NEW YORK TIMES TO RECOGNIZE AN ANTI-HINDU BOOK?

Subject: Re: Your proposed award to Wendy Doniger's Book
To: "James Marcus" of NBCC
Date: Friday, January 29, 2010, 10:42 PM
Dear Mr. Marcus:

The attached is a final edited version of the letter I sent to you as an e-mail. The attached letter along with the other two attachments may be easier for you to forward to your colleagues if you wish to do so. I will separately publish my letter to you on my blog-spot for other Indian American Citizens to read and comment upon. I believe there is something amiss, if after receiving negative feedback about Wendy Doniger from so many Indian Americans, NBCC continues to consider her as a potential awardee. We know that it will usually be presented as a "book burners' feedback" from fanatics who do not have respect for academic freedom nor understand freedom of speech in a free democratic society. Such vindicating misleading argument sounds very much American and seems to protect the rights of the defaming writer. Be it as it may, it is one thing to have the freedom to write and publish defaming literature and it is entirely another thing to endorse it as an example of literary excellence worthy of prestigious award by New York Times, which is a National Institution in the U.S., when Wendy Doniger is lacking in academic integrity and true scholarship. It is a micro-aggression against a passive, peace loving, minority community by the majority. I hope NBCC does not participate in such micro-aggression and further victimize a community that has been victimized for nearly 1400 years now. For Wendy to say that such victimization has never occurred is like an ostrich burying its head in the sand. I sincerely hope NBCC understands the seriousness of this issue for the Indian American community in the U.S. and the 800 million Hindus in India. This is coming up when there is increasing friendship and cooperation between India and U.S., the two largest democracies of the world. I urge you to consider our view points sincerely and give us a convincing reasoning, if NBCC decides to ignore our requests for any reason besides an arrogant self-righteousness. Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

Editor, Sookta-Sumana

LETTER TO MR. JAMES MARCUS OF NBCC

January 28th 2010

Dear Mr. Marcus:

I am a professor of psychiatry at a reputable College of Medicine in the US but I am not writing this note to you in that capacity, though I am constrained to reveal to you my background so you might take me seriously. It is not my intent to self-aggrandize and impress you with my background but only to humbly submit to you that I have been close to many reputable psychoanalysts during my career and have some of them as my good friends, besides having received some training in psychoanalysis myself. I do know the real from the fake. At least that much I have learned in my 40 years of exposure to American Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis.

Long before I heard about the proposal by New York Times to give an award to Wendy Doniger, I published a list of Nobel Laureates at the University of Chicago among whom there is at least one distinguished Hindu Nobel Laureate (1983). (See attached). I draw your attention to the Nobel Laureates in Literature and also the only Nobel Laureate for Peace (shown in red ink) to show the contrast in the caliber of Wendy and those others listed at the University of Chicago. Giving an award to Wendy Doniger will be an antithesis to the Nobel Prize for Peace awarded to President Obama. It will only instigate a conflict of cultures or another clash of civilizations. Please consider this angle seriously before you and your colleagues move forward with this award. It will not be a friendly gesture towards the 800 million or more Hindus who are the majority of Indians and are indeed "the Indians" in their own right.

Also, without getting lost in the trees, you may want to have a perspective of the forest. The modern, so called, Western Indologists are viewed by the informed Indians as nothing but playing the second graders’ tease game under the name of scholarship and academic freedom. Their scholarship is neither authentic nor deep enough for even an average erudite Hindu who is versatile in Sanskrit language and understands its nuances much better than these Western scholars with their Ph.D. which they flaunt. I am attaching herewith a rather outspoken reaction to Wendy's and other Western Indologists' writings. The language used is strong and perhaps foul because the Western scholars themselves have used foul and crass language. A loving relationship with a deity, for example, with its divine contribution in forming the character of the conceived child, a highly poetic concept of the Aadikavi Valmiki and Mahakavi Vyasa (Great Poets who wrote the epics of Ramayana known as Aadi Kavya, and Mahabharata, the second epic of India, which is known as Mahakavya) has been bastardized by Wendy by calling it a "Rape" which is never in the last 5000 years the understanding of the billions of Hindus who have read these epics for several millennia. Such base blatant aspersions on the sacred and divine by Wendy Doniger are not examples of astute psychoanalytic interpretations, and are not to be rewarded. In our opinion there is no literary value to such crass interpretations by Wendy Doniger. So please see the article attached (second attachment) from this view point and understand that it calls spade a spade though superficially you may view it as using a foul language which is not any worse than the foul language used by Wendy and her other admirers. This is not a matter of limiting academic freedom but insisting on academic integrity and authentic scholarship devoid of mischief. You as well as others including those who are the editors of New York Times know it very well what such mischief is and how it leads to the outrage in the victimized and disparaged community, besides unnecessarily subjecting children from such victimized community to prejudice and abuse in institutions of learning from elementary schools to institutes of higher education.

