Banned in Bangalore

[janon]

Stop trying to act "holier than thou", the book is making a mockery of our religion.

Have you read it?

 

[jaunty]

He was taking unnecessary advantage because he was talking about you people ..

This book is NOT banned in India. Someone dragged the publishers to the court and the publishers made an out of court settlement by withdrawing the book from the market. The government hasn't banned anyone from reading the book. Your comment on secularism is not only inappropriate but also foolish. But it's very clear that it was an uniformed comment from you because the author is a "she" not a "he". Satanic Verse is banned in India, what would you say about that?

 

[GorkhaPride]

Have you read it?

Nope.

 

[janon]

Nope.

Yea, I thought so.

So your assertion that it is a mockery of our religion was based on what, exactly?

 

[Durrak]

This book is NOT banned in India. Someone dragged the publishers to the court and the publishers made an out of court settlement by withdrawing the book from the market. The government hasn't banned anyone from reading the book. Your comment on secularism is not only inappropriate but also foolish. But it's very clear that it was an uniformed comment from you because the author is a "she" not a "he". Satanic Verse is banned in India, what would you say about that?

Oh it is the case sorry i din't know so people in India also don't let others express their point ..

 

[GorkhaPride]

Yea, I thought so.

So your assertion that it is a mockery of our religion was based on what, exactly?

Based on what others have said.

 

[janon]

Based on what others have said.

Thank you for confirming my suspicion.

This is called manufactured anger. Getting angry because ''others'' told you you should. Forming opinions about something before reading or knowing it. Forming a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

In future, I suggest that you have some intellectual integrity, and don't assert things you have no clue about. For example, don't assert that a certain book is a mockery to your religion if you haven't actually read it.

 

[dray]

A post from an earlier thread on this topic:

This was the actual petition.

Demand for withdrawal of a flawed book on Hindu History published by PENGUIN

SCANDALOUS cover jacket of the book - copy for ready reference at
Scan 0002

To:
Ms. Susan Peterson Kennedy
President , Penguin Group (USA)
375 Hudson St, New York, NY 10014, USA

Mr. Mike Bryan,
CEO & President, Penguin Books Pvt Ltd.
11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017
India

Dear Ms. Peterson Kennedy, Mr. Mike Bryan,

The following is a petition from concerned signatories to the Penguin
Group asking for an apology for the publication of the factually
incorrect and offensive book The Hindus-An Alternative History by
Wendy Doniger. We expect Penguin Group to withdraw the book
immediately.

The Hindus: An Alternative History is rife with numerous errors in its
historical facts and Sanskrit translations. These errors and
misrepresentations are bound and perhaps intended to mislead students
of Indian and Hindu history.

Throughout the book, Doniger analyzes revered Hindu Gods and Goddess
using her widely discredited psychosexual Freudian theories that
modern, humanistic psychology has deemed limiting. These
interpretations are presented as hard facts and not as speculations.
Doniger makes various faulty assumptions about the tradition in order
to arrive at her particular spin. In the process, the beliefs,
traditions and interpretations of practicing Hindus are simply ignored
or bypassed without the unsuspecting reader knowing this to be the
case. This kind of Western scholarship has been criticized as
Orientalism and Eurocentrism. The non Judeo-Christian faith gets used
to dish out voyeurism and the tradition gets eroticized.

A. FACTUAL ERRORS

The following are a just a SMALL SAMPLING of examples of the factual
errors that run rampant through this disgusting book. By due diligence
that is badly overdue from your editors, you can either find for
yourself, or we will be glad to direct you to, scholarly references so
that you can verify these errors yourself and withdraw this obscenity.

[Page number precedes a reference to inaccurate statements in the
book. This is followed by a comment citing verifiable facts.]

Maps in front pages: Maps titled Indias Geographical Features and
India from 600 CE to 1600 CE
COMMENT: In the first map, the Waziristan Hills area is marked
erroneously as Kirthar Range. The Kirthar Range is at least 200 miles
further south. In the third map, Janakpur, Nagarkot, Mandu and
Haldighati are marked several hundred miles from their correct
geographical location.

Pg. 67 - It is claimed that the entire Harappan culture had a
population of 40,000!
COMMENT: This is estimated as the population of Mohenjo-Daro alone.
The population of the entire culture is estimated around 500,000.

Pg 112 - Wheat is mentioned as a food item in the Rigvedic period.
COMMENT: Wheat is not mentioned in the Rigveda at all. It first occurs
in the Maitrayani Samhita of the Yajurveda.

Pg 130 - The author claims that there are no Gods in the Vedas who are Shudras.
COMMENT: It is anachronistic to assign castes to Rigvedic deities, but
nevertheless, Pushan, Vesmapati and others have been considered Shudra
deities in later times.

