in her chapter on South India Bhakti below.
Bhakti was Violent, and Hindus persecuted Buddhists and Jains:
At the very beginning of the chapter, Doniger says that though Bhakti empowered women and lower castes with its inclusive ideology, “yet the violence of passions that it generated also led to inter-religious hostility (p. 338).” She ends the chapter with the words, “The violent power of bhakti, which overcame even the god, transfigured the heart of religion in India ever after (p. 369).” It appears that for Doniger, Hinduism is a very violent religion, because in her book she makes statements like, “…the Vedic reverence for violence flowered in the slaughters that followed Partition,” (p. 627); and has described the Gita as a “dishonest book” in a newspaper interview because in her opinion, the scripture promotes war. She also concludes her book with the words, “…we must curb our optimism by recalling the violence embedded in many forms of bhakti, and by noting that it was in the name of bhakti to Ram that the militant Hindu nationalists tore down the Babri Mosque (p. 690).” Of course Doniger has nothing to say on the violence of Islamic ‘bhakti’ when in the aftermath of the destruction of single abandoned mosque, more than 450 temples were demolished or vandalized by Muslims in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, England and even in Canada, or on more than 50 temples demolished in Kashmir before the demolition of Babri Mosque. It is only the Hindus whose traditions and philosophies are violent, pornographic and oppressive. What a pity that Doniger has wasted five decades of her life hating her objects of study – the Hindus.
To advance her thesis of violent Bhakti in this chapter, she focusses solely on Tamil Shaiva saints, and even therein, she focusses only on their biographies in the Periyapuranam (e.g. p. 361–362), referring to other works only tangentially. This narrow focus is methodologically flawed for several reasons. First, although the Nayanmars lived from 500 – 900 CE according to her (p. 338), the Periyapuranam was composed at least 250 years later according to internal testimony of the text.[1] Scholars have pointed out that Cekkilar, the author of Periyapuranam, has greatly exaggerated the violence mentioned in the earlier sources that he had used. And finally, the violence in the lives of Nayanmars is unique in the entire history of Hindu Bhakti with very few parallels in other Bhakti traditions within Tamil Nadu, and even those outside of Tamil Nadu.[2] Yet, Doniger uses these few instances to paint a pervasive picture of South Indian Bhakti as a violent ideology.
While she dwells constantly on Hindu polemics against the Jains and the Buddhists (p. 362-363), she barely gives any example of how the latter depicted the Hindu Deities. Many Jain scriptures send Rama and Krishna to hell for instance. Is it Doniger’s case that these Jain narratives incited them to commit violence towards the Hindus? Hundreds of Hindu kings ruled different parts of India over thousands of years and it is almost a certainty that a handful of them would have persecuted people of religious persuasions different from theirs. This is in contrast to the Islamic rule, where guided by their religious teachings, most Muslim rulers discriminated against or persecuted the non-believers. Doniger offers the following ‘proof’ of Hindu persecution of the Buddhists, “In other parts of India, from time to time, Hindus, especially Shaivas, tool aggressive action against Buddhism. At least two Shaiva kings* are reported to have destroyed monasteries and killed monks. *Mikirakula (early sixth century) and Sasanka (early 7th century).” Now, it is questionable if these two examples should be sufficient to warrant a blanket conclusion as Doniger does. Secondly, are even these two examples appropriate? Mihirakula is remembered as a tyrant by no less than Kalhana, and he was a Huna invader. Shashanka has not been glorified in traditional Hindu records before he became a hero for some recent Bengali nationalists.[3] This stands in stark contrast to Ghori, Ghaznavi and Aurangzeb who are glorified in the Islamic tradition.
Doniger of course does not even consider the possibility that the Shaivas were reacting to the preceding Kalabhra period when the Jains had persecuted Shaivites.[4] Nor is she aware of the opinion of some historians that the same Kalabhra Jains were perhaps responsible for the persecution of Buddhists in the Pandiyan territory.[5] Other than a passing reference, she does not mention Jaina epics like Nilakesi that reserve their worst invectives for Buddhist monks. All said and done however, even these polemics in the works of the three faiths, or their acts of religious persecution were miniscule in quantity or in their nature when compared to how the Abrahamics treated the ‘non-believers’. There is simply no Dharmic parallel to the widespread Jihads, Crusades or the European civil wars between Protestants and Catholics. The average American reader, for whom Doniger presumably wrote the book, will get the impression from her statements that the Hindus were as violent as the Abrahamics towards other religions. This is what she says repeatedly in her book to overturn the conventional and the correct view that Hindus are very tolerant as a religious community. Perhaps, in writing her book, she wanted to overcome her own white guilt, if I may be permitted to psychoanalyze her, just as she keeps doing to us Hindus.
