Forums
False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - Printable Version

+- Forums (http://india-forum.com)
+-- Forum: Indian History & Culture (http://india-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=3)
+--- Forum: Indian Culture (http://india-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=11)
+--- Thread: False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion (/showthread.php?tid=412)

Pages: 1 2 3 4

False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - Guest - 07-01-2007

<b>East fights back ‘sacrilege’ by West: DNA </b>
http://zeenews.com/articles.asp?rep=2&aid=379917&sid=NEW



Mumbai, June 30: Indian scholars collate evidence to unearth fraud in anti-Hindu writings by western writers in ‘Invading the Sacred’.

It is one book which will start a debate challenging the portrayal of India and its culture by the West. Leading scholars and academicians have now put the weight of their experience and research to challenge the Western pictures of India, its religion and problems.

Invading the Sacred (Rupa), which releases in Mumbai today, is a searching analysis on the academic study of religion by the strong 8,000 university professors who view India as a chaotic backward place and the American business schools who look upon India as a land of opportunity.

The book kicks off a new trend in literature – countering ideas and thoughts on Indian culture, especially Hinduism, by academic papers by Indian authors. “This negativity is caused by a lack of rigorous training in Indian languages and cultural nuances, excessive reliance on psychoanalysis — often by untrained scholars — and breakdown of the peer-review process,” said Krishnan Ramaswamy, one of the editors of the book.

Through many examples, these biases are examined and a careful and evidence-based debunking of the fabrications made (see box). The American scholars’ constant reference to Indian culture as pathological abusive prompted Diaspora intellectual Rajiv Malhotra, who runs the Infinity Foundation, to coin the term Hinduphobia, to expose this bias. The Foundation has given away millions in the last 10 years to top academic scholars of various disciplines to promote knowledge and rigorous study of India and Indic religions like Hinduism and Buddhism.


False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - agnivayu - 07-02-2007

It's Paki Muslim racist propaganda, I have never heard any Hindu insult another Hindu like this. Seems too childish to even be true.
Ever notice how Abrahamic fascists/ Mono (Monotheist) fascists always are accusing of things with no evidence to back it up. Of course their filthy history is full of racism, murder, rape and slaughter. Usually a criminal will try to cover their tracks by accusing others, something to think about when Hindus get accused of all kinds of nonsense.

In the Wall Street Journal recently there was an article on Untouchables in India, full of fake Christian hate propaganda. In the end it says, the Dalit (with a Christian name, lying f*ck is a Xtian missionary probably) says an apartment owner said Brahmin's only. Now how many people who have actually lived in India believe that a Tech Company or a owner of an apartment building would say that. That's a blatant damn lie told by Mono-fascists. Liars always fail in the end, we can take strength from that.
If all this propaganda about Hinduism is true, why have we been around for 5000+ years ? Why didn't Hindus convert to Islam or Christianity when India was oppressed by those imperialist pigs for years ?




<!--QuoteBegin-Bharatvarsh+Jun 18 2007, 08:43 AM-->QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Jun 18 2007, 08:43 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->First off how do we even know this moron is telling the truth about the mandir incident, it could simply be made up BS, also how do we even know he is what he claims to be, any wanker on the net can make an id for himself and claim some identity and no one would know.
[right][snapback]70245[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - agnivayu - 07-02-2007

http://www.amazon.com/invading-Krishnan-Ra...83346643&sr=8-1

I see this book on amazon. Is it a good book to buy or it secular propaganda?, it's got a Christian name as one of the authors.




<!--QuoteBegin-k.ram+Jul 1 2007, 11:36 PM-->QUOTE(k.ram @ Jul 1 2007, 11:36 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->

<b>East fights back ‘sacrilege’ by West: DNA  </b>
http://zeenews.com/articles.asp?rep=2&aid=379917&sid=NEW



Mumbai, June 30: Indian scholars collate evidence to unearth fraud in anti-Hindu writings by western writers in ‘Invading the Sacred’.

It is one book which will start a debate challenging the portrayal of India and its culture by the West. Leading scholars and academicians have now put the weight of their experience and research to challenge the Western pictures of India, its religion and problems.