I hope this convinces you to reconsider your decision and not to give undeserved honor to Wendy Doniger and her book. In her introduction to the book on "Ganesha" by Paul Courtright she boldly says that Mahabharata was dictated to Vyasa by Ganesha, a gross error any Hindu recognizes. Her Ph.D. in Sanskrit does not make her an authority on these epics. It is widely known that the Mahabharata was dictated to Ganesha by Vyasa. This is one example to you to show that "the King (Queen) is really not wearing the robe." This is an obvious fact to the educated Hindus but it eludes the less informed Western scholars and reviewers who do not have the ability to critically evaluate Western Indologists', like Wendy Doniger's, work.

So, please note that we educated Hindus have to take great exception to Wendy's scholarship as well as her hostile vindictive agenda and a spirit of vengeance with which she has written the book you propose to New York Times for a literary award.

I will look forward to your studied response to this e-mail, if your time permits it. If not, please have one of your fair minded, non-defensive, objective colleagues, who are truly culturally proficient in Indian and Hindu cultural studies, give me his/her response on behalf of NBCC.

Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

Editor, Sookta-Sumana


Attachments: 1) List of Nobel Laureates at the University of Chicago
2) An article on “Wendy Doniger’s Unconscious Exhibitionism”
Both 1 and 2 are available on www.sookta-sumana.blogspot.com

NOBEL LAUREATES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

NOBEL LAUREATES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Chemistry
• Ada E. Yonath, 2009
• Irwin Rose, 2004*
• Richard E. Smalley, 1996
• F. Sherwood Rowland, 1995*
• Paul Crutzen, 1995
• Yuan T. Lee, 1986
• Henry Taube, 1983
• Herbert C. Brown, 1979*
• Ilya Prigogine, 1977
• William H. Stein, 1972
• Gerhard Herzberg, 1971
• Robert S. Mulliken, 1966*
• Karl Ziegler, 1963
• Willard Frank Libby, 1960
• Glenn Theodore Seaborg, 1951
• Harold Clayton Urey, 1934
________________________________________
Economics Sciences
• Roger B. Myerson, 2007‡
• Leonid Hurwicz, 2007
• Edward C. Prescott, 2004
• James J. Heckman, 2000‡
• Daniel L. McFadden, 2000
• Robert A. Mundell, 1999
• Myron S. Scholes, 1997*
• Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1995*‡
• Robert W. Fogel, 1993‡
• Gary S. Becker, 1992*‡
• Ronald H. Coase, 1991‡
• Merton H. Miller, 1990
• Harry M. Markowitz, 1990*
• Trygve Haavelmo, 1989
• James M. Buchanan Jr., 1986*
• Gerard Debreu, 1983
• George J. Stigler, 1982*
• Lawrence R. Klein, 1980
• Theodore W. Schultz, 1979
• Herbert A. Simon, 1978*
• Milton Friedman, 1976*
• Tjalling C. Koopmans, 1975
• Friedrich August von Hayek, 1974
• Kenneth J. Arrow, 1972
• Paul A. Samuelson, 1970*
________________________________________
Literature
• John M. Coetzee, 2003
• Saul Bellow, 1976*
• Bertrand Russell, 1950
________________________________________
Peace
• Barack Obama, 2009
________________________________________
Physics
• George E. Smith, 2009*
• Yoichiro Nambu, 2008‡
• Frank Wilczek, 2004*
• Alexei A. Abrikosov, 2003
• Masatoshi Koshiba, 2002
• Daniel C. Tsui, 1998*
• Jerome I. Friedman, 1990*
• Jack Steinberger, 1988*
• Leon M. Lederman, 1988
• Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, 1983
• James W. Cronin, 1980*‡
• J. Robert Schrieffer, 1972
• Murray Gell-Mann, 1969
• Luis W. Alvarez, 1968*
• Hans Albrecht Bethe, 1967
• Julian Schwinger, 1965
• Eugene P. Wigner, 1963
• Maria Goeppert-Mayer, 1963
• Owen Chamberlain, 1959*
• Chen Ning Yang, 1957*
• Tsung-Dao Lee, 1957*
• Ernest Orlando Lawrence, 1939*
• Enrico Fermi, 1938
• Clinton Joseph Davisson, 1937*
• Werner Heisenberg, 1932
• Arthur Holly Compton, 1927
• James Franck, 1925
• Robert Andrews Millikan, 1923*
• Albert Abraham Michelson, 1907
________________________________________
Physiology or Medicine
• Roger W. Sperry, 1981*
• George Wald, 1967
• Charles Brenton Huggins, 1966
• Konrad Bloch, 1964
• Sir John Carew Eccles, 1963
• James Dewey Watson, 1962*
• Edward Lawrie Tatum, 1958*
• George Wells Beadle, 1958
• Hermann Joseph Muller, 1946
• Edward Adelbert Doisy, 1943
• Alexis Carrel, 1912
_________________________________________
Religious Studies (School of Divinity)
• Wendy Doniger 2010

SAMUDRAMANTHAN ON SUVARNA BHUMI BANGKOK AIRPORT

Samudra Manthan (Churning of the sea) – Sculpture at Bangkok Airport
(Historical Significance)

by

Shrinivas Tilak

In Bangkok, on the Thailand's new international airport called Suvarna-bhoomi, (Land of Gold), there is a huge display from the Hindu scriptures namely Devi Bhagavat and Vishnu Puran.

'Can we imagine putting up this kind of art at Indian Airports?'