Pg 194 fn.- Gandhi's commentary on the Gita (a sacred Hindu scripture)
was titled 'Asakti Yoga' (translated as the science of deep
attachment).
COMMENT: The title of Gandhis work is 'Anasakti Yoga' (trans. Science
of non-Attachment).

Pg 206 - The book wrongly states that the Hindus had only a triad of passions.
COMMENT: Hindu scriptures list six main evils and the concept of
shadripus (six internal enemies) is very well known.

Pg 441 - The book claims that Firoz Shah redeemed a number of Hindu slaves
COMMENT: A misrepresentation of the fact that he employed (not
redeemed) 12,000 of his 180,000 slaves forcibly in royal factories for
producing articles of consumption by Muslim elites. No manumission was
involved.

Pg 445 - Dates of Saint Kabir are given as 1450 1498.
COMMENT: His demise is believed to have occurred in 1518, and the
traditional date of birth is 1398.

Pg 448 - In 713 Muhammad ibn Qasim invaded Sind.
COMMENT: Muhammad bin Qasim invaded Sind in 711.

Pg 450- It is claimed that Emperor Ala-ud-Din Khalji did not sack
temples in Devagiri.
COMMENT: His contemporary Amir Khusro clearly mentions that the
Emperor sacked numerous temples and raised mosques instead.

Pg 459 - King Ala-ud-din Husain of Bengal patronized Saint Chaitanya.
COMMENT: Saint Chaitanya never met the king, and left his kingdom to
avoid persecution, as did his disciples. The king had destroyed Hindu
temples in Orissa.

Pg 532 - Emperor Akbar moved his capital from Fatehpur Sikri to Delhi in 1586.
COMMENT: Emperor Akbar moved his capital to Lahore in 1587, and
thereafter to Agra.

Pg 537-8 - The Sikh teacher Guru Govind Singh was assassinated in
1708, while 'attending Emperor Aurangzeb'. Emperor Aurangzeb died in
1707.
COMMENT: Guru Gobind Singh was assassinated in 1708 during the reign
of Aurangzebs successor, Emperor Bahadur Shah I. It is insulting to
say that the Guru was attending on the Emperor.

Pg 550 - The book claims that Mirabai lived from 1498-1597, and then
on p. 568, the author claims that Mirabai lived from 1450-1525!
COMMENT: Both dates are wrong and the commonly accepted dates are 1498-1547.

Pg 552 - The book claims that the Ramcharitmanas was written at Varanasi.
COMMENT: Both modern scholarship as well as tradition accept that the
work (or at least most of it) was written in Ayodhya.

Section on Bibliography: Shekhawat, V. Origin and Structure of
purushartha Theory: An attempt at Critical Appraisal. Journal of
Indian Council of Philosophical Research 7:1 (1900), 63-67.
COMMENT:The correct issue and year of this Journal issue are actually
8:2 and 1991. The bibliography has dozens of errors. Some references
cited by Doniger simply do not exist.

B. DEROGATORY, DEFAMATORY AND OFFENSIVE STATEMENTS


Clumsily written, each chapter is a shocking and appalling series of
anecdotes which denigrate, distort and misrepresent Hinduism and the
history of India and Hindus. Doniger uses selective quotations from
obscure and non-original, peripheral and ignorant references with a
bizarre emphasis on sexuality and eroticism. Cited below are only a
handful of quotes along with our understanding and interpretation,
with references from Hindu scripture.

[Page number precedes the quote from the book. This is followed by a
rebuttal comment.]

Pg 40 If the motto of Watergate was Follow the money, the motto of the
history of Hinduism could well be Follow the monkey or, more often
Follow the horse.
COMMENT: Very derogatory and offensive. The motto of Hinduism is to
follow the truth and unite with God.

Pg 112 - The author alleges that in Rigveda 10.62, it is implied that
a woman may find her own brother in her bed!
COMMENT: The hymn has no such suggestion. It is offensive to suggest
that the sacred text of Hindus has kinky sex in it.

Pg 128 - The book likens the Vedic devotee worshipping different Vedic
deities to a lying and a philandering boyfriend cheating on his
girlfriend(s).
COMMENT: This is offensive and ignores that fact that in the Rigveda,
the gods are said to be all united, born of one another, and from the
same source.

