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Wendy Doniger is known to have an interpretation of Hindu texts that is hostile to traditional understanding of the texts [1]. Some specific examples in this pa

by ubasu 12y ago

Wendy Doniger is known to have an interpretation of Hindu texts that is hostile to traditional understanding of the texts [1]. Some specific examples in this particular article are: 1. The Bhagvad Gita is commonly understood to be a discussion of appropriate duty. In this case, Krishna's argument was it is Arjuna's duty to go to war, considering that all other peaceful solutions had been explored and rejected by the Kauravas (Arjuna's opponents)[2]. In fact, Krishna himself had acted as peacemaker, and asked Arjuna to take take up arms only when that failed. The use of the Gita by Indian Nationalists fighting for Indian independence from the British has to be understood in this context. 2. Doniger says that the war was "lawless", but the Mahabharata war was an attempt at a "just" war, as understood in its contemporary context. Deviations from just behaviour are noted and held up as examples of unjust behaviour. 3. The so-called "Doomsday" manifestation of Krishna is in fact him showing his universal form, which is supposed to be beyond the capacity of ordinary humans to visualize, which is why Krishna had to grant Arjuna divine vision to be able to comprehend it. Doniger's use of the Abrahamic term "Doomsday" is loaded, because the understanding of comprehensive destruction or "Pralay" [3] in Hinduism is very different. Sure Doniger understands the difference, since she is a professor of Religious Studies. 4. She seems to be applying guilt-by-association by tying the Gita to the RSS and the assassination of Gandhi, and she criticizes Richard Davis for being too respectful of Hindu understanding of the Gita. Overall, the impression is that her anti-Hindutva agenda is spilling over into being an anti-Hindu agenda. [1] http://creative.sulekha.com/risa-lila-1-wendy-s-child-syndrome_103338_blog http://creative.sulekha.com/risa-lila-1-wendy-s-child-syndro... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War#Krishna.27s_peace_mission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War#Krishna.27s_pea... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pralaya http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pralaya

