1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Saveral inaccuracies, some even blasphemous to Hindus, December 20, 2008
This review is from: Hinduism (Religion, Scriptures, and Spirituality) (Audio CD)
I had almost started enjoying this book until I heard some information which is patently false and would be considered offensive by many faithful Hindus, although Westerners, except for ISKON converts, would not easily notice them. The most glaring falshood that this work propagates are as follows: 1) describes Krishna's supposed 'love affair' with Radha (who allegedly married to somebody else)as a story which is canonical and part of Hindu belief. He further alleges that Gopis who danced with Krishna were married and had a "love affair" with him. The attempt is to portray the holiest figure of Hindus as a fornicator. This is the most glaring scholarly gaffe from this author and reveals serious shortcomings in his claim as a scholar of Hinduism. A brief examination, undertaken with sincere intent, would have revealed to him that Radha is a completely fictitious character invented by poet Jayadeva around 12th century CE and that none of any canonical accounts of Krishna in Puranas and Mahabharata have any mention of Radha, let alone any mention of her as being married.Jayadeva's work too describes Radha as allegorical figure symbolizing Maya and containes no hint of any adulterous love. With regard to supposed affair of Krishna with married Gopis, the author again shows callous disregard or ignorance of the Hindu scriptures. According to Bhagavatham, whence this story comes, Krisnha was merely a boy of eight when he played the clothes stealing prank on Gopis. Out of hundreds of pages dedicated to Krishna, the episode describing the childhood prank of Krishna with Gopis barely lasts a paragraph, with nothing that could be seriously deemed to be scandalous as Krishna was just a little boy. Rest of the scripture describes his miracles, statesnmanship and military exploits in great detail. This childhood prank of Krishna continues to be misrepresented , blown out of proportion and quoted out of context by all and sundry interested in describing Hinduism with an agenda. The author obviously ignored the canonical texts of Hinduism and built an amoral narrative of Krishna as a playboy based on non-canonical stories which are popular only in a heretical outer fringe of Hindu society and considered blasphemous by 99% of other lay Hindus. Other glaring mistakes: 2) depiction of left-handed tantric practices with the suggestion that lay Hindus don't object to them 3) Sikh scripture having Mira's verses which is manifestly wrong 4) South Indian kings being Shudras,etc.
One hopes that the above mistakes are not wilful.
The author owes an apology to his Hindu and ISKON readers/listners in any case for having shown callous disregard for documenting/appreciating the difference between Krisna's canonical accounts, based on Puranas and epic Mahabharata, and a fringe non-canonical one created by outcasts and libertines, who sat on the very tiny outer margin of Hindu society, but tolerated nonetheles, for justifying their own license.
The book added nothing new to my understanding of Hinduism. The interface between Buddhism and Hinduism could have been explained better by devoting some more space to Shankara's Advaita school but the author just repeats the tired old cliches. I wish he had spent some effor in explaining Shankara's commentaries of the theories of self and non-self (annata) found in Buddhism.
Unless the reader/listner has some prior grounding in Hindu texts and history, this work has the potential to mislead the newcomers to field of Hinduism related scholarship. The author should take some relief in the fact that Hindus by and large are tolerant and will either overlook or forgive the blasphemous accounts of Krishna in this work but this does not make up for this author's very obvious failings as a scholar of Hinduism.
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