Invading the Sacred (Rupa), which releases in Mumbai today, is a searching analysis on the academic study of religion by the strong 8,000 university professors who view India as a chaotic backward place and the American business schools who look upon India as a land of opportunity.

The book kicks off a new trend in literature – countering ideas and thoughts on Indian culture, especially Hinduism, by academic papers by Indian authors. “This negativity is caused by a lack of rigorous training in Indian languages and cultural nuances, excessive reliance on psychoanalysis — often by untrained scholars — and breakdown of the peer-review process,” said Krishnan Ramaswamy, one of the editors of the book.

Through many examples, these biases are examined and a careful and evidence-based debunking of the fabrications made (see box). The American scholars’ constant reference to Indian culture as pathological abusive prompted Diaspora intellectual Rajiv Malhotra, who runs the Infinity Foundation, to coin the term Hinduphobia, to expose this bias. The Foundation has given away millions in the last 10 years to top academic scholars of various disciplines to promote knowledge and rigorous study of India and Indic religions like Hinduism and Buddhism.
[right][snapback]70684[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - Guest - 07-02-2007

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>A dark, distorted Hinduism</b>

Tavleen Singh

The future president of India speaks to dead people. This is almost worse than her shady past. And very worrying that India’s first citizen should represent the obscurantist and weird underbelly of the Hindu religion instead of its magnificent philosophy and enlightened idea of faith. That idea simply put is: ‘This is our understanding of the way the cosmos works, but if you have a better idea, please come and tell us.’ In these jehadi times, when Islamists run around the globe killing innocent people to prove that their Prophet and their book are the best, now and forever, the Hindu idea becomes even more relevant. What grander idea of faith can there be than that everyone is entitled to their own truth? What we do not need is a president who sees dead people and makes it sound as if this is routine Hindu practice.

Shortly after I watched Pratibha Patil pronounce on national television last week that she was accustomed to having little chats with her dead guru, I went to lunch with a man who has spent ten years trying to convince American academia that what is being taught as Hinduism in American universities is rubbish. His name is Rajiv Malhotra and he took early retirement from the world of business to try and do something good for mankind. He was not sure how to channel this desire and it was by chance that he stumbled upon what has become his mission in life: rectifying the false idea of Hinduism that is being taught in American universities.

While wandering through the halls of academia he discovered the works of a group of highly regarded American professors who have written scholarly tomes on Hinduism that make it sound like a mix of voodoo and pornography.

Hindu gods and religious symbols have been put through Freudian analysis to establish such bizarre conclusions as Ganesha’s trunk representing a “flaccid phallus” and his love of sweets as a desire for oral sex. He also has Oedipal problems!

This Freudian analysis goes beyond the gods to actual Hindu religious practices, and it is then that these scholars show not just their abysmal ignorance but their deliberate distortion of reality.

They teach students in American universities that Brahmins drink menstrual blood and other human fluids and that this is Tantra. They teach that Shiva temples are dens of vice where priests routinely murder and rape unsuspecting pilgrims.

Malhotra became passionately engaged in proving that this view of Hinduism was nonsense and the result of his efforts is a book, sponsored by his Infinity Foundation, called Invading the Sacred. It comes out next week.

As someone who believes that an Indian renaissance will only happen if we go beyond the taboos of ‘secularism’ and teach our children about India’s civilisation, I found the book worthwhile reading. It made me realise that the reason why dodgy scholars from a distant land have succeeded in becoming ‘experts’ on our civilisation is because our own scholars do not tread in this territory for fear of being branded with that much reviled word — Hindutva.

When you read the book, you also realise that these so-called experts would have no currency if they were not aided and abetted by Indians like Amartya Sen, who attend their conferences and support their ignorant theories.

According to Invading the Sacred, Sen attended a recent conference at the University of Chicago, where, along with Hinduism ‘experts’ like Wendy Doniger and Martha Nussbaum, he backed the idea that Hindu fanatics were a bigger threat to Indian democracy than the Islamists.

Nussbaum is quoted as saying, “Thinking about India is instructive to Americans who in an age of terrorism can easily oversimplify pictures of the forces that threaten democracy . . . in India, the threat to democratic ideals comes not from a Muslim threat, but from Hindu groups.”