dharmach 12y ago
being christian fundamentalist, her stance is obvious.
- tn13 12y ago
  She is Jew.
  - selimthegrim 12y ago
    It's nice to know you've raised it to the status of a collective noun. I suppose you figure you're doing a favor by not calling her a Jewess.
    - tn13 12y ago
      Yours comment have added the great value to a discussion for which I thanks you.
  - dharmach 12y ago
    My bad, should have checked. All hate mongers may not be fundamentalist.
- bushido 12y ago
  Congratulations, for aptly demonstrating how ad hominem attacks work.
wozniacki 12y ago
I recently asked a similar question on the larger historiography of India and its relative lack of clarity, here on HN [1] Is India's history and the study of that history, really so murky that it is uniquely mired in so much debate, that any form of consensus, at least among objective outsiders and non-stakeholders, cannot be arrived at? Surely the Indian subcontinent could not be the only place where scant archaeological evidence and written records remain. Historians do construct rudimentary historical narratives - albeit however poor and discontinuous - from similarly poor records, elsewhere. Don't they? This leads to the more troubling question of the state of historiography at large. Is the writing of history largely political, even in this day? Is it groomed by the prevailing norms, mores and sentiments of society? Is academia - whether in the West or elsewhere - still a forbidding place for contrarians and detractors ? If enough institutional power is brought to bear on the historical study of a certain region, people of that region and the culture of that region, could the history of that region be - for all intents and purposes - be whitewashed? I know historical revisionism and self-censorship - in some quarters of Western academia - has been in full vogue for quite some time. If a relatively secular and democratic India, poses these problems for scholars, I can easily imagine whole departments & institutes at prestigious academies of higher learning, engaged in the study of even more problematic places like the Middle East (for reasons of hurting Islamic sentiments), China (for reasons of risking bristling a rising economic power) and Africa (for reasons of regret, for the ravaging the continent has endured at the hands of Western powers), being persuaded to cast their findings in a more positive light - or at least in less negative light - should they want their research be continually well funded through grants and bequests, from benefactors both public and private. It greatly saddens and irks me at the same time, to ask this because I fear that my thoughts and suspicions, might actually be validated. Are we still living through the effects of a post-colonial interpretation of historiography ? In 2014 ? Really ? [1] Did The Harappan Civilization Avoid War for 2,000 Years? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8627192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8627192 edit:Formatting
shas3 12y ago
You do realize that all that you said, and all that Wendy Doniger says can be simultaneously true? Attempts at a singular interpretation of the Indian epics will always be incomplete. As the late University of Chicago scholar, AK Ramanujan pointed out in his essay 'Three Hundred Ramayanas', these texts were written and rewritten in several historical, political, and geographic contexts. One can think of these different 're-writes' and 'edits' as an inseparable intertwining of threads. It is almost impossible to identify which epoch and political context each part of the Indian epics emerged from. In short, no single mass of 'traditional understanding' can be considered as benchmarks. [1] 'The Collected Essays of AK Ramanujan,' Ed. Vinay Dharwadker, Oxford University Press, 2004. http://trans-techresearch.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/three-hundred-Ramayanas-A-K-Ramanujan.pdf http://trans-techresearch.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/thr...
- ubasu 12y ago
  Are there alternate versions of the Mahabharat where Krishna does not go to the Kauravas with a peace treaty and where the war happens before such a peace effort? To whoever downvoted this: note that I was trying to highlight the logical fallacy in the parent comment, which was using the existence of different versions of the Ramayana to make a sweeping generalization about the Mahabharata without providing proof specific about the latter.
srean 12y ago
> 2. Doniger says that the war was "lawless", but the Mahabharata war was an attempt at a "just" war, as understood in its contemporary context. Deviations from just behaviour are noted and held up as examples of unjust behaviour. I dont think you are being fair here. Yes you correctly observe that deviations were noted. But it really is in the lines of recognition of horror that by the end of 18 days almost every single edict of a 'just' war had been ground to the dust with Krishna himself instigating / provoking many such acts, bending laws of nature so that those he favors come out unscathed even if the opponents reaction was justified. Several times had it not been for Krishna's divine intervention, the opponents would have prevailed. If I were to count all the violations I would soon lose track, they accumulate a momentum of a relentless avalanche, both sides participating in equal measure, culminating in a night attack on women and children. So "rules of fair engagement be damned" is certainly not a mischaracterization of what transpired. Yepp! laws were there and agreed upon [0], but once things got rolling they mattered little in the execution. Deceit, violation of rules and gaming the system, ruled supreme in _every_freaking_single_ contest among the (significant) warriors. Rarely was a contest won solely by mastery of weapons. So I am unfortunately forced to file this under "some guy on the internet bristling at the thought of a non-hindu commenting on hindu text". I honestly fail to see what is so anti-Hindu in the article. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War#Rules_of_engagement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War#Rules_of_engage... > Doniger's use of the Abrahamic term "Doomsday" is loaded, what is your point here, seems a desperate act of clutching at straws.
- tn13 12y ago
  The war had laws. That few were broken does not mean the war was lawless. The rules of engagement in the Wikipedia article is a mere summary. The original critical edition of Mahabharata published by BORI has even more details. For example how the wounded had to be moved and what is to be done with dead bodies of men and animals etc. The laws mattered and were followed. Wendy's summary of Mahabharata was as merely "lawless war" is thus completely false.
  - srean 12y ago
    Hi tn13 I agree with every bit of what you said except the last bit, I think you are over scrutinizing. A situation where I break the law whenever it is advantageous for me to break them is pretty 'lawless' to me. A murderer is still a murderer even if there are thousands of people he / she did not murder. Whether something is lawful or lawless matters only when it flies against convenience / dominance (much like free speech). The laws might, in such a situation, exist on paper but in practice that is not how things got executed. So if the execution of the war was being described, it would not be an unfair adjective to use. More so because the fact that all fair use rules were dropped plays an important narrative role in the epic. The reader is supposed to shudder that this happened, it is a deliberate plot point, if you will, to show the fall from grace of humanity.

by ubasu 12y ago

dharmach 12y ago

being christian fundamentalist, her stance is obvious.

tn13 12y ago
She is Jew.
- selimthegrim 12y ago
  It's nice to know you've raised it to the status of a collective noun. I suppose you figure you're doing a favor by not calling her a Jewess.
  - tn13 12y ago
    Yours comment have added the great value to a discussion for which I thanks you.
- dharmach 12y ago
  My bad, should have checked. All hate mongers may not be fundamentalist.
bushido 12y ago
Congratulations, for aptly demonstrating how ad hominem attacks work.