In February 2000, Dilip Padgaonkar, the then editor of the Times of India,
visited Jakarta to interview the then newly elected President of
Indonesia Abdur Rahman Wahid. He began the interview by observing that
the public display of Hindu symbols is much more prominent in Jakarta
than in Delhi. If Hindus do not wake up and act fast, Hinduism itself
will be banished from India altogether and its only traces will be
left in the countries of South-east Asia. Indeed, that is the goal of
Kancha Illaiah as spelled out in his latest book “A Post Hindu India.”
Illaiah and his ilk will succeed if the gullible HINAs (Hindu in Name
Alone) continue to elect the governments run by the Congress Party which
survives on the vote bank politics.

Mercifully, some proud and conscious Hindus (in India and abroad) have
started to preserve and protect their religious and cultural heritage
using traditional and more innovative means. Thus, it is possible to
interpret the story of samudramanthan to be found in many of the
Puranas as a metaphor (rupaka) for trade and cultural diffusion as well as cultural infusion through maritime activities (samudramanthan) between India and the world.

Recently, I came across a news report indicating that the metaphor of
samudramanthana has been revived through an award by that name that
has been instituted to recognize excellence in export/import by Indian
manufacturing and commercial firms.

Thus, a report from Kolkata explains that Gateway Terminals India (GTI), the youngest container terminal of Jawaharlal Nehru port, received
“Container Terminal of the Year” award at India International Maritime
& Logistics Expo ’09 held in Mumbai on April 18, 2009. The award,
known as “Samudra Manthan”, was presented to GTI for its excellence in
performance, innovation, operational efficiency, and the world class
infrastructure.

The core story of samudramanthana as found in the Puranas is that Devas
and Asuras churned the cosmic ocean (kshirasagara) with the Meru
parvata as the churning rod and Vasuki, the cosmic snake, as the rope
in order to obtain the pitcher full of nectar (amritkumbha). In the
process, fourteen gems (ratnas) emerged out of the ocean with Devas
managing to appropriate for themselves most of them. It is possible
that the ‘gems’ are a metaphor for new ideas and items that Indians
and South Americans obtained through mutual trade and commerce.

Dr. Balaram Chakraborty, regional advisor to Ministry of Education &
Culture, Government of India, and author of a three volume study (The
Indians and Amerindians, Kolkata: Self Employment Bureau, 1991-1997)
has studied the patterns of similarity between the world views held by
Indians and Amerindians. He has argued that the Mayas of Central and
South America are the descendants and followers of an ancient
astronomer/scientist/architect named Maya (he belonged to a community
known as the Asuras) who arrived from India to the land beneath India
[i.e. Pataladesha] by way of the Western sea (i.e. the Pacific Ocean).

This was possible because Asuras were excellent astronomers,
sea-farers, builders, and skilled in warfare. Maya’s Surya Siddhanta
(a text on astronomy dating from fifth century) states that while
Indians (Devas) inhabit the northern hemisphere, numerous diasporic
Indians (Asuras; also known as Daityas) inhabit the southern
hemisphere.

The Puranas describe the Pataladesha as made of seven zones: Atala,
Vitala, Sutala, Talatala, Mahatala, Rasatala, and Patala. Chakravorty
identifies Atala with the Atlantic coast in Central America; Vitala
with the region around Veracruz, Tabasco, and Campeche; Sutala with
Palenque and Guatemala; Talatala with Yukatan; Mahatala with Mexico;
Rasatala with Ecuador; and Patala with Peru (Chakravorty 1921:
40-44).

Chakravorty speculates that if Devas (Suras) were Indians who followed dharma, Asuras were those Indians who had forsaken dharma or had neglected to observe its key elements out of greed or hubris. Asuras (with their leader Maya) either voluntarily (like Maya) or involuntarily (like
Bali) left/forced to leave India and settled in the Pataldesha from
where they continued to engage in trade and cultural exchanges with
their Indian homeland. The typical trade route to India was via the
Pacific with Java as the intermediate point that also served as a
clearing house.

Chakravorty also speculates that Lakshmi, was one of the fourteen gems
that came out of samudramanthan between the devas and the asuras. Lakshmi is often shown with ears of corn surmounted by leaves. In this she
resembles the corn goddess in the Americas. Her arrival through
samudramanthan suggests a cross-fertilization of religious and
cultural ideas between India and South/Central America syncretized
into Hindu pantheon as the consort of Vishnu.

I find Chakravorty’s ideas worthy of further study and have
incorporated some of them in a paper entitled “India and South America:
Maritime and Cultural Contacts in Ancient Times” that was presented at a
meeting of the International Centre for Cultural Studies held in
Mumbai on November 17, 2009.

Shrinivas Tilak

The Civilized New World in the hands of Uncivilized !

History of Civilization
In the New World

by

Dr. Vasantee Dixit

Man originated in Africa, and then he wandered all over the world. While in search of bare necessities for survival he gathered more and more experience about favorable and harmful things. He developed the capacity of storing this knowledge. He learned to “think”, of how to benefit from what he saw or heard or experienced. He experienced the sensations of pain and pleasure. So he sought for pleasure and avoided things that caused him pain. He then developed the “skills” of farming, cooking, hunting, making weapons, building houses, fortifying them for protection etc.