That sounds like a joke, but you will stop finding it funny if you remember that the current dispensation in Delhi is supported by Marxists, who openly state that they consider Hindutva a bigger threat than jehadi Islam. In pursuance of this belief, our Marxist parties support Iran’s efforts to make a nuclear bomb but oppose our own. The damage they have done goes beyond the political, for it is largely on account of ‘secular’ leftist pressure that Indian civilisation remains untaught in our schools and universities.

Indian students who want to learn about their religion and civilisation have to go to foreign universities where they are taught that Hinduism has no philosophy or higher idea, only a pantheon of badly behaved gods and priests. Until Indian scholars work actively to rectify this scandalous distortion, it will prevail. But where are the scholars going to come from if our own universities do not produce them?

Meanwhile, we are going to have a president who speaks to dead people.

http://www.indianexpress.com/iep/sunday/story/203405.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - acharya - 07-30-2007

The big plot to denigrate India

FIRST TIME AN INDIAN REBUTTAL TO WESTERN BIAS
By R. Balashankar

Can perversity get lower than this? In the name of religious studies, a syndicate of scholars in America is spewing muck on Hinduism.

Religions In South Asia (RISA), a department under the American Academy of Religion (AAR), has been sponsoring studies for years now to deride Hinduism. Our gods and goddesses like Ganesha, Shiva, Parvati, Laxmi and Kali, our rituals like Upanayana our saints like Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa and scriptures, Mahabharata, Ramayana and Gita all have come under such distasteful sexual connotation and nauseating voyeurism that one begins to wonder if it can at all be called academics.

And for the first time ever, the Hindus are replying them in an organised, cohesive manner. A recently published book Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America has documented the Hindu response to this academic distortion. Edited by Dr. Krishnan Ramaswamy, a scientist, Dr. Antonio T. de Nicolas, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York, Stony Brook and Aditi Banerjee, a practicing attorney in New York, the book opens our eyes to the way the western mind perceives us.

The book exposes how and why the image of India as a culture of series of abuses like sati, dowry, caste conflicts and worship of grotesque deities has persisted. This is not the result of mere personal prejudices but is the result of a sustained, well-entrenched institutional mechanism. “Starting in well-respected, ostensibly ‘research based’ but culturally parochial halls of American and western academe, these images filter down into mainstream western culture where they acquire an incredible force in shaping how India is seen.” (p 2, Why this book is important).

While the American business schools view India as a nation throbbing with creativity, the academia views it as chaotic, backward looking and negative. Organiser cannot and will not repeat what the American scholars on Hinduism have said for which they received Ph.Ds and awards because they are lewd, below the dignity of any self-respecting Hindu to read.

In this scheme of the westerners, the Indian scholars are carefully recruited into, in the lure of foreign scholarships, degrees and placements. The Indians into the club are chosen carefully. They are the traditional looking ones—women in saree and big bindi and men in the traditional dhoti and kurta.

Says Rajiv Malhotra, one of the early persons to respond to this academic fraud, that “while Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Korean, Arabs and even the various European cultures such as Irish, Italian and French have actively funded and managed American academic representation of their cultural identities, Indian-Americans have been largely content with building temples, while their cultural portrayal in the education system and in the media has been abandoned to the tender mercies of the dominant western traditions.’

The book extensively quotes from Malhotra’s RISA Lila-1, Wendy’s Child Syndrome an essay that exposed the games that the Religions In South Asia played under the leadership of Wendy Doniger, a past president of the AAR. She is the leader of the syndicate working on the anti-Hinduism campaign and is now the director of a centre in the University of Chicago and is part of the decision making in several academic bodies. She is influential and an “acknowledged” Sanskrit translator. Her translations are relied upon as the main source by many students of religious studies throughout America.

The studies sponsored by and under her have this to say. Ganesha and Shiva were in a war because of jealousy over Parvati. That Ganesha’s tusk represents a limp penis. That ‘tantra’ is a sexual exercise and Devi is a female with male genital, representing extreme sexuality, that Ramakrishna Paramahansa was a pedophile. We now know where M.F. Hussain got his inspiration from.

