Wendy DonigerCritiques

This selection and translation of 75 seminal myths spans the wide range of classical Indian resources, from the serpent slaying Indra of the Vedas c. 1200 BC to the medieval pantheon: the phallic and esthetic Siva, the maternal and bloodthirsty goddess, the mischievous child Krishna, the other avatars of Vishnu, and many minor guides, demons, rivers and animals sacred to Hinduism.

While this book explores ways to discover, appreciate, and translate the stories of the "other," it did not find a way to draw me in. Writing was dry and somewhat stale for me.½

The author is also the translator of Rig Veda.

many influences and schools of thought, no 'true Hinduism" now or in past

Excellent scholarly work by Wendy - It takes a certain mind to find common patterns in various cultures ; from ancient Abrahamic religions to polytheistic ideologies like Hinduism separated by thousands of years , isolated geographically ; themes like ‘Virgin birth’ , ‘ Resurrection’ , natural disasters like floods etc. ; repeat themselves in the collective minds of those ancient people i.e. “The Spider” . The Implied Spider who weave these stories i.e. “The Web” connecting humanity through the ages .
These myths metamorphosis into different interpretations depending on the political scenario during that time and cementing into religious dogma’s. If one has ever a doubt of how much influence they exert in the 21st century – Imbeciles convinced by texts willing to embrace “martyrdom” for some “holy cause” should be a good starting point!
Enjoyed the book; however was labouring through certain parts due to my lack of familiarity on certain literary works and theology .

Covered a lot of ground on many different topics, but I was hoping to read more about the myths and traditions i grew up with, i realize it's only one book and can't cover everything.

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I remember during the sixties going to a little book shop in my home town and discretely asking for and buying The Kamasutra and The Perfumed Garden (supplied in brown paper bag!)
I and my friends were just waking up to the so called facts of life, plus we'd just discovered boys!
We weren't interested in why the books were written, only the immediate content. Not that we had the opportunity to do anything about it, but they were an eyeopener!
Reading Wendy's account of the meaning and the advice given by the author, I find I am wanting to reread the book and understand more.

In this translation its spans 75 seminal myths from classical Indian sources, Indra, the mediaeval pantheon, Krishna, Vishnu, and many other gods, demons, rivers, and animal, sacred to Hinduism.

A collection of trees depicting the vast forest of Hinduism, giving a better overview than generalities. The author shifts her focus throughout the history, but there is a subtle design and a variety of themes that reoccur (women, horses, Dalits). One comes away from the book with a myriad of impressions which encapsulates the diversity Hindu experience. The prose is witty but never irreverent.

Whatever the layer of Hindu tradition, or period of Indian history, Doniger has fascinating things to say about it—the sources of Indus Valley civilization, the relationship between the sacrifice descriptions in the Rig Veda and actual practice, the obscurities of the Brahmanas and Upanishads, the narrative strands and evolution of the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata, a bullshit-free take on “Sects and Sex in the Tantric Puranas and the Tantras,” and of course, the Mughals and the British Raj.

Wendy Doniger's style is direct, and she does not hide behind academic jargon or specialized vocabulary. She is witty, punny, and incisive. Yes, she is erudite and yes, the references and complexities do come thick and fast, but she is never deliberately oblique or unnecessarily difficult.

As others have said, The Hindus: An Alternative History isn't by itself an introduction to Hinduism. In the decade since I took a basic undergrad one-semester intro to Hinduism, I have read a modern translation of the Ramayana and a heavily abridged translation of the Mahabharata, and spent about a month studying the Mughals in a grad history seminar. So I had some very basic foundations in place to read this—enough to make sense of much of this text at first go. For others I would suggest, as Doniger does in her introduction, that a little preparatory/supplementary reading would not hurt. There are easier starting points.

It may sound like a slightly awkward recommendation, but this is a perfect second book to read about Hinduism—compelling enough to keep this reader thoroughly engaged through 700 pages of fairly dense prose.