After mastering these arts of self protection and preservation, he felt the need of company. Here dawned the origin of “civilization”. Man no longer wanted to be alone. He wanted a female company to procreate, a group of friends for affection, and their presence for security. When he was with many people, he knew that it was necessary to formulate a disciplinary code for all to follow. He also had to find a leader.

He wanted “weapons” to protect his family and to destroy his enemies. This spelt the birth of his desire to control and an ambition to dominate and to survive at the cost of other lives.

Now started the eternal war between the good and bad, the right and wrong, avarice and aversion, sympathy and lack of concern, care and negligence, what to do and what not to do!

The conflict remained for ever in his mind. Man could never decide what could be appropriate to do without feeling a pinch.

Hamlet’s "To be or not to be", Macbeth’s "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten the little hand "— and a million other unanswered thoughts.

No two men could agree on the same answer. So the ingenious man discovered a third party to answer and seal the result. The party was “God” and his decision was beyond an appeal. God!

God became the supreme controller and his decisions became the final verdict. “Religion” included a code of ethics to be followed by his devotees.



People from different locations made their own Gods. They were characterized by the powers they were supposed to possess, e.g. Sun God, giving light; Wind God, bringing hurricanes; Sea God, causing violent storms Rain God, showering abundant water to drink and farm. Then there were other abstract Gods bestowing wealth, fertility and abundance and those, who when offended brought down death and destruction by sending floods, earthquakes and eruption of volcanoes, the punishing Gods.

Man thought of pleasing God by offering prayers, food and sacrifices so that He would bless them always. Man still continues to do so as a matter of habit, though he really finds no logic or cure in it. He has become a slave of tradition. All this is in his cultural memories and internalized from the culture and social or religious group he introjects in his Unconscious sometimes being totally unaware of as to why he did it and feels a deep need to have it inside of him as a compass to guide him.

The only possible reason seems to be that he is aware of the fact that in spite of all his achievements, he has not become an “Almighty” nor ever he will become one. He still finds himself helpless and needs to prostate in front of abstract governing power: may be he calls it a “Destiny” or “God”.

He founded Religion, a code of to ‘do’s and “not to ‘do’s.” He tried his best to be a God fearing and religious. But, he soon found out that he could not be a perfect man. He then created a concept of a “Devil” who supposedly made him do the wrong things. Yet he still felt sorry for doing wrong things and seek salvation in repentance and punishment. It was quite convenient to blame his “bad” or “evil” tendencies on that poor “Devil.”

With all this, some men did prefer to be savage and barbaric. Some were repelled by human atrocities, avarice and tyranny got disgusted with their way of life. They exiled away from these people to live a secluded “monastic” life.


“That which cannot be cured, must be endured” was his lesson.
So he learned to find peace in doing good things; for the betterment of self and his community; selfless and benevolent things! He tried to create a community believing in give and take with peaceful co-existence. To find a leader who will be responsible for the welfare and protection of every individual in the community he came up with the concept of the King. This was the foundation of Civilizations. How good was Inca in attaining this goal?





THE INCA CIVILIZATION

“Yatha Raja Tatha Praja” - is a proverb in Sanskrit. It means: “As is the king, so are his subjects”. The king (leader) has to be good for his subjects to be good. Inca was fortunate enough to have a line of Sapa’s that were brave fighters, intelligent politicians, sympathetic and vigilant rulers, with ultimate regard for justice and were religious to the core.

Their subjects accordingly were law abiding, hard working, religious, brave, skillful weavers and goldsmiths, expert arrow shooters, perfect sling pitchers, intelligent farmers and fishers.

Sapa was like a god to them and he had their complete faith
Sapa had several “coya”s i.e. wives and concubines. The subject affectionately referred to the Empress Coya as “Mamanchic”, “our mother.”

Coya was selected from Sapa’s full sister’s blood relative, having royal blood. She validated her husband’s claim to the throne. Coya wore long hairstyle, centrally parted.

Heir was selected by Sapa from Coya’s offspring, as per his compatibility. If no suitable candidate was available, deserving heir was selected from nobility.

“Mayta”, was the Empress of 4th Sapa. She took outstanding interest in the female workers on the royal estates. She also carried on experiments in natural sciences. She introduced new plants for cultivation. She encouraged fishing. She also extracted venom from poisonous snakes, to be used on arrow heads.

Manco, the first ruler, and his people emerged from the caves of Paccaritamba, on an island in Lake Titicaca, 18miles away from Cuzco. He founded his capital at Cuzco. He and his ethnic group were the rulers of the Inca Empire which they established.

Legend is that Manco plunged a golden staff into the ground in Cuzco. The fertile soil quickly swallowed it. The glittering golden Coricancha would later rise from it. Manco became the first Sapa of Inca.

The Empire was spread not by force or war, but usually by assimilating the farmers around, giving them help and protecting them. Sapas subdued the warrior states, they did not enslave or torture after defeating them, but they were treated as friends and allowed to run their own states. Only difference, they had to pay Sapa the taxes and receive his protection and conveniences he offered to the rest of his subjects such as building roads, providing grains and fertilizers to the farmers, taking care of them and their family during famine and unemployment besides compulsory education of all their children in a common language, “Quechua”, specially formulated so that all different ethnic groups could communicate with each other fluently.