wozniacki 12y ago

I recently asked a similar question on the larger historiography of India and its relative lack of clarity, here on HN [1] Is India's history and the study of that history, really so murky that it is uniquely mired in so much debate, that any form of consensus, at least among objective outsiders and non-stakeholders, cannot be arrived at? Surely the Indian subcontinent could not be the only place where scant archaeological evidence and written records remain. Historians do construct rudimentary historical narratives - albeit however poor and discontinuous - from similarly poor records, elsewhere. Don't they? This leads to the more troubling question of the state of historiography at large. Is the writing of history largely political, even in this day? Is it groomed by the prevailing norms, mores and sentiments of society? Is academia - whether in the West or elsewhere - still a forbidding place for contrarians and detractors ? If enough institutional power is brought to bear on the historical study of a certain region, people of that region and the culture of that region, could the history of that region be - for all intents and purposes - be whitewashed? I know historical revisionism and self-censorship - in some quarters of Western academia - has been in full vogue for quite some time. If a relatively secular and democratic India, poses these problems for scholars, I can easily imagine whole departments & institutes at prestigious academies of higher learning, engaged in the study of even more problematic places like the Middle East (for reasons of hurting Islamic sentiments), China (for reasons of risking bristling a rising economic power) and Africa (for reasons of regret, for the ravaging the continent has endured at the hands of Western powers), being persuaded to cast their findings in a more positive light - or at least in less negative light - should they want their research be continually well funded through grants and bequests, from benefactors both public and private. It greatly saddens and irks me at the same time, to ask this because I fear that my thoughts and suspicions, might actually be validated. Are we still living through the effects of a post-colonial interpretation of historiography ? In 2014 ? Really ? [1] Did The Harappan Civilization Avoid War for 2,000 Years? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8627192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8627192 edit:Formatting

shas3 12y ago

You do realize that all that you said, and all that Wendy Doniger says can be simultaneously true? Attempts at a singular interpretation of the Indian epics will always be incomplete. As the late University of Chicago scholar, AK Ramanujan pointed out in his essay 'Three Hundred Ramayanas', these texts were written and rewritten in several historical, political, and geographic contexts. One can think of these different 're-writes' and 'edits' as an inseparable intertwining of threads. It is almost impossible to identify which epoch and political context each part of the Indian epics emerged from. In short, no single mass of 'traditional understanding' can be considered as benchmarks. [1] 'The Collected Essays of AK Ramanujan,' Ed. Vinay Dharwadker, Oxford University Press, 2004. http://trans-techresearch.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/three-hundred-Ramayanas-A-K-Ramanujan.pdf http://trans-techresearch.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/thr...

ubasu 12y ago
Are there alternate versions of the Mahabharat where Krishna does not go to the Kauravas with a peace treaty and where the war happens before such a peace effort? To whoever downvoted this: note that I was trying to highlight the logical fallacy in the parent comment, which was using the existence of different versions of the Ramayana to make a sweeping generalization about the Mahabharata without providing proof specific about the latter.

srean 12y ago

> 2. Doniger says that the war was "lawless", but the Mahabharata war was an attempt at a "just" war, as understood in its contemporary context. Deviations from just behaviour are noted and held up as examples of unjust behaviour. I dont think you are being fair here. Yes you correctly observe that deviations were noted. But it really is in the lines of recognition of horror that by the end of 18 days almost every single edict of a 'just' war had been ground to the dust with Krishna himself instigating / provoking many such acts, bending laws of nature so that those he favors come out unscathed even if the opponents reaction was justified. Several times had it not been for Krishna's divine intervention, the opponents would have prevailed. If I were to count all the violations I would soon lose track, they accumulate a momentum of a relentless avalanche, both sides participating in equal measure, culminating in a night attack on women and children. So "rules of fair engagement be damned" is certainly not a mischaracterization of what transpired. Yepp! laws were there and agreed upon [0], but once things got rolling they mattered little in the execution. Deceit, violation of rules and gaming the system, ruled supreme in _every_freaking_single_ contest among the (significant) warriors. Rarely was a contest won solely by mastery of weapons. So I am unfortunately forced to file this under "some guy on the internet bristling at the thought of a non-hindu commenting on hindu text". I honestly fail to see what is so anti-Hindu in the article. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War#Rules_of_engagement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War#Rules_of_engage... > Doniger's use of the Abrahamic term "Doomsday" is loaded, what is your point here, seems a desperate act of clutching at straws.

tn13 12y ago
The war had laws. That few were broken does not mean the war was lawless. The rules of engagement in the Wikipedia article is a mere summary. The original critical edition of Mahabharata published by BORI has even more details. For example how the wounded had to be moved and what is to be done with dead bodies of men and animals etc. The laws mattered and were followed. Wendy's summary of Mahabharata was as merely "lawless war" is thus completely false.
- srean 12y ago
  Hi tn13 I agree with every bit of what you said except the last bit, I think you are over scrutinizing. A situation where I break the law whenever it is advantageous for me to break them is pretty 'lawless' to me. A murderer is still a murderer even if there are thousands of people he / she did not murder. Whether something is lawful or lawless matters only when it flies against convenience / dominance (much like free speech). The laws might, in such a situation, exist on paper but in practice that is not how things got executed. So if the execution of the war was being described, it would not be an unfair adjective to use. More so because the fact that all fair use rules were dropped plays an important narrative role in the epic. The reader is supposed to shudder that this happened, it is a deliberate plot point, if you will, to show the fall from grace of humanity.