Customer Reviews

Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America

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This is a difficult book for several reasons: 1. a large part of the discussion is fairly technical. 2. The subject matter is quite revolting for most practicing Hindus. 3. The book is quite large, over 450 big size pages, with a lot of text.

However, if you can manage to go through it, the effort would be worth the reward. The prose is crisp, fairly non-emotional, and intellectually engaging. The book is a compilation of essays by different persons, so you get a decent variety in terms of writing styles as well.

The book is divided into four main sections. Section 1 deals with the bias in one wing of American Academy of Religions (AAR). Section 2 sets out the Hindu American response to the bias, once the bias was exposed. Section 3 details out the vicious fight that followed. Section 4 provides a snapshot of how the media dealt with the issue. Each section has several chapters, a total of 29 chapters in all. Four appendices are given, followed by copious notes containing references and interesting sidelights.

The book has been typeset and bound in India. There are some proofing errors, and other editing goof-ups. For instance, often you can't figure out who has contributed a particular essay (Chapter 11, 12, for instance). Similarly, it is not clear as to what do the notes on pages 469-472 relate to. This is to be expected as Indian publishing is in its infancy, and newer publishing houses do not have access to high quality editorial or proofing services.

However, the quality of the discussion is of a very high standard, quite unlike what we found in Eminent Historians by Sh. Arun Shourie, which was also full of repetitions. The arguments are cogent, and mostly have been presented very well. There is some repetition here also, but not too much. Both books, incidentally, deal with essentially the same issue: systematic destruction of a community's cultural or spiritual heritage by a section of intellectuals, and the community's agonized response to it. The book appears to be doing fairly well, considering its relatively difficult subject, and may very well mark a turning of the tide.

An interesting feature of the book is the use of comic sheets, which serve to wrap up the broad arguments, and dramatize their implications for one's everyday life. On the one hand, this distracts from the seriousness of the book. On the other hand, it also adds interest and life to a relatively dry book.

The book is difficult to put down (though it is fairly difficult to hold it up as well!). It also has the potential to ruin your sleep, and your morning puja, with the kind of images that are discussed in the book. Be warned: if you are young or have newly discovered or rediscovered Hindu heritage, you may get emotionally scarred by some of the vivid and vicious portrayal of Hindu icons by AAR scholars.

It would be clear to anyone that in today's world cultural confidence matters as much as economic and military power. Destruction of one's cultural heritage could allow a country to remain theoretically independent, but intellectually dependent and emotionally crippled. Therefore, mutual respect for other's cultures, and an overall committment to intellectual integrity should be an essential feature of the academicians.

Unfortunately, some devitants among the modern intelligentsia band together like intellectual cartels. Their professional life depends on digging up (or rigging up) ever more interesting tidbits in order to stay in business. For decades, such academicians have fed off dead cultures such as the Maya, Aztec and the Egyptians, with no one to shoo them away. However, when they attack a living culture such as India or China, a robust response is natural.

This response has been late, but going by this book, it seems to be adequate and highly sophisticated, as well as effective. The book also shows that such mercenaries have no staying power - they like to hunt in secrecy and prey on the weak and the undefended. Once challenged, they run away quickly, though they may come back to attack again as a pack. However, all you need to do is to hold your ground and shout, and they will melt away again. One does wish, though that such academicians will apply their considerable talents to something constructive and productive, instead of whiling away their lives pursuing intellectual frivolities.

Buy this book if you want some very interesting insights into the ongoing cultural wars. Keep your blood-pressure pills handy, though.

This book is excellent and over due. It exposes the racism, colonial mindset, religious bigotry of a section of highly placed American "academics", Universities of "repute". In the name of intellectual enquiry, freedom of speech, they are engaged in neo-colonialism, extreme denigration of Hinduism, Hindu Icons to suit political needs of their masters. This book exposes their design with extensive research.

Britain funded Catherine Mayo to write "Mother India" in 1920s to soar up British Colonialism in India by writing "report of a gutter inspector" (as Gandhi described it). A section of American `Scholars' are now playing similar role to suit the geopolitical need of Western interest.