Then, she claims that, “Only in Bihar and Bengal, because of the patronage of the Pala dynasty and some lesser kings and chiefs, did Buddhist monasteries continue to flourish. Buddhism in eastern India was well on the way to be reabsorbed into Hinduism, the dominant religion, when Arabs invaded the Ganga Valley in the twelfth century (p. 364).” Her implication is that the Islamic invaders had no role in the destruction of Buddhism in India as is generally believed, and the disappearance of Buddhism in India was due to persecutions by the Hindus. This is a revisionist viewpoint, and ignores how Buddhism was extinguished by Islamic invaders in Central Asia, Sindh, Gilgit-Baltistan, Chitral, Swat and many other parts of the world. Buddhism continues to be a major force in Nepal, a predominantly Hindu country. Within India, it lasted the longest in Orissa and parts of Tamil Nadu, which were relatively free of Islamic rule. It was the Muslim invaders like Bakhtiyar Khilji who destroyed Buddhist universities like Vikramshila and Nalanda in Bihar and gave Buddhism a final death blow. Later, Doniger claims, “From time to time too, Shaivas tore down Shaiva temples, or Vaishnava temples, looting the temples and hauling the images home. In other words, as was the case later with the Turkish invasions, warfare had political and economic motives more than religious ones (p. 366).” So once again, she tries to absolve Islam of widespread iconoclasm in India during the Islamic rule or at least blunt it by equating it to a few random acts of Hindu iconoclasm. Islam has an avowed theology of Iconoclasm which Hinduism lacks, and we have covered this point in more detail in our review of chapter 16 of her book.
According to her, the construction of temples itself was an act of violence (p. 348-349) and focusses excessively and tendentiously on the argument that there is ‘no free temple’. She gives the example of Brihadeeshvara temple and complains that the king used war booty for this purpose, and taxed villages (p. 347).[6] By this perverse logic, all toll-roads and bridges in the United States are an act of violence because people using them have to pay a toll. Citing the works of apologist scholars like Richard Davis, Doniger argues that the Cholas looted and desecrated other temples to build their own but acknowledges that this has little to do with religious persecution (p. 349). Given the prolific interfaith narratives in her book, she does not contrast how Hindu iconoclasm (similar burning down a library after retrieving all the books and then housing them in a new library) differs from Islamic and Christian versions (burning down a library together with the books). In Hinduism, the temple is merely a house for the Deity, and therefore even marauding kings, if they did desecrate temples, first took the images out of the site to install them elsewhere. Eight times in her book, Doniger equates these two iconoclasms despite their different natures, and despite the fact that the Hindu version was very restricted in space and time (compared to the Islamic variety), to paint Hinduism as violent (if not more) a religion as Islam and Christianity.
Well, someone did destroy the Hindu temples. So Doniger makes a sinister attempt to shift the blame from Muslims to the Jains! Referring to the verses, “I [Bhakti] was born in Dravida [South India] and grew up in Karnataka. I lived here and there in Maharashtra; and became weak and old in Gujarat. There, during the terrible Kali Age, I was shattered by heretics. But after reaching Vrindavana I became young and beautiful again (pp. 367-368),” Doniger rightly points out that this passage is traditionally taken to describe the destruction of Hindu temples by Islamic invaders. But she counters this by saying that Gujarat was a “Jaina stronghold” (p. 368), that these ‘heretics’ “…may very well be Jains (p. 368).” She supports her argument by saying that the Bhagavata Mahatmya, in which these verses are found, is a north Indian text because it mentions Vrindavana. Her logic is unclear, and questionable because Mathura and other places associated with the childhood of Krishna are mentioned in the writings of Alwars who are from South India. And the Bhagavata Purana itself is associated with South India.[7] It appears that Doniger will clutch at any straws to absolve Islam of iconoclasm, even if it means a ‘displacement’ of guilt to the non-violent Jains. Therefore, I submit that Doniger’s writings are in fact verbal violence against the Hindus and Jains, or hatemonger with scholarly pretentions.