An allegedly ‘well-researched’ book on Paramahansa, written by Jeffrey Kripal, who stayed at the Ramakrishna Mutt in Calcutta to research for the book, shook the disciples of the mutt so much that they were stunned to silence initially. A student of Doniger, Kripal won an award for his book from the AAR and the Encyclopaedia Britannica listed it as the best reference on Ramakrishna. Swami Tyagananda of the Mutt then wrote a rebuttal to this book and asked Kripal to annex it in his book, for the sake of academic ethics, but he refused. The normal course in which this material should be available—journals, university press, appointment committees, curricula development and conference—are controlled by the Wendy syndicate so that Swami Tyagananda’s rebuttal is not available for either purchase in bookstores or in universities and libraries for reference. (p. 111)

Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopaedia, one of the most widely referred sites by children, had a section on Hinduism, contributed by Doniger. Sankrant Sahu, an independent scholar and a manager in Microsoft pointed out the biases it contained. Finally, Microsoft withdrew the entry and replaced it with a version authored by Arvind Sharma, from McGill University, Montreal.

Stanley Kurtz, an anthropologist in Indian studies, says in his book Vishnu on Freud’s Desk, co-edited incidentally by the infamous Kirpal that the mothers in India do not have “a western-style loving, emotional partnership with their babies.” (p 60)

Islam, however, does not receive this treatment from the western scholars. They in fact struggle to reinterpret Islam and give it an emphasis of higher learning despite resistance from within Islam. “The western academic repacking and facelift of Islam is certainly a good project … Unfortunately, a different standard is being applied in Hinduism, despite the fact that its history and liberty of texts cry out loudly and clearly in favour of multiple layers of meanings and interpretations.” Probably, terror works on academics and Hindus might learn an underlying meaning in this.

In all the distorted writings on Hinduism, the Hindu scholars see the hidden hand and thread of Christianity running. Dr. Balagangadhara, Director of the Research Centre of Comparative Science of Cultures in Ghent University, Belgium, says, “Christianity spreads in two ways: through conversion and through secularization.”

While we in India are directly familiar with the first way, we are also familiar but probably not aware of the latter way. What secularization means he says, “is to de-de-Christianize Christianity… Christian doctrines spread wide and deep (beyond the confines of Christian believers) in the society dressed up in ‘secular’ (that is, not in recognizably ‘Christian’) clothes.” (p 129). That is the reason how we have a whole population of “secular” Hindus.

Any attempt to counter this academic cartel is branded vociferously as ‘Hindutva’, ‘saffron’ and ‘fundamentalism.’

Commenting on the kind of introductory lessons prescribed in courses, the book asks if the reverse is applied to Christianity, for example if we have an introductory lesson on that religion which states that “Catholic churches are notorious for all kinds of extreme practices from rape of children to official protection for the rapists over the decades.” Would a lesson like this ever be allowed in India, though all these can be proved by supporting data? (p 57)

For someone who has made a living out of Hinduism, Wendy Doniger accused the Hindu right in India of “shoving Sanskrit down the throat” of Indians. T. Desai, a student of University of Chicago, relates an anecdote on Wendy. While attending a lecture by her on Mahabharata, he was amazed “how she lectured on Indian politics. I wonder if they also discuss Bush’s funding of faith based organizations in Latin classes … She even described the meeting between Arjuna and Indra, (son and father) when Indra places him in his lap and caresses his arm, as ‘homoerotic.” (p 465)

Martha Nussbaum, one of the so-called scholars of the Wendy team, said this about India in the presence of Amartya Sen, at a conference in Chicago recently, “Thinking about India is instructive to Americans, who in an age of terrorism can easily over-simplify pictures of the forces that threaten democracy…In India, the threat to democratic ideas comes not from a Muslim threat, but from Hindu groups.” (p 3). Could anything be more bizarre than this? Sen is not known to have countered this either at that forum or later.
<b>
The book also has a section devoted to how the American media, both the mainstream and the regional, have treated the Hindu stories.</b> How the Indian and Hindu scholars have been left aghast by the twists given in the article, for which quotes were taken from them.

Invading the Sacred gives voice to millions of Hindus world over who have been hearing and suffering the abuse of our religion. The issue is now joined and joined well.

