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A narrative account of history and myth that offers a new way of understanding one of the world's oldest major religions, this book elucidates the relationship between recorded history and imaginary worlds. Hinduism does not lend itself easily to a strictly chronological account: many of its central texts cannot be reliably dated; its central tenets--karma, dharma, to name just two--arise at particular moments in Indian history and differ in each era, between genders, and caste to caste; and what is shared among Hindus is overwhelmingly outnumbered by the things that are unique to one group or another. Yet the greatness of Hinduism--its vitality, its earthiness, its vividness--lies precisely in many of those idiosyncratic qualities that continue to inspire debate today. Wendy Doniger, one of the world's foremost scholars of Hinduism, illuminates those moments within the tradition that resist forces that would standardize or establish a canon.--From publisher description.… (more)
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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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.