Bhakti did not liberate Women:
The focus of Doniger remains on the imaginary violent aspects of Bhakti, and she gives quite a perfunctory treatment to women Bhaktas. Just about a page and a half are devoted to women Nayanmars and Alwar Andal.
Doniger laments that only one Alwar out of twelve, namely Andal, was a women (p. 353). How does this compare to the record of other religions? Doniger is a Jew, and her scripture, the Old Testament, has only 2 out of 39 books named after women. In the 27 books of the New Testament, not even one is named after a woman. In Islam, the entire Koran of 114 chapters was revealed to a male prophet. All the 10 Gurus of Sikhs were men. In Jainism, all the 24 Jain tirthankars were men. And what she does not note is that of the twelve Alwars, two are considered the most important and they are none other than Andal (a woman) and Nammalvar (a Shudra). Also, Doniger is perhaps unaware that to this day, Tamils sing the verses of Andal during the month of Margazhi every year in the memory of Andal. But after dismissing Andal in a few lines (p. 353), she does not give the reader any idea of her religious compositions that are an important part of Shri Vaishnava liturgy even today.
Bhakti did not liberate lower castes:
Doniger does mention that Nammalvar was of a low caste, but quickly adds that a later Brahmin hagiographer claimed that Nammalvar shunned his own low-caste family (p.360-361). However, she conveniently forgets to mention that he is regarded as the greatest of all the twelve Alvars, and that his Tiruvayamoli is considered as the Tamil Veda by the Shri Vaishnava community.[8] The Tiruvayamoli attracted a commentary by no less than the saintly Pillan, to fulfill one of the three life goals of Shri Ramanujacharya. Even today, in their temples, the priest places a crown with a pair of feet embossed on them on the head of a visiting devotee. The crown represents Nammalvar, who was the crown or the highest of Alwars, with the feet being the feet of Bhagavan Vishnu.
While devoting considerable text to Kannappar and Nandanar (pages 357-360), she fails to mention that more than a quarter of the Nayanmars are Shudras or untouchables, and many of the remaining are Vaishyas.[9]
Bhakti was inspired by other Religions:
Although it is admirable to demonstrate how various traditions have intermingled with each other and have done mutual borrowings in India, Doniger’s examples all practically show how it is Hinduism that has borrowed from others and not the reverse. The reader is left with the impression that Hinduism is a cul-de-sac that passively absorbs foreign influences, without teaching much goodness to others. Coming to Bhakti, Doniger clearly exaggerates the influence of other religions. She makes very strained attempts to derive the non-violent elements of Bhakti from teachings or influences of other religions. In order to do so, she presents a very inadequate picture of Bhakti in the Vedic texts, and then pre-dates Abrahamic holy books by several centuries.[10] Several scholars have argued that elements of the nine-fold Bhakti can be traced in Rigvedic hymn themselves.[11]
Doniger makes an ahistorical claim that St Thomas, one of the apostles, had visited India. This claim has political[12] and Christian fundamentalist[13] overtones and has no credible historical evidence to back it.[14] It is perhaps not surprising that Doniger should support this claim. What is surprising however is her statement that the Acts of Thomas may date from the first century C.E., when all credible Biblical scholars argue that it was written in Syriac in Edessa in the early 3rd century C.E.[15] In fact, even the canonical four gospels are often dated after the first century C.E. In recent times, a section of Indian Christians have been propagating this myth to claim India for Christ (because ‘one of the 12 Apostles himself visited India’) even though historical evidence suggests that these Christian communities are perhaps descendants of refugees from Syria who landed in the mid-fourth century C.E.[16] In the modern revisionist version (being propagated by Indian Marxist historians), St Thomas lies buried in the Mylapore Church close to Chennai, which is improbable given the myriad accounts of his place of death and numerous graves associated with him all over the old world.[17] For Doniger however, it serves the agenda for implying that Bhakti had something to do with Christian influences.
Doniger argues that Hinduism added elements of Islam into its Bhakti ideology (p. 344). She says, “At the same time, there were many opportunities for positive interactions between Islam and bhakti in South India. For instance, the idea of “surrender” (prapatti), so important to the Shri Vaishnava tradition of South India, may have been influenced by Islam (the very name of which means “surrender”). More generally, the presence of people of another faith, raising awareness of previously unimagined religious possibilities, may have inspired the spread of these new, more ecstatic forms of Hinduism and predisposed conventional Hindus to accept the more radical teachings of the bhakti poets (p. 368).”