(Invading the Sacred, An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America; Publisher: Rupa & Co. 7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002; pp 545; price: Rs. 595)




False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - acharya - 08-03-2007

Review -Dr V V Raman





Review of: Invading the sacred: An analysis of Hinduism Studies in America, edited by Krishnan Ramaswamy, Antonio de Nicolas, Aditi Banerjee, Rupa & Co. New Delhi, India. 2007.



Roots of the book



Like the multiplicity of the authors who have contributed to this volume, many factors have converged to create this book. These include a growing dissatisfaction with Western images of the non-West, the application of inappropriate methodology for understanding traditional worldviews, and the continued hegemony of the West even in matters that don't concern it, such as what Hindus think about their puranas. Already in the first decades of the twentieth century, many Indian thinkers declared that Indic culture cannot be subjected to, much less analyzed through the blurred lens of Western rationality. Indeed it may be said more generally that scientific probing and cold rationality can never grasp the full significance of any living tradition.

But the primary catalyst for this book was Rajiv Malhotra, a thinker, scholar, idealist, and activist, besides having been a highly successful entrepreneur more than a decade ago. He is a thinker in that he reflects deeply on important issues, a scholar in that he is widely read in history and current cultural debates, an idealist in wanting to see a world where all cultures and civilizations receive equal and fair treatment; and an activist in that he has been participating in conferences, organizing meetings, giving lectures, writing provocative essays, and funding projects, all with one goal in mind: To correct what many people perceive as distortions and misrepresentations of the Hindu world and of Indic traditions in North America. In a single decade he has achieved more in this endeavor than many authors who are read and appreciated by countless people.



The book's relevance and thesis

No matter how one reacts to it - and it is bound to touch large numbers of people, lay and scholarly - this book is likely to become a landmark in the history of India-related studies. It dissects a number of cases in which scholarly commentaries on aspects of Hindu thought, lore, and religion have been incorrect and offensive. It focuses primarily on the writings of six authors (of whom I will mention but three), and it argues that their callous misrepresentations are systemic to Eurocentric commentaries on other cultures.

The book is a strong and considered response to Western Freudian scholarship on Hinduism, which, the authors contend, has missed the mark altogether. Essentially the thesis is this: Obsessed by the Freudian approach to life and literature, some American scholars have transformed Puranic mythopoesie into pure pornography, examined a highly revered spiritual personage's life in homo-erotic terms, and desecrated the lofty vision of a time-honored Hindu deity by reducing it to sexual allegory.

Aside from deliberately sinister analyses of scriptures, saints and symbols, the journalistic portrayal of Indic culture has generally been in terms of cows and castes, superstitions and satis, daughters-in-law and dowries, monkeys and masalas. A growing number of English-reading Hindus in the West are not willing to tolerate such selective sketches of a dynamic civilization to which they are heirs. Such writings have pushed many Hindus in America beyond what Eric Sharpe called the response threshold. Put differently, that's when the target group says, "Enough is enough!"

The chapters in the book are by different authors, and most of them are inspired by the extensive writings of Rajiv Malhotra. They examine the questionable, and to Hindus also objectionable, theses based on gross psychoanalytic interpretations. The chapters are replete with examples of unwarranted extrapolations, distorted interpretations, and ridiculous caricatures. Such writings may be okay for Western specialists who examine Hinduism like entomologists dissecting bees and grasshoppers. But they are confusing and misleading, distorted and dangerous.



New framework and clumsy translations

With the awakening that has come about after European de-colonization of the world, non-Western intellectuals have begun to challenge Western scholars on their own terms. They are no longer constrained by the subservient posture which a hundred years of British colonialism had inflicted on the Hindu psyche. Yet, the historical rancor against the West inevitably lingers on in the pages of this book.

Viewed as grades from professors for reports submitted by students, the appraisal of the Western scholars who are probed in this book are pretty low. Considered as serious reactions of thoughtful people of the tradition, the chapters take on a punishing tone. The expertise or lack thereof in Sanskrit of Wendy Doniger, a scholar who has published extensively on the Vedas and the Puranas, is ridiculed with some devastating quotes from a leading Harvard authority on Sanskrit. One of these is to the effect that an erudite Sanskritist could "count 43 instances (in a hymn of 18 stanzas translated by Doniger) which are wrong or where others would easily disagree."