Pg 225 -Dasharathas son is certainly lustful... Rama knows all too
well what people said about Dasharatha; when Lakshmana learns that
Rama has been exiled, he says, The king is perverse, old, and addicted
to sex, driven by lust (2.18.3)
COMMENT: Sri Rama is revered and worshipped as a deity. The highly
acclaimed and critical edition of Valmikis Ramayana records no such
statement attributed to Lakshmana. An imagined phrase, 'kama-sakta' is
mistranslated as 'addicted to sex' by the author whereas it normally
means filled with desires. Valmiki uses a phrase 'samani-madhah'
(trans. Possessed of passion).

Pg 467 - Harihara and Bukka (the founders of the Vijayanagara Empire
that saved Hindu culture in S India) double-crossed the Delhi Sultan
when they reconverted to Hinduism.
COMMENT: The brothers committed apostasy as they had been imprisoned
and forcibly converted to Islam, and immediately reverted to Hinduism
when they were 1000 miles from the Sultan, under the influence of a
Hindu ascetic.

Pg 468-469 -The mosque, whose serene calligraphic and geometric
contrasts with the perpetual motion of the figures depicted on the
temple, makes a stand against the chaos of India, creating enforced
vacuums that India cannot rush into with all its monkeys and peoples
and colors and the smells of the bazaar
COMMENT: It is simply unacceptable that a scholar can flippantly,
pejoratively and derogatorily essentialize the Hindus as monkeys and
peoples, colors and smells.., and chaos in most insulting manner with
the aspersion thrown at the entire Hindu culture and community all
over the world. Such generalization has no place in serious scholarly
work.

Pg 509 - Shankara and the philosophers wifeThis tale contrasts sex and
renunciation in such a way that the renunciant philosopher is able to
have his cake and eat it, to triumph not only in the world of the mind
(in which, before this episode begins, he wins a series of debates
against the nonrenouncing male Mimamsa philosopher) but in the world
of the body, represented by the philosophers wife (not to mention the
harem women who clearly prefer Shankara to the king in bed). The
author attributes the tale to Shankaradigvijaya of Madhava and to
Ravichandra's commentary on Amarushataka.
COMMENT: The author concocts the story as a sexual orgy in which the
Saint Adi Shankara and King Amruka take turns making love to the
latters wives after he is tired. Both her sources however state that
the King was already dead and the Saint transferred his soul into the
dead Kings body through his yogic powers. There is no suggestion in
the texts that the queens prefer Shankara to the king in bed.

Pg 571- It is alleged that in a hymn from Saint Kshetrayyas poetry,
God rapes the women devotees.
COMMENT: The hymn merely presents devotion using spiritual metaphors
and the hymns of the Saint seen collectively depict it as a passionate
love affair between the God and the devotees. No rape is implied in
this hymn at all.

Again, the above is simply a sampling of the scandalous and offensive
statements in the book. By her own admission in the book, Doniger has
no credentials as a historian and the title of the book is misleading
as the book is not on the History nor an Alternative History of India.
This shows that the author is not an authority on the subject as she
is not able to understand the deep meaning of Sanskrit verses or
Indian Concepts. These cast serious doubts about the authors integrity
as a researcher and ability to interpret accurately. Additional
examples of the authors shoddy scholarship will be made available upon
request.

We emphasize that this defamatory book misinforms readers about the
history of Hindu civilization, its cultures and traditions. The book
promotes prejudices and biases against Hindus. Can Penguins editors
really be incompetent enough to have allowed this to pass to
publication? If this is not deliberate malice, Penguin must act now in
good faith.

As concerned readers, we ask PENGUIN GROUP to:

1. WITHDRAW all the copies of this book immediately from the worldwide
bookshops/markets/Universities/Libraries and refrain from printing any
other edition.

2. APOLOGIZE for having published this book The Hindus: An Alternative
History. This book seriously and grossly misrepresents the Hindu
reality as known to the vast numbers of Hindus and to scholars of
Hindu tradition. PENGUIN must apologize for failure to observe proper
pre-publication scrutiny and scholarly review.

So much for the lumpen illiberal sexually repressed Hindu fundamentalists browbeating the lady of liberty, knowledge, and wisdom Wendy Doniger narrative that is being peddled here.

It was posted by @Hermione in this thread: Penguin Books India pulps academic book on Hinduism because it offended Hindus | Page 2

 

[Indischer]

I have read the book too, and I know that is not true. I confess that it has been a while since I read it, but the parts that stuck most in my mind were not about sexuality at all. The chapter on chola architecture was well written.

I'm halfway through the book, and given the controversy surrounding it, I was careful enough to check for any sneak attacks on Hinduism. But rather than this, what I found was that the Author, though very well endowed with knowledge on Hinduism, was also quite insensitive in her tone at many places. And wherever she deviates from presenting mere facts and delves into her own analysis, the discussion invariably has a few pointers to sexuality in symbology. But I must confess I haven't yet found anything profoundly objectionable in that book so far. Will update this thread once I'm done reading it completely.