This claim of Islamic influence in the shaping and acceptance of Bhakti is laughable, to put it mildly. Which aspect of Hindu Bhakti parallels Islamic ‘surrender’ – sakhya, vaatsalya, or maadhurya? Which Bhakti practice has a parallel in Islam – Paadasevanam? Kiirtanam? Archanam? Even if the depth and variety of Bhakti were to be found in Islam (which it is not), what is the evidence that Malabar Muslim traders had an influence on Shri Vaishnavas or on Shaivas? To cut the long story short, Ishvara-praanidhaana (surrender to Ishvara) is mentioned in the pre-Islamic Yogasutra as one of the three practices of Kriyaayoga (Sutra 2.1) and as one of the five Niyamas (Sutra 2.32). In Sutra 1.23, it is said to be one of the means of obtaining Samaadhi. And commenting on this Sutra, the pre-Islamic commentary of Vyasa defines the term as a ‘form of Bhakti’. The commentary on Sutra 2.1 and 2.32 defines it as surrendering one’s Karma and the fruit or result thereof to Ishvara, the Supreme Guru. Now let us examine the claim from the reverse side. Indian traders travelled to Middle East too. Will Doniger dare to suggest that their Hindu religious beliefs influenced Prophet Muhammad?
Coming to Buddhism, Doniger argues that the practice of Darshana was partly inspired by Buddhist viewing of the relics in Stupas (p. 352). No proof is offered for this speculation. Writing in the 2nd century CE, Patanjali writes in his Mahabhashya that the Mauryas used to install images to induce gullible people to make monetary offerings to them. From the context, it appears that they were not likely Buddhist images of which the people took Darshana.
Doniger also claims that the building to temples was partly a response to the Buddhist practice of constructing Stupas, and of the Buddhist and Jainas worshipping the statues of their enlightened teachers (p. 353). This is a claim repeated elsewhere by her in the book (chapter 9) too. As an example, she mentions the Jaina temple at Aihole with an inscription dated to 636 CE and refers to it as one of the earliest temples in India. One does not understand the purpose behind giving this isolated example, because older Gupta period temples are found in northern India and even in northern Pakistan, where a temple in Chakwal (at the Hindu pilgrim center of Katasraj) is dated to as early as late 5th cent. C.E.[18] Moreover, what is so unique about construction of places of worship that the Hindus must necessarily borrow it from others? All religions have their shrines and temples and by Doniger’s logic, these places of worship must have been constructed in ‘response’ to competition from other religions. As to the origins of Hindu temple architecture, an earlier critique of her book points out that, “….the Sathapatha Brahmana portion of the Shukla Yajur Veda, dating back to at least 1500 BCE, describes a special form of tabernacle, distinct from the Agni-shala of the household, for which a special fire-priest, the Agnidhra, was designated. Through the kindling of the fire, the tabernacle became the dwelling place of the Vishvedevas (all the gods). This is a prototype for later Hindu temples, where icons replaced the sacred fire as the focus of worship. In other words, if one wants to be polemical, one can definitely argue that the genesis of formal temple construction vidhis – rules and methods – certainly pre-dates the advent of Buddhism.”[19]
Doniger follows up on her thesis of foreign origins of Bhakti in other parts of the book as well. She does not describe how Ramananda and other saints carried the doctrine of Vaishnava Bhakti to northern India. And later, in chapter 20, she credits the Mughals as having supported the rise of Bhakti movements in northern India. And so, the organic link between and continuity between the South India Bhakti and the Pan-Indian Bhakti gets downplayed. To conclude, this chapter too, instead of appreciating the depth of the Bhakti philosophy and practices, portrays in the most negative terms. Doniger would never dare presenting other religions in such a hateful manner.
Revision A: 03 May 2014
[1] Anne Mous, “Love, Violence, and the Aesthetics of Disgust: Saivas and Jains in Medieval South India,” Journal of Indian Philosophy, vol. 32, pp. 113-172 (2004)
[2] Ibid, p. 123
[3] Mayurika Chakravorty, ‘Skeletons of History: Fact and Fiction in Rakhaldas Bandhopadhyaya’s Sasanka,” South Asia Research, vol. 24. No. 2, November 2004, pp. 171 - 183
[4] M Arunachalam (1979), The Kalbhras in the Pandiya Country and their Impact on Life and Letters There, University of Madras: Madras, pp. 94 sqq.