Jeffrey Kripal, author of the now notorious Kali's Child that received an award from the American Academy of Religion, is castigated for (among other things) his audacity to translate texts from Bengali, a language he had by no means mastered, in order to use them for his psychoanalytic evaluation of Sri Ramakrishna. We read of him (as judged by a renowned professor of psychology in Kolkata) that his "understanding of a mystic such as Ramakrishna is ... a mishmash of psychoanalytic apples and oranges..."

Paul Courtright, a professor of Religious studies at Emory University, is severely taken to task not only for his callous indifference to millions of Hindus in publishing his obscene doctoral dissertation (which contains numerous Sanskrit errors) on the First God of Hindus, but also for his repeated misconstruing of the puranas on which much of his work on Ganesha is based. Referring to Courtright's libidinous interpretation of the staff used in the upanayanam ceremony, the authors write, "One would normally expect such interpretations from juveniles who have watched too many Hollywood movies. Not from an academic in an 'award winning' book."

It may be unfortunate that the footnoted writings of some reputed scholars who have dedicated their professional careers to what they thought was serious studies of Hinduism have been mercilessly downgraded by scholars from within the Hindu tradition. But this was unavoidable. Sooner or later it had to come.

It must be emphasized that though here and there broad generalizations are made about Western views on Indian culture, this book is essentially about scholarly Freudian fantasies in the Hindu context. It details the history of these publications and the reactions of Hindus, as also the way American academia in this field handled those reactions. This was either by ignoring them or by ad hominem attacks on their critics. In this context, the book draws attention to media bias in mainstream American press, even in pieces written by Hindu journalists. It also reports that Hindu voices have sometimes been suppressed in the academy's listserv. The broader theme of Eurocentrism is not of central concern here, though there are hints that the books cited represent the intrinsic urge of the West to look down upon the non-West. Indeed, that could well be the subject matter of another book.



Multiplicity of views among Hindus

I applaud this work for the thorough, systematic, and incisive critiques it has launched from Hindu perspectives on writings by people who have no empathy for the tradition about which they write profusely, basing themselves on book knowledge, a few field trips, and anthropological participation in Hindu festivities. But it should also be mentioned that not all Hindus share the views expressed in this volume. There are Hindu academics, both in India and abroad, who look upon some of these matters not very differently from how some Western scholars do. The person in charge of the American Academy of Religion's listserv, who is said to be insensitive to Hindu perspectives, is a Hindu scholar. What this means is that there are vigorous intra-cultural debates on these issues, as there should be in any dynamic civilization. Unfortunately, those who speak for the tradition are sometimes caricatured as mindless fundamentalists wearing trousers instead of saffron robes, and skeptical non-traditionalists are sometimes looked upon as unwitting agents of the colonizers, pathetic victims of Thomas Babington Macaulay, by their respective ideological adversaries.

In any case, it is commendable that traditional Hindus by and large have not resorted to threats or violent behavior in their anger and frustration on reading some of the passages in the works analyzed here.



Possible impacts

This book could have three kinds of impact: From now on, many scholars, Hindu and non-Hindu, may become extremely cautious about what they publish on traditional Hindu themes. This could be viewed as a damper on freedom of expression, but also as an antidote to irresponsible commentaries. Another effect of the book could be that in the future there may be a decreasing number of non-Hindus who choose to pursue Hindu studies as a life-long commitment, because they may see this to be a rather risky profession. This may or may not be a loss for Hindu scholarship. Or thirdly, the whole field may be influenced in positive ways if outsiders take seriously the insights and perspectives that insiders provide.

Given that throughout the book there is little of anything positive in Western scholarship and attitudes, I am somewhat concerned that those unfamiliar with the openness of Western societies and the positive contributions of Western science and enlightenment, and are legitimately ill-disposed towards America at the present time for various other reasons might get the impression that every American harbors Hinduphobia, and that all American scholars are working in cahoots to denigrate Hinduism and Hindu culture. I am not persuaded that this is the case.