QUECHUA was an official and compulsory language of the Empire. It was a good easy ‘tongue’ to grasp, rich in words, with respect and niceties of speech. The tongue still survives and is spoken by 10 million Andean people. Other spoken language is AYMARA. Joining the school in infancy, the children graduated in farming, warship building, administrative assistance, art, and architecture. Beautiful females were trained to wait on the Sapa and the Empress to help the priests in the temple and to make alcoholic drink for the priests and the nobility.

LITTRE BEARERS were intensively trained so that the Sapa had minimal discomfort as he was lifted up and lowered down and was carried across the steep and uneven paths over the mountains and in the jungles

Athletic men were to be messengers cum spies. They were chosen from the loyal men and were made conversant with the geography of the Empire from coast to coast.

WEAVERS spent hours at their looms expending all their skill and ingenuity in making better and better garments with variety in design and colors. Cotton was used for commoners. Poor wore less expensive loosely woven fabric. Cunbi was the finest fabric dyed in wick. It is dyed in a range
of sophisticated hues, tightly woven into standard geometrical designs with checkered back and a triangular yoke of the center garment with carefully finished seams and hem. Cunbi was reserved for exclusive occasions. Alabaster cotton was snow white. Cotton with different rainbow hues was grown and its fabric used for the garments of the members of the royal family. Llama, alpaca and vicuna wools were graded according to their qualities. Incas valued their fabric far more than their gold and silver. Gold and silver could be mined, but affine fabric was invaluable as it took many- many hours in their making. Exquisite tapestry was woven for Sapa and the nobility.

GRADUATION CEREMONY was an important event, equivalent to conferring the knighthood, which Sapa attended. The earlobes were pierced by Sapa with a golden needle to prepare them for the large ear disc they will have to wear according to their status.

“Acllahuasi”, the house of chaste women, was an institute where selected girls were trained to prepare them to become priestesses or attendants of Sapa.

“Acllahuasi” Qollqus was a house for such 15,000 chosen women. It stood on the main square of Cuzco, next to one of Sapa’s palaces. Out of these, “Mamancanas” were to be expert in dying and weaving garments, weaving exquisite cloth Cunbi, preparing food and preparing “Chicha” (an alcoholic drink).

“Mamancanas” are temporarily married to "Inti," other deities, as a religious custom. They lived a life like queens or great ladies. No commoner dared to look at their faces except their servants. Violation of chastity involved death of both partners.

TAX-COLLECTION, “QUIPU,” was a system of tax collection.
Since there was no currency, tax was collected in kind; such as grain, silver, gold, woven garment, artisan’s handy work, landed property etc.
Woven fabric though was the main currency. People exchanged goods among themselves. But tax was to be paid to Sapa.
Each collector (Curaca) was allotted 1,000 households. There were many persons unable to pay tax in kind. Sapa had an ingenious way in dealing with them.

‘MITA’S

Those who could not afford to pay taxes could pay them in forms
Such as: Working for fixed hours on state farms for certain fixed hours,

Working in school, gardens, temples
Serving in the army, etc

BOUNTIES

Bounties were given to disabled, sick people and orphans in the form of clothes, food and a place to live. They also received nursing home care.

QOLLQUAS

Sapa had myriads of store houses always packed with grain, war and other supplies. Sapa’s subjects never slept hungry.

ACCOUNTS
Accounts were meticulously kept by Quipu Cama Yacs (keepers of the Quipus). Quipus or “Quenchua” were knots of different types, each representing different number i.e. units, 10s or decimals. Positioning on the string represented their place value. The Inca Indians also had the mathematical concept of zero. Different types, colors and lengths were used for accounting different things, farm-produce, temples records, business accounts etc. The census of people in the empire, even the count of llamas, alpacas and birds was kept. The Quipu masters had infallible memory and they could recall the memorized number whenever the dignitaries asked for them.

He used Quipus as an aid in memorization of history, literature as well as the genealogical records of their masters.

These and many things that Indians did, taking care of all things in every aspect to the utmost details; their concept of fair and just ruling, their idea of friendly assimilation and not forceful enslavement of their neighboring states, their vision of prosperity, their brave spirit, devotion to God and people alike, and their love for peace make the Incas the highly civilized country.

ONLY IF THEY WERE SHREWD ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND THE MEAN AND PREDATORY PLUNDERER SPANIARDS!!!

DEAD GOD'S CHILDREN: WENDY & HER DISCIPLES

CHILDREN OF A DEAD GOD

What afflicts Wendy’s children?
by
N.S. Rajaram

Originally published in “The Pioneer”, August 12, (2007?)
(Courtesy: The Pioneer and N. S. Rajaram)

Invading the Sacred: An analysis of Hinduism studies in America, Edited by Krishnan Ramaswamy, Antonio de Nicolas and Aditi Banerjee. 2007, RUPA & Co, New Delhi. 545 + xxi pages. Price not stated.