[5] Ibid, p. 95
[6] Ironically, Doniger ignores the beautiful story of Alagi, the woman, who was apparently asked by the Chola king to play an important role in the inauguration of this temple.
[7] K A Nilakantha Shastri (1966), History of South India, Oxford University Press (Madras), p. 342
[8] Vasudha Narayanan and John Braisted Carman (1989), The Tamil Veda, University of Chicago Press (Chicago)
[9] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayanars <checked on 10 March 2014>
[10] E.g. on page 339, she dates the Hebrew Old Testament containing the account of Solomon (not the king himself) to 1000 BCE when most Biblical scholars post-date the Old Testament books to several centuries later.
[11] Jeanine Miller (1996), Does Bhakti Appear in the Rgveda, Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan (Mumbai)
[12] Which is why Romila Thapar gives credence to the historical untenable theory in her Early India.
[13] See Rajiv Malhotra (2011), Breaking India, Amaryllis (New Delhi), p. 129 sqq.
[14] See Ishwar Sharan (2010), The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple (3rd Edition), Voice of India (New Delhi). The book is available online at http://ishwarsharan.wordpress.com/ <checked on 25 March 2014>
[15] Willis Barnstone ((1984), The Other Bible, Harper Collins Publishers (San Francisco)
[16] Sita Ram Goel (1996), History of Hindu-Christian Encounters, Voice of India (New Delhi)
[17] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Apostle <checked on 10 March 2014 >
[18] http://www.arthistory.upenn.edu/meister/pakistan.html <checked on 10 February 2014>
See also: Michael Meister (2010), Temples on the Indus, Brill Academic Publishers (Leiden, Netherlands)
[19] Aditi Banerjee (2009), “Oh, But you do get it wrong,” online at http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?262511
Vishal Agarwal's Chapter-wise Review of The Hindus: An Alternative History by Prof. Wendy Doniger
Summary:
Aldous Huxley once said that an intellectual was someone who had found something more interesting than sex; in Indology, an intellectual need not make that choice at all.
Wendy Doniger in When the Lingam is Just a Cigar, Psychoanalysis and Hindu Sexual Fantasies.
Wendy Doniger’s book “The Hindus, an Alternative History” (see the cover), published and distributed by Penguin has been a phenomenal sales success. Already (in February 2010), more than 600 libraries in North America have acquired a copy of the book, in less than one year since its publication. The Indian division of Penguin has brought out an Indian reprint as well. Doniger claims that her book is about Hindu women, low castes, dogs and horses. But these merely appear to be an excuse for her to indulge in bouts of lewd descriptions, imaginary rapes, violence, titillating sleaze, drugs, booze and the like – all of which is then superimposed on the Hindus and on their traditions. As usual, she kinks fairly straightforward narratives in Hindu scriptures to present her own pornographic versions.
Medieval India is not her forte at all, and Doniger is often seen reproducing (and even amplifying) the errors already present in her secondary and tertiary sources. The book is more than 600 pages long, and the number of errors average more than 1 per page. There are errors of chronology, of historical dates and sequence of events, geography, verifiable historical facts, proper names, translations of Sanskrit texts and so on. These errors are compounded by strained and agenda driven interpretations that whitewash medieval atrocities on Indians, perpetuate colonial and racist stereotypes about Hindus, attribute many positive developments within the Hindu society to impulses from Christianity or Islam and grossly distort historical evidence.
Some examples of derogatory statement & factual errors:
i. Page 40 If the motto of Watergate was Follow the money, the motto of the history of Hinduism could well be Follow the monkey or, more often Follow the horse.
Comment: Very derogatory and offensive. The motto of Hinduism is to follow the truth and unite with God.
ii. Page 112 – The author alleges that in Rigveda 10.62, it is implied that a woman may find her own brother in her bed!
Comment: The hymn has no such suggestion. It is offensive to suggest that the sacred text of Hindus has kinky sex in it.
iii. Page 128 – The book likens the Vedic devotee worshipping different Vedic deities to a lying and a philandering boyfriend cheating on his girlfriend(s).
