"Consider, for instance, the portrait of Sita in "The Ramayana." In
this long poem, the beautiful Sita is kidnapped by an ogre but
eventually rescued by her husband, Rama. Unfortunately, after the
initial happiness of their reunion, Rama starts to wonder about his
wife's chastity during her long imprisonment. Would she not have
succumbed or been forced to submit to the lecherous ogre's embrace?
Although Sita proves and proves again her innocence, Doniger
underscores the crassness of Rama's jealous-husband behavior but also
notes certain textual hints that Sita is more sexual than she appears
and that her feelings for Rama's brother Lakshmana might well be more
than familial. As Sita is the classic model of Indian womanhood, such
sacrilegious speculation once led to Doniger being egged at a London
lecture."
The Washington Post
Passages From India
By Michael Dirda
Thursday, March 19, 2009; Page C11
THE HINDUS: An Alternative History By Wendy Doniger Penguin Press. 779
pp. $35
Any of us might make the same mistake: I didn't really notice the
subtitle of Wendy Doniger's massive study, "The Hindus." I knew that
she was an eminent Sanskrit scholar at the University of Chicago,
author of many books about cultural, religious and folkloric beliefs,
and a translator of several Indian classics, including "The Rig Veda"
and "The Kamasutra." Her annotations to the latter, that notorious
manual of sexual practice, are, I can attest, as entertaining and
informative as the book itself.
However, "The Hindus: An Alternative History" is probably too
scholarly and specialized for readers looking simply for an
introduction to Indian philosophy and religion. In its notes Doniger
suggests that her book could be used for a 14-week course, and I
suspect that it originated as a series of class lectures. She herself
recommends some more conventional histories and guides, including
Gavin Flood's "An Introduction to Hinduism," John Keay's "India: A
History" and that old standby, A.L. Basham's survey "The Wonder That
Was India." While Doniger does trace the evolution of Hinduism from
the time of the Indus Valley Civilization (2,500 B.C.) to the present,
she deliberately emphasizes a small number of recurrent threads, in
particular the ways that "women, lower classes and castes, and
animals" have endured or surmounted their traditional status. Horses,
for instance, are typically glamorous, cows sacred and dogs despised
-- but not always.
Having been trained as a philologist, Doniger organizes her history
around interpretations of the most revered classics of Sanskrit poetry
and philosophy. She begins with the Rig Veda, a collection of hymns to
the Zeus-like Indra and other ancient gods. This is a work so sacred
that manuscripts display no textual differences: To alter a word was
unthinkable. She also examines women, castes and animals in the
Upanishads -- essentially, meditations on the meaning of the Vedic
rituals and myths -- and the 2,000-year-old Indian epics "The
Ramayana" and "The Mahabharata."
Consider, for instance, the portrait of Sita in "The Ramayana." In
this long poem, the beautiful Sita is kidnapped by an ogre but
eventually rescued by her husband, Rama. Unfortunately, after the
initial happiness of their reunion, Rama starts to wonder about his
wife's chastity during her long imprisonment. Would she not have
succumbed or been forced to submit to the lecherous ogre's embrace?
Although Sita proves and proves again her innocence, Doniger
underscores the crassness of Rama's jealous-husband behavior but also
notes certain textual hints that Sita is more sexual than she appears
and that her feelings for Rama's brother Lakshmana might well be more
than familial. As Sita is the classic model of Indian womanhood, such
sacrilegious speculation once led to Doniger being egged at a London
lecture.
"The Mahabharata" is an immensely long poem -- seven times the
combined length of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" -- that relates the
history of the five Pandava brothers (who are all married to the same
woman, Draupadi -- Doniger expresses regret that she, rather than
Sita, didn't provide the template for Indian womanhood). The Pandavas
eventually go to war against their cousins, the 100 sons of
Dhritarashtra, and the poem climaxes in a great battle. But just
before the two armies clash, the formidable warrior Arjuna suddenly
recoils from the coming slaughter, overwhelmed by horror and sorrow.
In a still moment outside of time, he begins to discuss the meaning of
life with his charioteer, the god Krishna in human form. This section
of the epic is often read separately, being one of the supreme
masterpieces of spiritual literature: the "Bhagavad-Gita," or "Song of
the Blessed One." In the end, Krishna persuades Arjuna to let go of
personal desire, unite
his will to that of God and perform his sacred duty (dharma) in a
spirit of acceptance and detachment, without thought of either success
or failure.
Doniger also tells another story from "The Mahabharata," one in which
the five Pandavas are all trying to reach heaven and each drops away,
until only Yudhishthira continues on the straight and narrow path,
alone except for a stray dog that follows him. At the story's climax,
Indra appears to this most virtuous Indian brother and, praising him,
requests that he step into his celestial chariot and be transported to
heaven -- just as soon as he gets rid of that mangy dog. In the words
of the old Christian hymn, "once to every man and nation, comes the
moment to decide," and Yudhishthira refuses to abandon this animal who
has been so loyal to him. At which point the dog reveals himself to be
Dharma, the god of right behavior: "Great king . . . Because you
turned down the celestial chariot, by insisting, 'This dog is devoted
to me,' there is no one your equal in heaven." Since dogs were
traditionally unclean, Doniger notes of this story that "it is as if
the
god of the Hebrew Bible had become incarnate in a pig." This is
characteristic of her cheeky tone, given to jokes and wordplay:
According to Doniger, when Sita glimpses a golden deer encrusted with
jewels, she is "delighted to find that Tiffany's has a branch in the
forest." Such humor -- sometimes charming, as here -- reflects that
strange desire of modern academics to be viewed not only as learned
but also as hip and funky.
While deconstructing her various Indian texts, Doniger duly explores
such concepts as karma ("action, or the fruits of action"); ahimsa
(nonviolence); bhakti ("passionate devotion to a god"); samsara (the
circle of transmigration of souls); and the caste system, consisting
of Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors and kings), Vaishyas
(merchants) and Shudras (servants), as well as that fifth class, the
Dalits, or so-called Untouchables. Just learning Sanskrit words like
moksha (release) is an education in itself.
Doniger's last chapters are the most historical and by far the
easiest. She traces the impact of the British on Indian culture and
writes movingly about Kipling's "Kim," that great-hearted novel packed
with colonialist attitudes yet full of the utmost sympathy and love
for India and its people. She discusses Orientalism, Gandhi, right-
wing Indian political groups and Bollywood, before finishing her story
by touching on the reception and distortion -- Tantric sex! -- of
Hindu culture in the West.
Wendy Doniger's erudite "alternative history" shouldn't be anyone's
introduction to Hinduism. But once you've learned the basics about
this most spiritual of cultures, don't miss this equivalent of a
brilliant graduate course from a feisty and exhilarating teacher.
Michael Dirda -- [email protected] appears each Thursday in Style.
Visit his online book discussion at http://washingtonpost.com/readingroom.
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