As a Bengali Hindu, I feel highly disturbed at the Sexual portrayal of Ramakrishna Paramhansa done by them, role played by Academy of Religion (AAR) in it. Bengalis can be found in most Western universities. Bengali as a language is taught in many western Universities, where meaning of Bengali words could be easily clarified. Instead of taking an easy route, meanings of basic Bengali words were twisted to suit the pornography written by these "scholars".

And whatever is being done by these highly placed American Scholars is not new. If you read history, you will find Maharshri Debendranath Tagore (father of Rabindranath), a moderate Hindu, was so outraged at the portrayal of Hinduism, Culture by missionaries at 19th century Calcutta, he along with many leading intellectuals established separate Hindu Schools for boys and girls. Bankim Chatterjee wrote many pieces rebutting the outrageous pieces in the pages of the Statesman.

Rise of Hindu Revivalism in middle to late 19th Century India was partly because of this scandalous portrayal of Hinduism, Indian Culture by a section of Missionaries in India. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee ("the most important Indian thinker of 19th century" as described by Nirad C Choudhury), Swami Dayananad Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo - all western educated Hindus practically rebelled against Western denigration of Hinduism, colonialism.

We can safely say, the portrayal of Hinduism at the hands of Harvard, Chicago......is a proof that the same tradition continues in the new century, in newer places whose goal is same - to brow beat India, its traditions to suit geo-political interest of their masters.

Their newer goal is politicalization of Caste, and divide Hindus horizontally in the name of "Human rights", thus keep the Western hegemony in the new millennium.

This book is a path breaking work, and authors, contributors must be congratulated for compiling it.

This is some ground-breaking research here. Like the previous comment pointed out, this is a book the American Academia cannot afford to ignore (or silence as being anti-freedom or fascistic in nature).

The argumentation in this book is sound and in line with both the Scientific method and the Indian tradition of Purva Paksha. Will this herald a new era of healthy dialog between the practitioners and the social-scientists and lead to a better understanding of the nature of this beautiful philosophical tradition? This reader definitely hopes so.

Should you be one of those who read academic regurgitations of sacred texts, this book might give you pause in your rush to disclose the truths you have found therein. This book, incisively titled "Invasions of the Sacred," amply documents with quotes and various assevations from the academics themselves--as ever their best witnesses for their own ineptitude and undoubtedly bitter from their rejections for well paid and more illustrious Index positions where Nihil Obstats and Imprimaturs could be delivered in grand style. So there is much twisting and turning here, which you can enjoy reading, but at peril to your blood pressure. As with cloistered academics, so beautifully documented in this book as they declare this is that that is this, and so far from the raw and burn of life, they do speak roundly on limp phalluses! Perhaps our here is more than that! The book documents exquistely this tedious work of our academics (oh, I know, they are not mine) creating yards and yards of shard dust. But this work of academics is midly insidious and not easy to rectify. For the Bhagavid Gita does not need such "rectification" so easily ignored by anyone far from the umbra of the groves of academe and on their own serious search for truth.

Can you imagine such rectifications of the fragments of Herakleitos?

But I am glad something has finally been gathered togethered with great care to detail, yes, with periods, vast documentation, and a good bibliography. It was prepared as if a trial were about to be on the docket of our minds, and this is the first complete brief. Very interesting, should only a small part of the shennagins of Wendy and her children be true; yes, it could make some of us very angry indeed!

We are so happy that such books as this are written, careful in their documentation, but warn us to beware what translations, so-called helpful and illuminating "commentaries," and the professors and academic establishment that promulgate them. Remember! If you fall into such a "workshop booth," you can easily write it off to bad Karma!

We wish you well and such bad Karma may not befall you! Read this book with its cautionary notes and as usual, search for yourself the truth, trusting no one.

Let the trial go forward!

The main point of the book is that there is a powerful wing of the American academy that demonizes Indian culture by presenting opinion, fantasy and unverifiable information as "fact" about India. The scholarly essays in the book also demonstrate how and why this happens:
1) Poor training and competence of American academics in Indian languages and culture (numerous examples are provided- see Chapters 3, 5, 7, 17)
2) A broken peer-review process that is amenable to manipulation by powerful academics - a serious threat to academic freedom. This leads to fabrications and half-truths being published as academic research. (see Chapters 5, 6, 17)
3) Exclusive use of psychoanalysis to interpret and reduce Indian culture, often by untrained scholars, when so many other richer methods are available. (see chapters (13,14,15, and Appendix 1)
4) A cultural hegemony that excludes or at least marginalizes the voices of practitioners of Indian religions ("whom they call insiders"). See Chapters 16, and Sections III and IV.