Comment: This is offensive and ignores that fact that in the Rigveda, the gods are said to be all united, born of one another, and from the same source.
iv. Pages 468-469 -
The mosque, whose serene calligraphic and geometric contrasts with the perpetual motion of the figures depicted on the temple, makes a stand against the chaos of India, creating enforced vacuums that India cannot rush into with all its monkeys and peoples and colors and the smells of the bazaar
Comment: It is simply unacceptable that a scholar can flippantly, pejoratively and derogatorily essentialize the Hindus as monkeys and peoples, colors and smells.., and chaos in most insulting manner with the aspersion thrown at the entire Hindu culture and community all over the world. Such generalization has no place in serious scholarly work.
v. Page 571- It is alleged that in a hymn from Saint Kshetrayyas poetry, God rapes the women devotees.
Comment: The hymn merely presents devotion using spiritual metaphors and the hymns of the Saint seen collectively depict it as a passionate love affair between the God and the devotees. No rape is implied in this hymn at all.
vi. Page 450- It is claimed that Emperor Ala-ud-Din Khalji did not sack temples in Devagiri.
Comment: His contemporary Amir Khusro clearly mentions that the Emperor sacked numerous temples and raised mosques instead.
vii. Page 459 – King Ala-ud-din Husain of Bengal patronized Saint Chaitanya.
Comment: Saint Chaitanya never met the king, and left his kingdom to avoid persecution, as did his disciples. The king had destroyed Hindu temples in Orissa.
viii. Pages 537-538 – The Sikh teacher Guru Govind Singh was assassinated in 1708, while ‘attending Emperor Aurangzeb’.
Comment: Emperor Aurangzeb died in 1707. Guru Gobind Singh was assassinated in 1708 during the reign of Aurangzebs successor, Emperor Bahadur Shah I. It is insulting to say that the Guru was attending on the Emperor.
In her book, Hindu Deities are presented as lustful, Hindu Saints are falsely alleged by the author to have indulged in sexual orgies, or to have ‘taken actions against Muslims’, Hindu worshippers are compared to cheating boyfriends, intoxication is a central theme of the Vedas and Hindu scriptures are presented as a litany of tales of faithful women forsaken by their ungrateful husbands. One wonders if these caricatures of Hinduism really reflect the authors own life rather than the culture and traditions of Hindus. Doniger claims to ‘love’ Hindus or their culture in her book, but this claim appears quite bizarre, perverse and frightening.
This chapter by chapter review below will give dozens of examples to illustrate the defects that abound in every section of her scandalous book. The list is of course not exhaustive and is not intended to be so. In her Acknowledgments section, Doniger thanks some of her students for the help that they provided to her in writing some of the chapters. It does appear that they have failed their teacher. Or perhaps, she has failed them.
Vishal Agarwal![]()
Vishal Agarwal is a scholar of Hindu shastras and a Hinduism teacher. A practitioner-student of Vishishtadvaita Vedanta, he has authored over dozen publications on childhood spirituality, ancient Indian history and archaeology, and historiography as research papers in peer reviewed journals, and chapters in American and Indian school textbooks. He has also written several articles in American Hindu community newspapers. He has served on the boards of several academic associations and Hindu community organizations. Recipient of several awards, he has been invited as a keynote speaker in dozens of conferences, churches, synagogues, high schools and temples. He lives in Minneapolis with his family.
Chapter # | Title | Page # (in the book) |
N/A | ||
Preface | 1 | |
1 | 17 | |
2 | Time and Space in India: 50 Million to 50,000 bce | 50 |
3 | 65 | |
4 | 85 | |
5 | 103 | |
6 | Sacrifice in the Brahmans: 800 to 500 bce | 135 |
7 | 164 | |
8 | 199 | |
9 | 212 | |
10 | 252 | |
11 | 277 | |
12 | 304 | |
13 | Bhakti in South India: 100 bce to 900 ce | 338 |
14 | 370 | |
15 | 406 | |
16 | 445 | |
17 | 473 | |
18 | 503 | |
19 | 527 | |
20 | 551 | |
21 | Caste, Class and Conversion Under the British Raj: 1600 to 1900 ce | 574 |
22 | 610 | |
23 | 636 | |
24 | 654 | |
25 | 687 | |