As a Hindu American I am as much concerned about the demonization of all Americans as of all Hindus. There is potential for such an impression despite the fact that the book explicitly limits itself to criticize one hermeneutics only, namely, Freudian psychoanalysis. However, while the book rightly exposes many intolerable aspects of Hindu studies in the U.S., it does not explicitly mention that there are also scholars in the United States who have genuine regard and respect for Hindu culture, religion, and civilization. In fact, some of them have contributed to this book. Others have embraced Hinduism themselves. Yet others are secular scholars who speak and write just as harshly about Christ and the Virgin Mary. It is also true that a Hindu woman was recently elected as President of the American Academy of Religion, Hindu scholars teach Hindu philosophy in American universities, one of them is Head of the Department of Religion in a Christian College in America, American universities host conferences on Hindu philosophy and Vedanta. The Metanexus Institute on Science and Religion elected a Hindu as their Senior Scholar prior to giving that honor in succeeding years to a Catholic theologian and a Jewish scholar. Many schools in America invite local Hindus to come and speak to their students about Hinduism, its worldviews, festivals, etc. There is a growing number of Interfaith Forums in the country where Hindus play important roles. Recently Hindu prayers were introduced in the American Senate.

There is no question but that courses on Hinduism taught in the United States could and should be vastly improved. This book is certain to contribute to that need. But it is also a fact that there are not many good textbooks for such courses written by competent Hindu scholars.



A note on the writing

Aside from the scholarly ammunition with which the fortress is stormed, every chapter in the book is written in exceptionally good English. The contents are cogently presented without being pedantic, the thesis is intelligently argued without being unduly offensive, the style is clear without being simplistic, and the language is elegant without being pompous. There are no awkward phrases or vernacularisms in the texts. English has certainly become yet another Indian language.



Concluding thoughts

This is, as I have noted earlier, undoubtedly an informative and provocative book, and it deserves to be read by all who are intellectually or emotionally affiliated to Hinduism. I hope that Western scholars will take due notice of it and don't brush it off as the angry outburst of emotionally driven Hindus. It would be good if Indian scholars who may disagree with the contents or perspectives of the book also engage in healthy discussions on its basic thesis. This publication may be taken as an opportunity to enter into mutually respectful and productive dialogues and debates, which can only serve the greater cause of Hindu culture at this important juncture in our history.

The issues relating to the portrayal of Hinduism and the nature of Western scholarship on Hinduism will be gaining importance in the coming years. All parties will be losers if the current state of inimical tension is allowed to fester and persist for long, and the diverging perspectives between insiders and outsiders are looked upon by both groups as classic conflicts between devas and asuras. The book diagnoses a serious problem, but now we must take the next step, which would be to explore effective ways to enhance the understanding of Hinduism, and elevate the quality of Hindu scholarship in the West and in India

My hope is that all the dust of divisive disagreements will settle down some day, and then scholars will write with empathy and respect for their subject, be critical when necessary without being biased or prejudiced, and will be honored and judged, not on the basis of their ethnicity or religious background, nationality or popular appeal, but for the significance, value, and validity of what they write. This book may well be the first step towards that goal.



Dr. V. V. Raman

Emeritus Professor of Physics and Humanities

Rochester Institute of Technology

July 7, 2007

http://invadingthesacred.com/content/view/35/52/



See also: V. Sundaram's review and notes on 'Defaming Hinduism' at the following 6 URLs:

http://newstodaynet.com/2007sud/jul07/170707.htm

http://newstodaynet.com/2007sud/jul07/190707.htm

http://newstodaynet.com/2007sud/jul07/200707.htm

http://newstodaynet.com/2007sud/jul07/210707.htm

http://newstodaynet.com/2007sud/jul07/230707.htm

http://newstodaynet.com/2007sud/jul07/240707.htm



False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - acharya - 08-07-2007



Readers’ Forum

Hindu bashing: I have been a regular reader of your magazine for almost a decade. The articles are great and thought-provoking. Time and again I used to wonder why the articles seem to be buried only in Organiser but never ever comes to light in any other publication. Today, media in India is the most active and has brought several issues to light but unfortunately the articles in Organiser never get read beyond the realms of the Organiser reading public. May I ask as to why the leading newspapers of our country shun the news items published in Organiser? Most news items found in the leading newspapers and magazines get a full-fledged follow-up in the electronic media with news channels vying with one another to bring even images of the news items. News items of Gujarat riots, Sabarimala priest escapades etc. all point out to Hindu bashing. We in Hindu India are treated worse than Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, the Indian and Pakistani Muslims look down upon Hindus and the poor Hindu keeps mum and takes all the insults. I wish to bring to your kind attention an incident, which I personally witnessed. The headmistress of the Indian Embassy School in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, who was an Indian national, reprimanded the Hindi teacher for teaching Namaste, as it was anti-Islamic and in fact gave a lecture for almost half an hour on the glories of Islam. The poor Hindi teacher was in tears and said sorry. To this apology, the headmistress said the Hindus are kafirs and will always remain third-grade cowards. Can I publish this in any leading Indian newspaper, as it is the truth? No. Such news items can be published only in Organiser and we are a secular country with a freedom of the Press!