 

[jaunty]

Oh it is the case sorry i din't know so people in India also don't let others express their point ..

Are you for real? What does that even mean? One person sued the publishers as he felt his religious feelings were hurt. How does that translate as "people in India also don't let others express their point". Get a grip lady!

 

[Durrak]

Are you for real? What does that even mean? One person sued the publishers as he felt his religious feelings were hurt. How does that translate as "people in India also don't let others express their point". Get a grip lady!

And you better get a sense of humour.. Don't quote me please don't want to get into this.And the thread title said that it is banned so what can I assume?

 

[Chronos]

@janon You are absolutely right, ideally every woman and man in society would have understood that the "divine" mystery and purpose is actually self-actualization, self-actualization in its truest sense. That the wisdom of a life lived in the contexts that prevail outweighs often (NOT always) that which has been compiled in texts and tomes. If there be gods then they are mighty shy and care two twits about what's going on lest humanity is willing to volunteer for another deluge or bhishand mahayudh for their jollies.

.

The notion of a celestial dictator, who keeps an overwatch on his Human subjects and what they should believe in, how to lead their lives, it is disturbing to me.

One thing is clear to me, from this forum by watching the interactions of Hindus and muslims in this forum.

Both sets of people have no compunction in assuming a self-righteous tone but immediately, in a hypocritical backlash, hit out against any criticism of their chosen faith.

 

[Dillinger]

The notion of a celestial dictator, who keeps an overwatch on his Human subjects and what they should believe in, how to lead their lives, it is disturbing to me.

One thing is clear to me, from this forum by watching the interactions of Hindus and muslims in this forum.

Both sets of people have no compunction in assuming a self-righteous tone but immediately, in a hypocritical backlash, hit out against any criticism of their chosen faith.

To be honest though, the book in question is filled with factual errors. If someone wants to call me a monkey, cool, its not as if I'am going to grow a tail thanks to his/her words. If someone wants to insult some god, cool, irreverence has always been my favorite attribute. BUT, getting your facts wrong while being an academician, now THAT offends me quite deeply.

As for the all seeing eye and divine surveillance. I don't mind voyeurs, everyone including the gods should have the joy and pleasure of gazing upon my countenance and looking upon my actions with admiration and awe. I've always been an exhibitionist.

Yes, it is like being stuck in a police state with Big-Brother watching. As if a being which is said to transcend time and defy causality itself has nothing to do but to observe every single action of ours in minute detail, sitting on heaven's throne must be mighty boring.

 

[janon]

...
In summation, yes we should have been mature enough to let the book hit the markets and then let the vidwaans and gyaanis dismantle it bit by bit with their intellect. That is the mettle of true wisdom which survives through the ages. BUT, given our history with regard to such affairs let us be happy that the man who took offence also had the wisdom to understand that his right to be offended and to act upon said feeling extended only up to the limits set by the law of the land and that he could not form up a lynch mob to express his displeasure with more vigor. That alone is a rare feet, notice the lack of embassies being set aflame and authors being greeted with bounties on their heads.

Actually, the book has been in the market and in circulation for quite a while. It did not really have any adverse consequences for our society or civilization so far. Now somebody files a case that he is offended, and suddenly the honour-keepers of hinduism are up in arms. This is the phenomenon that Salman Rushdie referred to as ''manufactured anger'' in regard to the muslim world - the mohammed cartoons were published, then after a long time some cleric somewhere (I think Indonesia) stumbled upon them, incited his flock to violence, and suddenly there were embassies burnt across the world, nuns stabbed in Nigeria, mobs marauding in Aghanistan and Pakistan, churches destroyed and so on.

Sure, there has been no violence in India over this book. But this lesser form of intolerance should not be excused by pointing out greater intolerance from other religions. That is called 'Fatwa envy' - chrisitians in the US are accused of almost expressing jealousy that they cannot issue violence inciting fatwas like the muslims can, and the catholics could back in their good old days of the inquisition.

Fatwa envy - RationalWiki

 

[cyphercide]

I'm halfway through the book, and given the controversy surrounding it, I was careful enough to check for any sneak attacks on Hinduism. But rather than this, what I found was that the Author, though very well endowed with knowledge on Hinduism, was also quite insensitive in her tone at many places. And wherever she deviates from presenting mere facts and delves into her own analysis, the discussion invariably has a few pointers to sexuality in symbology. But I must confess I haven't yet found anything profoundly objectionable in that book so far. Will update this thread once I'm done reading it completely.

Let's make one thing clear. Nobody cares about your two bit review!!!

Come at me, bro!!!