Like anthropology, Indology is colonial creation. While anthropology has acquired a degree of respectability by allying with empirical disciplines like archaeology, Indology remains rooted in its colonial past. During its brief existence, Indology has rested on two pillars— the Aryan myth and the Hindu religion. For a century and half the Aryan myth and its offshoots remained the most visible face of Indology. Six decades after the collapse of Nazi Germany the myth is now in its last gasp, despite a last ditch struggle by a few fringe groups to keep it alive in the guise of Indo-European studies and philology. It is a sign of things to come that Cambridge and Berlin have shut down their Indology programs.

With the collapse of the Aryan myth, the other wing of Indology targeting the heathen Hindu has moved center-stage. Its home is no longer Europe, but American academia. Its most visible member is Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, a professor of religion at the University of Chicago. The agenda of O’Flaherty and her camp followers like Jeffrey Kripal, Paul Courtwright and others—commonly known as ‘Wendy’s Children’—is to project almost all Hindu beliefs and practices as rooted in sexual fantasies by applying what they claim to be Freudian analysis. The result is a grotesque caricature of Hindu thought and literature as a pornographic parade.

To these Hinduism scholars, Freudian psychology today serves the same role that ‘race science’ did for Arthur de Gobineau and Houston Chamberlain— the founding fathers of the Aryan master race theory. In language and style, Doniger O’Flaherty, Jeffery Kripal and their ilk are a throwback to Julius Streicher and his publication Der Strummer of seventy years ago. (The same holds for Michael Witzel and his Indo-Eurasian Research, but that is a different story.) As always, such an exercise reveals more about the state of mind of the perpetrators than the subject they claim to be writing about. With these academics, ‘Hinduphobia’—a word coined by Rajiv Malhotra—has taken the place of anti-Semitism of the Aryan theorists.

Invading the Sacred is a collection of scholarly articles that seeks to analyze the causes and effects of academic Hinduphobia. The contributors represent a wide range of disciplines from religion and philosophy (Sharma, De Nicolas and Balagangadhara) to education and mass communication (Yvette Rosser, Indrani Rampersad and Ramesh Rao), and clinical psychology (Roland and Ramaswamy). This broad representation has allowed the claims of Hinduphobic scholars to be put to test using the very tools they claim to be using in their analysis.

Their self-proclaimed knowledge of Freudian psychology is not taken seriously by practicing psychologists represented in Invading the Sacred. It simply serves as a fig leaf to give them the license to give a sexual twist to everything in Hindu literature and practice while invoking Freud as authority. It is not much different when it comes to the sources: their familiarity with the subjects they claim to be writing about ranges from weak to non-existent. This is true especially of their knowledge of Indian languages and literature. All this is testimony not only to their shoddy scholarship but also their intellectual cowardice.

To their credit, the contributors to Invading the Sacred refrain from polemics by taking the scholarly high ground, and analyze their subjects (including their authors) on the merits and demerits of their work. One of the contributors (Balagangadhara) makes the perceptive observation that the social sciences and the humanities in the West are rooted in Christian theology. And for this reason, in rhetoric and conclusions, these scholars are often indistinguishable from Christian missionaries of a hundred years ago.

Their missionary roots are on display in another of their claims— that these Hinduphobic scholars are only helping to “cleanse” Hinduism of its sins, presumably because the degraded Hindus are incapable of doing it themselves. This is no different from the missionary heaping abuse on the heathens to save their souls from eternal damnation. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

In this situation, anti-Hindu bias is inevitable even though denied by academics who proudly flaunt their Marxist and/or Freudian colors. To counter this, Arvind Sharma in his informative Preface makes a long overdue suggestion: why not use statistical methods to test their claims of being unbiased. After all, statistics has proven its mettle in analyzing such problems. Bias detection is a well understood statistical technique.

In the final analysis, their ‘scholarly’ contributions will prove no more lasting than that of the Aryan theorists before them. The real question is what drives their visceral anti-Hinduism? Or as Shakespeare asked about the men who murdered Julius Caesar: “What private griefs these men have,” for their behavior cannot be explained on rational grounds. Chapter 10 (It’s All About Power) takes a step towards answering the question by pointing out how these scholars feel insecure that Hindus in the West are succeeding in the professions and may soon topple them from their self-appointed positions of intellectual superiority. To make things worse, the Hindus are succeeding without losing their spiritual moorings.

More than a century ago Nietzsche in his Thus Spake Zarathushtra diagnosed their malady: their God is dead. The resulting spiritual vacuum he warned would be filled by what he called “barbaric brotherhoods”. The following century was to witness several of these— Fascism, Communism and Nazism, each with its own underlying secular theology. Academic Hinduphobia, like anti-Semitism is an outgrowth of this spiritually barren landscape.

In the face of this we should see these not as Wendy’s Children, but the children of a Dead God, Wendy included.
_____________________
Dr. N.S. Rajaram is a scientist and historian. His latest book is Sarasvati River and the Vedic Civilization: History, science and politics.