—A.P. VENKATESHWAR Iyer
by e-mail



False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - Shambhu - 08-09-2007

Just some thoughts:

Everyone loves a winner. And everyone hates a loser.

As more and more truths about Dharma and Islam/Xtainity come out, more and more people will be proud of being Dharmic and more and more Muslims/Xtians will try to distance themselves from I/X. I have no illusions about the time scale on this, and neither do I think the 72-seeking jehadi or the $$$-seeking Vijay Parshads or Rajashekhar Reddys will stop their promotion of I/X and their vilification of SDharma, but the I/X to SD cultural migration will happen faster than people think (the physical conversion will take longer)..

False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - ramana - 09-17-2007

Two articles on the recent book on Indology in the US from Little India magazine

First is the review Invading the Sacred- Krishnan Ramaswamy

Second is the Rebuttal by Paul Courtwright

I think he gives the game away as to why Indology has to be pursued in the West.

False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - Guest - 09-17-2007

Time to educate late comers/lurkers about Paul Courtright.
Someone send off a nice letter to littleindia please.


Presentation done at Emory - Courtright's university
Talk accompanying the presentation
Ramesh Rao's talking points: Academic Freedom Versus Responsibility
Shree Vinekar's blast: "Prof. Courtright's Pseudo-psychoanalytic Depiction of Shri Ganesha - Authentic Scholarship or Bigotry?"
Summary remarks by Subash Razdan

Some references

False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - acharya - 09-18-2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhmHEyp6G_E

PATHETIC HINDUS AND THEIR RELIGION
beore you hindus cheek to comment just look into your own miseries and incest stricken hinduism


False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - acharya - 09-18-2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw_38AoBa-M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhmHEyp6G_E



False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - acharya - 09-18-2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPchL6dhhI4

How to do dawah to a Hindu

False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - acharya - 09-18-2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nFppxXzdCQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVeXdw3vkoA



False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - Guest - 09-18-2007

Dude I cannot tolerate misinformations like this... I did not watched the video but a begining part of the first video just saw it are all the videos like this only? I might know where the first video came from, but isnt it funny for propagandic gains how it states 'brother-sister' relation as perversion when their own religion promotes the same.


False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - Guest - 09-18-2007

Acharya: Who are these people? Any reason we need to divert traffic to their websites?

False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - acharya - 09-18-2007

We need proper replies for such falsehood.

We need more brains and people to come up with answers so that such uninformed falsehood are removed and the truth is open

False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - Guest - 09-18-2007

We have brains and answers and all. What we don't have is time to reply to each and every nut out there on cyberspace. It's futile to chase these wackos. It's like that whack-the-mole game where you whack one and other one pops up. And you are spending time doing this again and again and again.
It makes better sense to focus on those who have a influence and sway over larger groups and target their racist bigotry.

False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - acharya - 09-19-2007

<!--QuoteBegin-Viren+Sep 18 2007, 06:19 AM-->QUOTE(Viren @ Sep 18 2007, 06:19 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->We have brains and answers and all. What we don't have is time to reply to each and every nut out there on cyberspace. It's futile to chase these wackos. It's like that whack-the-mole game where you whack one and other one pops up. And you are spending time doing this again and again and again.
It makes better sense to focus on those who have a influence and sway over larger groups and target their racist bigotry.
[right][snapback]73314[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

THe message has to be out in YouTube. The Truth has to be out in the open

It is not about chasing but real information has to be out

Like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfNyJ8pkulg

False Potrayal Of Hinduism/hindu Religion - acharya - 09-19-2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbToQCbZOOo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUf7KVeiJoI