More than enjoyable, it is also important, and not merely because of the well-publicized censorship fight around it. Doniger herself has written (last week in the New York Review of Books) about the censorship fight in India, and also about parallel conflicts over public school curricula in the US. We can’t allow a situation to emerge where only religiously-authorized voices can speak publicly about religions. Scholarship *about* religions needs to have a public face. Our world needs more Wendy Donigers.½

Hinduism (the religion) is complicated and complex and probably not coherent. That makes for a difficult book to write but Doniger tackles it brilliantly. She moves from the earliest texts through later ones and then adds the traditions, history, outside influences and finally folklore. She compares it to a banyan tree constantly going back to its roots but coming up with bewilderingly new offshoots. The book is magnificent. She shows, with fascinating detail, how a religion can change completely over the centuries and yet remain the same religion. Even the gods who are worshipped have changed over the millennia (and are still changing). It is also a fun gallop through many aspects of the history of the sub-continent.
Nonetheless, perhaps because of its vegetative complexity, you come out of the book with a coherent view of the development and growth of a thought system.
Strong on myth, philosophy, theology, poetry. She tends to pick out themes which are of interest to her - women and gender issues for instance being very important here - but I think in doing so she is showing how Hinduism is stronger than the blinkered fundamentalists in India and the west. It can and has incorporated change and tolerance and inclusiveness.

If you are of a religious persuasion you will probably not enjoy this book. By being such a superb description of the growth of a religion, it shows with great clarity what a man-made, though very important, project religion is and how it reflects, grows out of and feeds back into its society.½

I struggled with Doniger's massive survey of Hindu history and thought for over six months. In the end I completed it not because I was determined to get the better of it, but because I started to enjoy it. Which was a long way from my initial experience. Doniger's writing style at first infuriated me. She packs in as much detail as possible to every story and then insists on standing in front of the story, imposing her presence with little asides to the reader and laboured puns. Then I realized this wasn't a writing style but in fact a lecturing style. 'Keep them interested, keep them awake.' But really what comes through is not a concocted liveliness or enthusiasm. As I came to appreciate it, Doniger IS enthusiastic - and incredibly knowledgable and perceptive. And brave - she is in the firing line of what calls itself Hindu Orthodoxy in modern times.

I realized that she was writing nothing less than a complete history of every aspect of Hindu thought, with Islam and Christianity, Buddhism and Animism (and everything else that ever happened in the history of ideas in India thrown in for good measure). Which led to my next difficulty. Doniger starts at creation and moves forward (the expression Juggernaut comes to mind...) century by century. She piles one story upon another, every sect, every significant text, every tortuous twist and turn in the political history of an incredibly fractured and chaotic country. There is no sense of a developing theme or direction to Hindu thought, it seems it advances and retreats constantly in Doniger's account and changes its nature as often as the sun rises and sets. Which is ultimately Doniger's point. Light begins to dawn; heterodoxy triumphs over orthodoxy. And what heterodoxy. Doniger presents a description of the treasury of Indian thought, hallways stacked with mountains of jewels - and she sets out to describe it one glittering stone at a time over nearly 800 pages.

In the end I cracked this book by reading it backwards - chapter by chapter. What was impossibly remote and alien (the early history) had a context (modern history). I recognized Doniger was mining a mountain of ideas by drilling into it. Suddenly I could see her plan. Reading the book (as I started out doing) from the front had left me with the impression that she was simply dumping one random pebble of fact or reflection upon another until she had built an imposing but ultimately forgettable spoil heap of history. I can't think of any other instance where I would recommend an audio version over a written version, but if ever one comes out for work I couldn't recommend it too highly. As it stands, go in prepared. Pack supplies for a long campaign, and consider starting with whatever chapter engages you attention most of all and spreading out from there.½

Explores themes of the stallion and mare and cow as they are used throughout the Indo-European zone, including Irish stories and Indian texts. Sometime the exposition feels confused, but I suspect it is because the texts are so varied. And I am not sufficiently acquainted with them. This book will require a re-read.

The Hindus: a philologist’s hobby horses

In the first footnote of The Hindus: An Alternative History, Ms. Doniger states that her book could be used as a basic textbook for a course over a fourteen-week semester, and that she recommends supplementing it with a good book about Indian history, e.g. Keays, a survey, and a source book. Ms. Doniger’s doorstopper of a book actually feels like it is based upon the notes of a such a course. Although the book follows Indian history chronologically, not all subjects are handled with an equivalent level of detail, and not all gods, scriptures, or events are introduced the first time they are mentioned in the book.