WENDY DONIGER'S UNCONSCIOUS EXHIBITIONISM

WENDY DONIGER'S UNCONSCIOUS "INDECENT" EXPOSURE

by

Shree Vinekar

The Departments of Religious Studies and many other departments have little to produce of value than vicissitudes of their imagination and their theorizing about the past, as religion itself is losing much of its pride of place in the lives of modern generations. In addition, the Universities, Departments, and Academicians are rated with statistical measures rather than the depth of their scholarship, academic integrity, and the value of their contribution to new knowledge, or even the quality of their work. It is a form of academic prostitution but the bean counters rate them by the number of citations in other academicians' publications and peer reviewed journals and drive their behavior. That has given rise to this unconscious or conscious conspiracy of academic cartels to publish something "controversial" not unlike the "yellow journalism" or sensationalism of the modern day journalists and writers. In this manner they (the academicians) have devised a way to survive in this bean counting world or even to get promoted academically, if they are not full professors, or not tenured ones, etc. That is what I mean by academic prostitution. When the academicians degenerate to that level, the "academic freedom" becomes a great defense to promulgate "crap" like "Paul Courtright, Lane, Kripal, and even Witzel" do. Wendy has not been any different. Writing style and readability makes the works attractive and they cater to their admirers and their "Churchy" or "Eurocentric" pride. The book will sell and there will be many citations securing Wendy's academic standing in her own world. To say the least, Aditi Banerjee's response is scholarly and to the point. However, it is up to us to publicize such responses widely. As a trained Addiction Psychiatrist, and more familiar with Psychoanalytic discipline in treating patients rather than doing wild analysis of myths like these scholars of religion claim to have the freedom and authority to engage in, let me say that "Kama" is not "Sex" and "Aasakti" is not addiction.

The concept of "SEX ADDICTION" is a "BASTARDIZED" CONCEPT emerging in the psychological watered down folklore literature (of the least trained Chemical Dependency counselors who are not psychoanalysts) and it is NOT A PSYCHOANALYTIC CONCEPT. To make it worse, it is not even in the terminology or vocabulary in the traditional English language nor in the traditional Western world view leave alone in the psychoanalytic parlance. It is a concoction of the 1980's when the political power of the alcoholics and drug addicts in the American Mental Health Field became more and more perceptible and their concepts were enlarged to treat the "gambling addiction" and later "sex addiction", expanding the applicability of the twelve step programs and AA, etc. which are both rationalizations for irresponsible pleasure-seeking behaviors so the "sufferers" can take a sick role and claim helplessness. There may or may not be such thing as a gambling addict, and Yudhishthira cannot be judged to be one by using the concept of the twentieth century folklore psychology. Similarly, to say that Lakshmana had knowledge of the word "Sex Addict" to describe his father "Dasharatha" (when the epic Ramayana was composed by the sage Valmiki) as one of the "Sex Addicts of his time" is a wild leap of imagination. There is nothing psychoanalytic about it and one needs to explore the unconscious of the writer and see if she is dealing with sex addict ex-husbands, or friends, and/or has suffered from such ailment some time in her own life, and has not recognized that her imagination is a product of her own cultural upbringing and her own past experiences. Fortunately, psychoanalysis is only a tool for her, and if she wants to use it, she should know that it reveals the deep recesses of her own Unconscious more than the reality outside. That is the wonderful power of Freud's discovery and that the therapist has to be very careful that his/her interpretations of the patient's problems are not his own projections from his own past and are truly objective and applicable to the patient's problems without contamination from his own unconscious.

Wendy is, of course, not trained in these matters, and therefore, cannot even see how far away from reality she is in her own La-la Land when she attributes such meaning to the word "Kamaasakta." Her knowledge of Hinduism with all due respect to her scholarship and her knowledge of psychoanalysis too are at a very elementary level but highly inflated in her own self-estimation and in the estimation of her similarly ignorant colleagues in the field of religious studies who have traditionally dreaded Freud all these years and denigrated his theories because the Western Religions are fully rooted in the concept of sex as "BAD" and the guilt about sex from Adam downwards to the point of their concept of immaculate conception all being indicative of their pathological handling of "sex" as a sin. When they run into "Kama Sutra" they cannot place it in proper perspective nor do they have any healthy perspective for Tantrism (Vama Marga). They do not realize that their value-based explorations in these areas of Hindu thought spring from their voyeuristic drives of their own phallic-oedipal phase and because of their cultural background they lose their ability to be non-judgmental. That also means that unconsciously they are exhibitionists at the core when they make wild interpretations revealing in a strange way their own Unconscious like Paul Courtright did and no one so far has pinned him down or challenged him to see how much "cock sucking" he was exposed to in his own upbringing and in his own culture before he wildly proclaimed irresponsibly, without any authentic references, that ("non-human character like Winnie the Pooh") "Ganesha" was a "homosexual." Publishing readable material about sex and such is a million dollar sport in the American culture (by writing books that are semi-pornographic a la Monica Lewinski). Wendy's unconscious exhibitionism similarly is nothing but a money making sport and to obtain more academic citations and that is what I mean by "academic prostitution." The more one becomes aware of the psychopathology of such people like Wendy, more one would need to keep away from them and leave them alone. These academic prostitutes like Wendy, Paul Courtright, Laine, Kripal and even Witzel need no more respect than what they deserve for what they really are.

