In the 10th book of Rig Veda the seer admits that no one, not even He, knows where the creation came from. The same can be said of the history of Hinduism. Because of the unavailability of archeological evidence or written accounts, history of Hinduism has to be constructed hermeneutically. The hermeneutics can be done in a constructively keeping in mind the sensitivities of the followers of Hinduism or critically to deride and ridicule them. Wendy Doniger does the latter. She uses the discredited technique of Freud and comes up with sexual or aggressive interpretation of Hindu symbols and stories. While no one can doubt the breadth of her knowledge of Hindu stories, she uses fiction and philological jugglery rather than empirical research or focus groups to make her points in her book, The Hindus – an Alternative History of Hinduism. She brushes aside histories of Hinduism that treat it sympathetically by insisting “I said so.” Through her analysis she claims to have read the minds of the original makers of Hindu symbols and icons. Although she herself constructs a mythical history (By her own admission, she is not a historian), she faults Hindus for constructing a mythical history. Anyone who does not agree with her is a fundamentalist.
In the religion of common folks it is emotion and not cognition, heuristics and not deductive reasoning that matter. Human behavior is guided by behaviorism. Most of the practicing Hindus are introduced to the consecrated symbols (murthis) in their childhood as sacred and taught that they are a representation of the Almighty, someone they can turn to for hope, succor and divine reassurance. Few ponder on their origins and symbolism. The Indian secularists and journalists coming to the defense of this book in the name of attack on Hindu pluralism or on freedom of expression should go the common Hindu folks to ask them if they look upon lingam as an erect phallus or at Kali as a grotesque blood thirsty murderess.
Another premise of the book that Hinduism is divided into a philosophical "Brahminism" and the Hinduism of the subalterns is also flawed. It is a celebration of Hindu pluralism that many philosophical streams coexist with many folk steams. In fact many, actually most Brahmins and most fundamentalists practice what she calls Hinduism of the subalterns with its myth, magic and mayhem. Members of a Hindu group, Shiv Sena, worship Ganesh, whose trunk, Paul Courtwright, Wendy’s disciples, called a limp phallus and according to her hypothesis a subaltern Hinduism. Similarly Vivekananda, whom Kakkar, by Freudian psychoanalysis parodied as a gay lunatic, was a pioneer of philosophical Brahminism of Vedanta and also worshiped a subaltern deity, Kali. All Hinduisms, philosophical and subaltern coexist exist with minor frictions. This book, neither scholarly nor a book of history, is a polemic to create a schism between Hinduisms - a mythical Brahmanism and Hinduisms of subalterns.
American Hindus, too, should examine if they could simplify Hinduism by finding its common cord, a sort of philosophical unity and winnow and sift cannon from myth. I do not think that our progeny in the United States will be able to relate to some of the stories and images that Wendy and others ridicule, as sacred or explain their meaning and symbolism if they consider them sacred. One cannot see the the ethical and spiritual tress in the forest of excessive myth and ritual.