The book is indeed not a history of Hinduism or India, as the authoress confesses on the first page, stating that there are sufficient good books covering that already. Besides Ms. Doniger is not a historian, but a philologist with a certain hippy flair, and a mission to clarify the role that foreign invaders, women, lower-caste Hindus, and other religions have played in the development of Hinduism to what it is today. She does this by concentrating on the development of a few subjects (horses, dogs, lower casts, women) through the ages. This is mostly done through literary sources, and we get a lot veda and sutra exegesis with a little twist of Freudian analysis. This changes somewhat around page 500, when she reaches the Mughals and the book becomes more conventional.

As you may expect, in 4,000 years quite a few things have changed in Hindustan, and Ms. Doniger delivers these changes, which makes her a controversial figure for nationalist Hindus, that have become a lot more Victorian and patriarchic than you may expect on the basis of the classics. Ms. Doniger is also no Hindu herself, and looks at Hinduism scientifically, like modern theologians do with the Bible.

The popularity of The Hindus among critics and the general public somewhat surprises me. Although central concepts of Hinduism are explained in the book and many of the classics are covered, you may need to check Wikipedia lemmas more often than you would want to. The book also pays scarce attention to the political, economic, or ecological context. What you get back for it is a bewildering amount of often interesting details, which reflect so nicely the chaotic character of Hinduism.

A fourteen week semester with Ms. Doniger is certainly no picnic in the park.

What a great book. I have been checking it out again (and yet again) from the public library. I'm thinking I should just add it to my library and be done with it!

I will read anything by Doniger. She writes like a real person and is such a treat to read rather than an "ivory tower" academic who is so cut and dried one falls asleep trying to assimilate the knowledge they have to impart.

I wish more scholars would use her technique of end notes for reference material and footnotes for those interesting bits and pieces that bring the work alive.

My review.

Wendy Doniger, The Hindus- An Alternative History

Library Thing is sadly deficient in women’s history and information relating to the East. It is my hope that people will see issues that are raised by the review and the book and expand further using their more extensive experience and expertise on what are only a few hesitant steps on my part here.

This book is a substantive work (779 pages in the hard back edition) with important implications to the current dialogue between the religions in India. While accessible to most people, this work will probably have as its primary audience people focused on the Hindu faith and its meaning in today’s world.

The author Wendy Doniger holds two doctorates, in Sanskrit and Indian studies, from Harvard and Oxford; has done numerous translations, and is currently a professor of History of Religions at the University of Chicago.

This is an alternate history in that it sets out to address history of Hinduism from its beginning to present in terms of ‘women, lower classes and castes and animals.’ In addressing the issues of women, lower castes, and classes, I would suggest that since most of Hindu tradition has resulted in the exclusion of this material that this book is truly much needed and long overdue.

One of the many gems of the book are her comments in the beginning:

“The relevant materials can be found in the bibliography as well as in the notes for each chapter, which will also provide browsing material for those readers (I confess that I am one of them) who go straight to the back and look at the notes and bibliography first, reading the book like Hebrew, from right to left, to see where the author has been grazing, like dogs sniffing one another’s backsides to see what they have eaten lately.”

While there are many ways to take this particular statement, I chose it to be just one more reflection of the substantive nature of the book and its author and that the book to follow is not a light hearted effort. It is also a practice I will seek to follow in the future.

Other gems in this book include the layout of the book. That being, it offers not just its major 696 pages of analysis but also additional pages of:
o a Chronology;
o a Guide to Pronunciation and Spelling of Words in Sanskrit and other Indian languages;
o a listing of Abbreviations;
o a Glossary of terms in Indian languages and names of key figures;
o a listing of footnotes in standard format-a rare joy;
o a bibliography, and
o a index.

And each one of these sections is truly comprehensive rather than token, and consequently a real aid to the reader. Why other historians don’t make similar efforts to assist the reader is a mystery to this reader.

Her breadth and depth of treatment of these subjects is surely praiseworthy as is the use to which she puts the material in her conclusions and how she suggests everyone might learn from history today.

This is not an author who resides in the ivory tower, but one who has truly come down into the streets to show how history can help with the religious and political debates of today.