As chapter after chapter in the book demonstrates, with telling evidence, these factors have lead to a dumbing-down of the discourse on India, and have lead to the trivialization of Indian cultural and religious icons. The editors object to biased scholarship because their work is "offensive", but simply because the works do not pass reasonable tests of scholarship.
You should read this book and make up your own mind.

This is an eye-opening book describing the systemic - and often very personal - prejudice against Hinduism in American academia. It is well supported by references, and written in an academic but very readable style. Invading the Sacred highlights the arrogance of an agenda-driven academia at formerly (by myself) respected universities such as the University of Chicago and Emory University.

It also tells the captivating story of how members of the Hindu Diaspora finally rose up against powerful interests to protest the befouling of their religion. It appears the battle has just begun, so this book is also an extremely effective handbook for teachers and students of comparative religion and Hinduism.

While reading Invading the Sacred, I found myself deeply disgusted by the words and actions of these university professors. I was also inspired by the courage and calmness of certain academics and Hindu professionals who are fighting for a balanced treatment of Hinduism in the U.S. education system. The entrenched professors continue with their ad hominem attacks and attempts to suppress free dissemination of truth - while the Hindu side gives a reasoned, referenced, and academic response.

If I detailed the completely disproven claims about Hinduism made by these `leading' professors, this review would probably be censored. Imagine the worst possible pornographic and incestuous claims made about Jesus Christ and his mother Mary, and it will give you an idea of what these leading lights of American academia are trying to foist on Hinduism.

One chapter systematically compares the treatment of Hinduism to Christianity and Islam in a popular dictionary written by these academics. It makes one realize that `neutral' and `academic' should not be applied to these highly decorated professors who are backed by the most `respected' comparative religion organization in the U.S. - the American Academy of Religion.

Who should buy this book:
· Students and teachers of comparative religion or Hinduism
· University Presidents and department heads who want to learn the truth about Hinduism
· Hindu parents concerned about how their children are being taught Hinduism in school and in everyday society
· Anyone interested in fighting religious bigotry and prejudice

As an American, I am profoundly ashamed and embarrassed by the behavior of some of our leading universities. I strongly urge you to buy this book, and to share it with others.

Whether you agree or disagree with the book, "Invading the Sacred" will be ingored by the American academy at its own peril. It takes aim at the "scholarship" on Hinduism emanating from the American academy and questions its objectivity. The practitioners speak back. The academy can continue to plug their ears or step up to engage and respond.

Invading the Sacred arrives at a very important time. India remains in the grips of an upswing in economic and political fortunes, and this has breeded a certain triumphalism amongst our Hindu community, especially the diaspora. It is easy to believe all the headlines, and forget in this context the numerous issues that remain for Indians to confront, both internally--the threat from poverty, a widening income gap, corruption, and political incompetence--and externally--the threat from various other nations, corporations, and nonbusiness organizations determined to use or exploit India to their own ends. This book has done a wonderful job of exploring and highlighting one of these issues.

Invading the Sacred tells the story of how American scholars of Hinduism have long been free to write whatever they wish about the religion, with minimal input or feedback from practitioners, until very recently, when the Hindu community began to take notice of what was being written. This book details the sexualizing, trivializing, and even dehumanizing extremes to which Hinduism studies has occasionally gone in describing its "object", and it also details the multivarious Hindu response to these extreme mischaracterizations. It spends most of its time discussing the works of religion professors like Paul Courtright, Jeffrey Kripal, Sarah Caldwell, and above all, Wendy Donniger, who in the 80s and 90s became very influential in their fields while (and perhaps by?) hawking theoroes of Hinduism that emphasized to ridiculous extents (and with fleeting evidence) sexual and fringe practices within the tradition, based largely on discredited Freudian motifs. It also discusses how these motifs were discovered and publicized to the Hindu community worldwide by a variety of diaspora Indians, most notably Rajiv Malhotra, through the medium of the internet, and how this mobilized Hindus to more closely scrutinize the ways in which they were being depicted and respond with interventions ranging from scholarly reviews to diatribes to petitions and townhall meetings.

To a practitioner of Hinduism, seeing our practices described in such stark, sordid, and distorted language as used by religion professors is sure to evoke a powerful emotional reaction, but the book wisely does its best to avoid this and focuses its critique on fact and method. Indeed, it succeeds best where it sticks purely to cataloguing deficiencies. One hopes that our community takes heed and learns how to argue its positions more objectively the next time its interests are threatened.

The book's greatest simultaneous weaknesses and strength lie in its ability to put this story in the historical context of "othering" the Native Americans before taking their land and killing them. The end comparison is both histrionic and thought-provoking. The thesis that Hindus are being targeted for dispossession, eviction, recolonization and even extermination through an initial "softening" by academic distortion, in much the same manner as the Native Americans before them, is certainly interesting. Indeed, the book draws attention to the similarities in the ways that Native Americans were depicted by those who ultimately colonized them, and the ways in which Hindus are being depicted now. The case is, unfortunately, overstated; the scholars who misrepresent Hinduism hardly seem, even in all the episodes described in this book, to be deliberately trying to hurt Hinduism or Hindu sentiments. The damage they do comes across as the consequence of callousness and contempt rather than an active expansionist or missionary agenda, despite the book's strongest efforts to paint it otherwise. And though this is in fairness not its purpose, the book does not do justice to the criticism elaborated within it that some fault for the current state of affairs certainly lies with Hindus ourselves. We have not treated our religion with importance, and hence our story has been written by others. These others, not connected to our tradition, are free to deduce whatever they wish, and ultimately invent it, because of the lack of voices from within the tradition to critique and counterbalance them, and demand--assertively--the proof for their varied and banal interpretations.

In spite of this, the similarities in language and tone between how the Native Americans were described before and during their uprootment and genocide and how we are being described today are striking and, in places, more than a little frightening. It is painful, vexing, and eye opening to realize that scholars of religion and anthropologists actually believe--and are trying to get others to not just believe, but accept as fact--that our cultural respect for the mother is due to an underlying desire (on the part of every man, apparently) to have sex with her, or that our women do not bond with their children, or that we look at everything in life through phallus colored (or shaped!) glasses. This may not all be part of a calculated plot against Hinduism, but it is not hard to see (and the book provides a few warning examples) how this could be used by those who wish Hinduism ill, however the original authors may have intended their statements. The book is an exhortation to us to act, at a minimum by speaking up, and in this it is an extremely valuable resource. It is a must for Hindus who, like I used to be, ask, "who cares what others think?", for it shows how important such opinions--and opinion-making--can be in an open society and climate.

This book also documents yet another example of how the internet can decentralize a debate or at least level a playing field. It has been used very effectively by Rajiv Malhotra, Sankrant Sanu, and others to get exposure for their ideas when a more traditional article in an academic journal or book may have been impossible to produce. One lesson from this ongoing debate is thus certainly that alternative media channels can allow for very fertile discussions when the official channels are closed to thoughtful outsiders. The importance of this, demonstrated previously to the Indian community by George Allen's campaign going down in flames post-"macaca", is demonstrated here again.

Overall, a very thought-provoking and exciting read. A must for every Hindu who heard about or was involved in the various Hinduism-studies controversies and seeks to understand them better at a temporal and emotional remove. We should look forward to many more books on this controversy and others, and more books besides by these excellent authors. Bravo!

This book is a major and accurate indictment of American Academia in the department of religion. That indictment is based on sound research, careful argumentation and theory, and is irrefutable. What shocks one is that some of the "research" by so-called "scholars" that is refuted is funded by American tax payer funds and originates in universities of high repute in other areas of research. More than how Hinduism is distorted by these Academics, Americans need to be concerned about the fact that such research originates from universities otherwise well reputed and a considerable amount of it is funded directly or indirectly by American tax payer money that could be well spent on legitimate, honest and valid research. The abuse of the First Amendment freedoms and the tenure system and cliques in academia that fosters the environment exposed by this carefully conducted research is one that should concern one and all if America is to improve its educational system. A must read for any one concerned about the quality of American liberal education and not just for those interested in religious studies.

This book is a gem. It details the horrific misrepresentations of Hinduism by a section of American Hinduism scholars. The book flows smoothly. In fact I found the book irresistable. It's a shame that the book is not a best seller.