These "pissing mares and horses"(other species deliberately ignored)that are pissing on Hinduism are depleted in their estrogens and testosterones in their stage of life and have to resort to what Freud called "upward displacement" to become obsessed with morbid perverted sexuality in their preoccupations to get their base pleasure instincts satisfied. They are not true scholars although they have the credentials in their own disciplines, and even that is doubtful, but not at all in the field of psychoanalysis and even less so in Indology. They cannot hold candle to Sigmund Freud and not even to Joseph Campbell. It is a shame that they are invited by the Indian scholars to have a dialogue with them in respectable Indian Universities.

Wendy is exposing strangely her own encounter with exhibitionism, her own exhibitionistic drives, and exposure to chemical dependency (addictions) and profound guilt over her own sexuality from her own past, and I can bet my booties you will find these all in her background if you analyze her or if she comes out clean with her background. Her fascination for Hindu thought and culture is to be praised only by her Western colleagues but her rendering of these is replete with sadistic pleasure derived by invading the sacred with garbage from her own Unconscious, willingly, knowingly, and deliberately designed to offend those who respect and revere the Hindu thought and culture.

DUALITY OR DUPLICITY OF "REAL ISALAM"?

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/10397/sec_id/10397

DUALITY AND POLITICAL ISLAM
by Bill Warner (Sept. 2007)

Courtesy: CSPI

Since September 11 we have asked the question: "What is the real Islam?" The answers from Muslims and Westerners are contradictory and make us confused.

There is one way to gain clarity and surety about Islam—our best rational approach is the scientific method.

Let us start with the fact that the complete doctrine of Islam is found in three texts: Koran, the Sira (Mohammed’s biography) and Hadith (stories and anecdotes about Mohammed)—the Islamic Trilogy.

The Koran is confusing as it is arranged, but it can be made straightforward by scientific analysis.

The first step is to put the verses in the right time order, collect and categorize all of the similar stories. It is at this point that the missing parts, or holes, in the document become apparent. The life of Mohammed fills in and explains all the gaps and all the confusion falls away. Mohammed is the key to the Koran and Islam.

The doctrine breaks down in time into Mohammed in Mecca (the early part) and Mohammed in Medina (the later part). In essence, there are two Korans, one written in Mecca and the second Koran written in Medina .

The two Korans are the first grand division of Islamic doctrine.

What is intriguing is that the two Korans include contradictions. "You have your religion and I have mine" 109:1 is a far cry from "I shall cast terror in the hearts of the kafirs. Strike off their heads…" 8:12. The Koran gives a way to solve these contradictions—the later verse is "better" than the earlier verse. But the earlier verse is still true. All the verses from the Koran are true because they are the words of Allah.

The Koran defines an Islamic logic that is dualistic. Two things which contradict each other can both be true. In a unitary, scientific logic, if two things contradict each other, then at least one of them is false. Not so in dualistic logic. [THE KEY INSIGHT! NSR]

All of the doctrine refers to two classes of people—Muslims and non-Muslims, kafirs. The doctrine that applies to kafirs is political in nature and is rarely neutral or positive. The part of the doctrine that applies to Muslims is cultural, legal, and religious.

The second grand division of Islamic doctrine is into religious Islam and political Islam.

It is surprising how much of the doctrine is political. Approximately 67% of the Meccan Koran and 51% of the Medinan Koran is political. About 75% of the Sira is about what was done to the kafir. Roughly 20% of the Hadith is about jihad, a political act.

Even the concept of Hell is political, not religious. There are 146 parts of the Koran that refer to Hell. Only 4% of the people in Islamic Hell are there for moral reasons, such as murder, theft or greed. In 96% of the cases the person is in Hell because they did not agree with Mohammed. This is a political charge. In short, Islamic Hell is primarily a political prison.

In summary, Islam is an extremely political doctrine. It has to be. Mohammed preached the religion of Islam for 13 years and garnered 150 followers. Then in Medina , he turned to politics and jihad and became the first ruler of all Arabia . When he died, he did not have a single enemy left to speak or act against him, a very political result.

The Koran says in 14 verses that a Muslim is not and cannot be the friend of the kafir. This is pure dualism. The dualism of the Koran has no universal statements about humanity. The entire world is divided between Islam and the kafirs. The only statement about humanity as a whole is that all humanity must submit to Islam.

Ethics are the membrane between religion and politics. Two sets of ethics are laid out in the Trilogy. One set is for Muslims and the other set is for the kafirs. Examples: a Muslim should not steal from another Muslim, a Muslim should not kill another Muslim, a Muslim should not cheat a Muslim.

The kafir can be treated in one of two ways. They can be treated well or they can be robbed, killed, or cheated if it advances Islam. On more than one occasion Mohammed said to deceive the kafir. Jihad as a political method killed, robbed and enslaved the kafirs. This is a dualistic ethical system. Islamic dualism is hidden by religion. The "good" verses of the Meccan Koran cover the verses of jihad in the Medinan Koran. Thus religious Islam shields political Islam from examination. [Sic: The same holds to a degree with Gandhi: his 'saintliness' shielded his politics. NSR]

Scientific analysis shows us that there is a political Islam as well as a religious Islam. To argue about religion is fruitless, but we can talk about politics. We need to discuss political Islam, a system of ethical and political dualism.

Bill Warner is the director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI)