Battle for Sanskrit, Blogs

Critique of Pollock’s views on shastra

October 20, 2023
  • TV summary: Sheldon Pollock writes, “All Indian learning … perceives itself and indeed  presents itself largely as commentary on the primordial sastras.” … “We ourselves do not “create” knowledge, but merely bring it to manifestation from the (textual) materials “[Vedas/Sastras]” and concludes that since “all knowledge is pre-existent”, “progress can only be achieved by a regressive re-appropriation of the past.” Therefore, “there can be no conception of progress of the forward movement from worse to better, on the basis of innovations in practice”. “If any sort of amelioration is to occur, this can only be in the form of a “regress’” a backward movement aiming at a closer and more faithful approximation to the divine pattern [Vedas/Sastras].”Question: Do Hindus (“traditional Indians”) believe that all knowledge is sourced from Vedas and Sastras? Sheldon Pollock says so emphatically. In fact, he is convinced sufficiently to write an entire article towards this conclusion titled “The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual History”. This paper was published in the prestigious Journal of the American Oriental Society in a special issue in honor of Pollock’s teacher, the famous Harvard Indologist, Daniel Ingalls. In that paper, Pollock draws the damning conclusion that Hindus believe that all knowledge is sourced from Vedas/Sastras and hence failed to make progress in sciences (vyavaharika or this-worldly knowledge) because they saw themselves limited to merely extracting knowledge of the Vedas: theory (rules or “grammars”) of the Vedas always preceded the practice of science. West, on the other hand, is diametrically opposed to it and held experimentation and practice as the means to developing knowledge of science.Summarizing his conclusive views on Indian intellectual history, Pollock writes,

    “The understanding of the relationship of sastra (‘theory’) to prayoga (‘practical activity’) in Sanskritic culture is shown to be diametrically opposed to that usually found in the West. Theory is held always and necessarily to precede and govern practice; there is no dialectical interaction between them. Two important implications of this fundamental postulate are that all knowledge is pre-existent, and that progress can only be achieved by a regressive re-appropriation of the past.

    Pollock arrives at his thesis as follows:

    1. Epistemology of Hindus points all knowledge to be divine in origin as with all of material Universe (Satkaryavada cosmogony); there is no knowledge creation, only uncovering concealed preexisting knowledge. Pollock writes, “First the “creation” of knowledge is presented as an exclusively divine activity and occupies a structural cosmological position suggestive of the creation of the material universe as a whole. Knowledge, moreover – and again, this is knowledge of every variety from the transcendent sort “whose purposes are uncognizable (adrstartha) to that of social relations, music, medicine (and evidently even historical knowledge) – is by and large viewed as permanently fixed in its dimensions.”
    1. Vedas and Sastras are of a divine origin. Moreover, all divine knowledge has been transmitted through and only through Vedas and Sastras. Therefore, all human exploration of knowledge is limited to uncovering concealed knowledge in Vedas and Sastras. Pollock writes, “Knowledge, along with the practices that depend on it,does not change or grow, but is frozen for all time in a given set of texts that are continually made available to human beings in whole or in part during the ever repeated cycles of cosmic creation.”
    1. Sastras provided rules (or grammars) to govern many aspects of non-ritualistic human behavior. Grammars of Sastra had a strangle-hold on practically all aspects of secular human behavior in traditional India. Pollock writes, “These grammars were, by a process to be discussed, invested with massive authority, ensuring what in many cases seems to have been a nearly unchallengeable claim to normative control of cultural practice.”
    1. Even when (vyavaharika) knowledge of this world – such as medical, surgical, ayurvedic, astronomical/astrological, art – was developed in traditional India, Indians viewed such knowledge to be necessarily originating from but concealed in preexisting Vedas/sastras. Pollock writes “All Indian learning, accordingly, perceives itself and indeed presents itself largely as commentary on the primordial sastras.”
    1. Believing that Vedas are eternal and perfect, and that all knowledge, ideological and of practice, is in the Vedas has limited Hindu minds to Vedas for seeking knowledge and eliminated any change of civilizational progress. Pollock writes, “The eternality of the Vedas, Sastras par excellence, is one presupposition or justification for this assessment of Sastras”. Pollock adds, “From the conception of an a priori sastra it logically follows – and Indian intellectual history demonstrates that this conclusion was clearly drawn – that there can be no conception of progress of the forward movement from worse to better, on the basis of innovations in practice. … it is clear that in traditional India there were at all events ideological hindrances in its way. If any sort of amelioration is to occur, this can only be in the form of a “regress’” a backward movement aiming at a closer and more faithful approximation to the divine pattern.

    Pollock’s conclusion is nothing short of a sweeping judgment on the entire Indian civilization and knowledge development. He summarizes this moribund predicament when he writes, “Logically excluded from epistemological meaningfulness are likewise experience, experiment, invention, discovery, innovation. According to his own self-representation, there can be for the thinker no originality of thought, no brand-new insights, notions, perceptions, but only the attempt better and more clearly to grasp and explain the antecedent, always already formulated truth. All Indian learning, accordingly, perceives itself and indeed presents itself largely as commentary on the primordial sastras.”

    If Sheldon Pollock’s pronouncements are true, Indian civilization amounts to becoming a victim of its own creation by jailing creative minds of generations of intellectuals within the restrictive confines of cultural rules enunciated in Sastras over multiple millennia. This is not only a damning narrative of India’s past, but also a damning foreboding for those who follow tradition in India.

    To summarize Pollock, give up your traditions and progress the way of the West or be damned.

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The Peculiarity Of The Pollock Challenge

October 20, 2023
  • The Battle for Sanskrit seeks to empower traditional Sanskrit scholars so they can take up this task with regards to the West.
  • Ganesh’s final warning that ‘if we allow ourselves to be too troubled by such scholars and such debates, we will never be able to attain the peace of a contemplative mind’ also does not sound right to me.

Reading through  Shatavadhani R. Ganesh’s critical review of Rajiv Malhotra’s The Battle for Sanskrit my attention was drawn to an important point regarding the problem with Pollock’s scholarship made in the book which appears to have been missed. This has to do with the loss of adhikara of traditional scholars as experts in Sanskrit and its transfer to Western academicians and their Indian disciples.

Although this point is reiterated several times in the book, its major emphasis has been on the criticism of Pollock’s scholarship and so naturally this becomes the primary consideration of the reader.

Yet the motivational factor for the book was the transfer of adhikara entailed in the sponsorship of the Advaita chair in Columbia University and much of the advice that Malhotra has proffered, which Ganesh finds untenable, such as the studying of Western theories by traditional scholars, Sanskrit as the language of innovation and change, writing new smrtis, and so on, are related to empowering traditional scholars in order to keep their expertise relevant in the contemporary world.

If the adhikara issue had been considered, I think Ganesh’s critique would have been radically different for he would then have realized the peculiarity of the Pollock challenge and that it is quite unprecedented in the history of the Sanskrit intellectual tradition.

Part of the problem here is that Malhotra himself has not highlighted the novelty of his project but sought to establish a continuity with the Sanskrit argumentative tradition. He claims that in ancient times, Hindu scholars were concerned about the views of ‘others’ and refuted the challenges to their views presented by ‘others’ but over time they became insular, escapist, apologetic, and so on, did not do any purvapaksa of Christianity, Islam, Marxism, Feminism, or any school of thought they encountered in the last millennium, and that he is now seeking to revive this tradition, get the traditional scholars out of their silos, their comfort zones, and so on.

Thus, he expresses his narrative using ancient categories such as purvapaksa and siddhanta, astika and nāstika, referring to his opponents as Charvakas, and so on. This strategy has the value that it silences the objection that the kind of intellectual critiques he is promoting are typical of Western schools of thought and not of our own.

But it invites the backlash, as evident in Ganesh’s critique, that Malhotra has no formal grounding in the Sanskrit tradition, that his purvapaksa is lacking in pramanas, that he ignores all the refutations in defence of the Sanskrit intellectual heritage provided by scholars in the last two centuries against the Christians, the Marxists, and so on.

The substance of Ganesh’s critique is that if you are going to locate your project within the Sanskrit intellectual tradition, then you must first understand and agree with the universalist ideals of that tradition, then you must see where your project fits into the tradition – in this case, it is about Form (rupa) and not Content (svarupa), which makes it secondary in importance since the tradition is primarily spiritualist.

Then, you must check how such a project is to be executed in the context of Form i.e. according to the pramana-purvapaksa-siddhanta chronology and you must acknowledge the contributions of prior teachers – not just tipping the hat but setting forth their arguments and then successively placing your own views in that lineage. Ganesh is right here. This, indeed, is what it means to be part of a tradition.

Pollock’s scholarship is, however, in a completely different league and entails not merely criticising the content of Indian texts, which can be dealt with through refutations, but seeking to usurp authority for representing them. This has been, perhaps, best summed up by his great admirer Ananya Vajpeyi:

Sanskrit must be taken back from the clutches of Hindu supremacists, bigots, believers in Brahmin exclusivity, misogynists, Islamophobes and a variety of other wrong-headed characters on the right, whose colossal ambition to control India’s vast intellectual legacy is only matched by their abysmal ignorance of what it means and how it works?

I am sure most traditional Sanskrit scholars would not consider themselves as belonging to any of these groups but from the point of view of the Pollock school of thought, they would be. What the former would consider as the highest knowledge is precisely what qualifies in the view of the latter as ‘abysmal ignorance.’

This threat is not likely to be taken seriously because it is not at all clear what the ‘taking back’ of Sanskrit possibly entails. Quite simply, it involves the interpretation of Sanskrit texts in ways radically different from traditional hermeneutics and of instituting those modes of inquiry as authoritative.

I will explain the problem in detail. Consider, for example, the debate about the reality of the self, in which different positions are available in the Sanskrit tradition: the self is non-existent, the self is the body, the self is actor and enjoyer is different from the body, the self is only an enjoyer, the self is only an observer, and so on.

Now one who takes any of these positions can do a purvapaksa of the others and these are the kind of debates we find in the Indian tradition. A scholar like Pollock, on the other hand, does not have a position to take in this debate as such. Instead, he will say that he is willing to accept all these positions as mere ‘narratives’ and study their social effects. He will conclude that the dominant Hindu view of the self is socially oppressive.

The main problem here is not the derogatory conclusion but that the inquiry itself is tangential to the concerns of the tradition. Even if you try to prove that the dominant Hindu view of the self is socially liberating, you will be playing someone else’s language game.

As another example, consider different views about the beauty of kavya, whether it is to be found in alamkara, riti, guna, vakrokti, rasa, aucitya, and so on. A scholar like Pollock will say that he accepts all positions as equally valid ‘narratives’ and study how the beauty of kavya served as a political aesthetic i.e. how kavya served as a tool for states to express power. 19th and 20th century European literary theorists did not find Sanskrit kavya beautiful.

Their Marxist disciples in India, like D. D. Kosambi, reproduced the critiques of their European masters and received much opprobrium for it from Western scholars like Daniel Ingalls. Those were the struggles of yesteryear. Pollock is different. He is all praise for the beauty of Sanskrit kavya – he has to, or else how could Sanskrit kavya possibly serve as a political aesthetic?

Thus, Pollock seeks to alter the direction of Indological scholarship itself but what is of great concern is the deceptiveness in which he accomplishes it, lest he be labelled a neo-Orientalist. In his essay The Social Aesthetic and Sanskrit Literary Theory, he fully endorses Ingalls’ position that the literary theory of the Indians must be prioritized in the study of Indian literature.

And so he does a comprehensive study of the kavyashastra tradition from Bhamaha to Jagannath Pandit, and from this galaxy of scholars he picks up Bhoja, who he argues has been unfairly neglected by the kavyashastra tradition.

Why Bhoja? Because apparently Bhoja is the only rhetorician who gives priority to a social aesthetic in kavya, which Pollock then reads back into the earlier tradition and laments that it was unfortunately disrupted by the Kashmirian scholars, Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta, who privileged language-philosophy and emotive experience in their interpretation of kavya.

But even here, Pollock argues, the ‘social’ remained important although it got occluded. And therefore his project is to recuperate the ‘social’ in kavya. What is meant by the ‘social’ in kavya, you ask? Well, here is an example of a kavya:

You’re free to go wandering, holy man.

The little dog was killed today

by the fierce lion making its lair

in the thicket on the banks of the Godā river.

This is supposed to be an excellent kavya because the expressed meaning that the holy man was free to go to the thicket is contradicted by the suggested meaning (dhvani) which is to prevent him from going there. It is this kind of language use that Anandavardhana held as the greatest form of kavya. But commentators have also suggested in passing that the verse was uttered by a woman to protect the privacy of her rendezvous with her secret lover.

However, Pollock points out, they have not explained the source of this information and there is nothing in the kavya that provides this information. So there must be some theory about gender by means of which they understood that the verse is about a woman from the behaviour depicted in it.

Thus Pollock concludes that ‘the real suggestion behind the poems …[is] that the women speakers are sophisticated and clever, and ardent to preserve a place of lovemaking.’ In other words, Pollock is saying that suggestion is fundamentally ‘social’ and not ‘linguistic’ and kavya must be interpreted in a way to recover it. Needless to say, this can only lead to an Indian theory of gender which sanctions the oppression of women by depicting them in a derogatory fashion.

In this way, Pollock’s essay strives to make the point that language-philosophy and emotive experience were themselves grounded in a sociality but the scholars who prioritized them remained oblivious to that social ground. In other words, it challenges the very legitimacy of the significance that Indians have historically attached to language-philosophy and emotive experience in the case of literary criticism.

At the same time, it also valourizes sociological hermeneutics, which is a Western priority but can now be postulated as a long-suppressed priority of the Indians as well.

It thus paves the way for a new kind of literary criticism, a new form of knowledge production, in which Sanskrit literary texts can be interpreted not in terms of their linguistic content or the emotive states they affect but as promoting social causes, namely the sustenance of caste and gender hierarchies, and this whole study can remain free of the charge of Orientalism because – and this is the pièce de résistance – it can be presented as a hermeneutics sanctioned by the ancient Indians themselves.

Pollock et al is only revealing what was always there but has remained occluded from the attention of the Indian scholars because of their obsession with language-philosophy and emotive experience in the interpretation of texts, which continues to this day. This is what is meant by ‘their abysmal ignorance of what it means and how it works.’

Now we could be quite broad-minded here and say, so what? Let them do their sociological hermeneutics with our literary texts. We will apply language-philosophy and emotive experience. Let a thousand flowers bloom. But it is not so simple. The main thrust of Pollock’s essay is that the Indian forms of interpretation occlude the sociological study of kavya. So the former will have to be denigrated and cast aside to make way for the latter.

It is just like Christianity.You may say that you will worship your god and the Christian can worship Jesus but the Christian will say that Jesus died for your sins as well and so he is obliged to convert you to Christianity. There is no escaping this struggle which Ganesh hopes he can avoid through a transcendental approach.

Ganesh claims that ‘one has to counter Pollock with facts, and that will come only from a deep study and understanding of the Indian tradition.’ He appears to have great faith in the power of facts: ‘And indeed, when we encounter intellectual dishonesty in scholars who tried to canonize their views as facts, we shall combat them with facts.’ This, I am afraid, is sheer fantasy. I will explain with two examples.

First, McComas Taylor, a Sanskrit professor at the Australian National University and another great admirer of Pollock, wrote an article called Mythology Wars in which he denounced the critiques of Western academicians written by the authors of Invading the Sacred. With regards to the ‘catalogue of factual errors’ pointed out by Vishal Agarwal and Kalavai Venkat in Courtright’s Ganesa, Taylor had this to say:

It is evident in this confession that facts are meaningless to our opponents. We will have to produce an analysis which is ‘illuminating, productive or insightful’ to the peers in the academy, and I can assure that it is a task which is beyond all of us.

Second, what do facts means for Pollock? Read his denunciation in Deep Orientalism, of the priority Webber placed on facts in the study of the human sciences:

So skeptical is Pollock about the ability of knowledge to transcend political values that his own knowledge production is unabashedly and openly political. If you say that your knowledge is objective, he will reject it on ground that you are simply oblivious to your own political aims because all knowledge is grounded in some kind of politics. So facts are not really going to get you anywhere.

This may sound crazy to many Hindus who hold great regard for facts but there is nothing illogical about it. Although we may be patriotic Indians committed to sanatana dharma and proud of our intellectual heritage, the overarching context of our lives is the West, whether in India or in the diaspora. This is our tragic reality. Our strong emphasis on facts is the result of our birth in the scientific age.

Had we been born at a time when Christianity was the dominant paradigm, Ganesh would have said that we will combat with ‘scriptural evidence.’ But he is a product of the scientific age, so he says that we will combat with ‘facts.’ But the scientific age has now been replaced by post-modernity in which you will have to combat with ‘narratives’ and as Taylor has so eloquently put it, they better be ‘illuminating, productive or insightful’ to your peers in the Western academy.

If we do not want our intellectualism to remain a handmaiden of the West, then we will have to cut the Gordian knot on the basis of our intellectual heritage. We cannot simply turn inwards for it is not in the nature of the West to leave anything alone. We will have to take their intellectual traditions seriously and challenge them.

The best example of an analogous situation in our past is the conduct of Yajnavalkya in Janaka’s assembly to which Ganesh has alluded in his critique. Yajnavalkya propounded the atman doctrine which in his view was superior to the ritualistic beliefs of the pandits in the assembly. But he did not tell the pandits they are crass ritualists, the way Ganesh has referred to Western Orientalists and Indian Leftists as crass materialists. On the contrary, Yajnavalkya first answered all the ritualistic questions of the pandits, demonstrated his proficiency in their fields of expertise, and then he explained his own position.

I think this is the fundamental proposition of The Battle for Sanskrit. It seeks to empower traditional Sanskrit scholars so they can take up this task with regards to the West. Ganesh is right that the Sanskrit intellectual tradition is far too complex and diverse to fit into Malhotra’s simplified paradigms of sacred-alive-liberating vs. political-dead-oppressive, or integral unity vs. synthetic unity, and so on.

But this in no way undercuts the essential value of The Battle for Sanskrit which is to create awareness of the looming threat posed by Pollock’s scholarship to the adhikara of traditional Sanskrit scholars. Ganesh’s analogy of an over-zealous Arjuna and Yudhishthira’s advice to Bhima to not act out of haste is most unbecoming.

On the contrary, it is creditable that Malhotra has rushed into the field even if prematurely and at great risk to his own reputation, because time is running out. The MCLI project has already gone to Pollock. The Advaita chair was already on the way and more would have followed.

If now is not the time to act, when? Ganesh’s final warning that ‘if we allow ourselves to be too troubled by such scholars and such debates, we will never be able to attain the peace of a contemplative mind’ also does not sound right to me. Wouldn’t the advice of the Gita to the intellectual be that one should seek ‘the peace of a contemplative mind’ precisely at the moment when one is engaged with ‘such scholars and such debates’?

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Interview with Rajiv Malhotra: A point by point response to R. Ganesh

October 20, 2023

This following interview of Rajiv Malhotra discusses the critique made by R Ganesh of Rajiv’s latest book The Battle for Sanskrit which deals with the scholarship of American Indologist Sheldon Pollock.

Rajiv Malhotra is a prominent researcher, writer, speaker and public intellectual on current affairs as they relate to civilizations, cross-cultural encounters, religion and science. Among the issues on which he has raised awareness is that Indian civilization is studied through biased and distorted lenses by western scholars. He has authored many best-sellers, including his latest book, The Battle For Sanskrit.

Sheldon Pollock is an American sanskritist well-known for his writings on the intellectual and literary history of India. He also studies comparative intellectual history and occupies a prestigious professorship at Columbia University. He was the general editor of the Clay Sanskrit Library and is the founding editor of the Murty Classical Library of India. He is the primary focus of Rajiv Malhotra’s latest book The Battle for Sanskrit where his work is critiqued systematically.

The Battle for Sanskrit is Rajiv Malhotra’s latest book challenging the ongoing western approach to the discourse on India. It seeks to alert traditional scholars of the analysis of Indian texts made by an important school of thought that is led primarily by Sheldon Pollock. The scholars of this school are intervening in modern Indian society with the explicitly stated purpose of removing ‘poisons’ allegedly built into Sanskrit texts. They hold that many Sanskrit texts are socially oppressive and serve as a political weapon of the ruling elite; that the sacred aspects need to be refuted or side lined; and that Sanskrit has long been dead.

R Ganesh is a Bangalore-based Sanskrit scholar and practitioner of the art of avadhana. He is an author in Sanskrit and Kannada and an extempore poet in multiple languages. He has performed avadhanas in Kannada, Sanskrit, Telugu and Prakrit. He is known for extempore composition of poetry and chitrakavya. He also gives public lectures on dance (natya sastra), music, art, culture, literature, poetics.

Ganesh recently wrote a scathing attack on Rajiv Malhotra’s book, The Battle For Sanskrit (TBFS). The attack became personal against Rajiv Malhotra’s competence. This raised another controversy at a time when most of us expected all lovers of dharma to rally behind the defense of our sanskriti and take up the battles articulated in TBFS. Ganesh has divided some of the activists and this needs to be healed.

To put the matter to rest, I decided to interview Rajiv Malhotra on some very specific and concrete claims made by R. Ganesh. The goal here is to set aside personality issues and delve into the subject matter of Pollock, Hindu dharma, TBFS and Ganesh’s views.

This is a long but important interview, so for ease of reading I divided the issues into the following thematic categories:

  1. The qualifications required to do Rajiv Malhotra’s work
  2. Issues concerning methodology and Ganesh’s overall approach
  3. Disagreements concerning the interpretation of our sanskriti
  4. Who is being logical or illogical?
  5. What should be the future course for our sanskriti?

Theme 1: The qualifications required to do Rajiv Malhotra’s work

Q: Someone reading Ganesh’s review could easily think that he is poisoning the well by branding you unfairly. Some of Ganesh’s supporters have made this negative branding even more explicit. What is your response to charges that you are unqualified to do your work?

In the opening para itself, Ganesh cites a theme from the Mahabharata to give us some obvious advice: “Act not in haste! A loss of sagacity (viveka) is the worst calamity. Fortune and prosperity comes to one who analyses and calculates.” Ganesh then applies this wisdom to say that I am unqualified for the work I am doing: “In the battle for Sanskrit, Rajiv Malhotra is like an enthusiastic commander of a committed army whose strengths and weaknesses he himself is sadly unable to reconcile.”

The commander of an army that he refers to is like a CEO, and must be evaluated as such. He is not supposed to be like a techie or some narrow subject-matter expert. He cannot be a frog-in-the-well. My movement requires me to be able to identify and define the immense variety of specialized battlefields we must engage. I must study the strengths/weaknesses of the main opponents we face, not only as individuals but also the workings of their institutional support apparatus. Any such leader must know the opposing side’s history, ideology, motives, strategic plans and tactical maneuvers. He must know how opponents have infiltrated and installed their own supporters among us, including many who serve them unconsciously and even imagine they are operating with good intentions for our civilization.

This CEO type of leadership is not just a matter of book knowledge, and is certainly not limited to book knowledge about our own systems. It also demands extensive experience in direct close combat with the best warriors of the opposing side. Such a leader must be psychologically strong like a kshatriya. He must be articulate with good debating skills. To debate the West on its own turf requires considerable real-world experience in the global intellectual kurukshetra, which is not to be confused with meetings of “like-minded people” in India. One must have experience leaving one’s comfort zone of supporters, and confidently walking directly into the line of enemy fire, even when surrounded by a hundred or more heavily armed opponents. Such a warrior must be able to win arguments and come out stronger for the next battle.

For my specialized area of work, the battlefield is situated globally, the gatekeepers are mostly hostile towards us, and we have a ragtag army to start with. I am sure Ganesh will agree with the importance of intellectual combat experience in the western battlefields, just as his avadhanas provide him the field-experience in his domain of expertise. Has Ganesh known enough about my background in this specific kind of battlefield over the past quarter century, to be able to justify his sweeping dismissal of my effectiveness?

Ganesh then amplifies his dismissal of my personal competence, by citing some words of the legendary Prof. M Hiriyanna. Ironically, even though Hiriyanna is very well-known in his own right, Ganesh establishes Hiriyanna’s credentials by quoting that the Harvard professor Daniel Ingalls praised him as a “great scholar”. I will not dwell upon this inferiority complex many Indians have, a complex that compels them to cite a westerner’s pat on the back as the gold standard of legitimacy. I have extensively written on this signature quality of many Indians. Why should one of our great avadhana leaders need to cite Harvard’s Ingalls to prove the greatness of Hiriyanna?

Ganesh cites Hiriyanna saying that “It will be a serious deficiency if the Pandit passes through his career as a student altogether oblivious of this new knowledge…” Ganesh wants to make the valid point that we must not be living in old knowledge and that an expert must also learn new knowledge. Hiriyanna is quoted saying that “there was a lack of historical perspective in what he [the pandit] knew.” Hiriyanna rightfully complained that “Pandits confined their attention only to the subject in which they specialized, and even there to a few chosen books related to it… But thoroughness is no antidote against the narrowness of mental outlook.”

Ganesh goes through many such elaborate quotations not only to demonstrate that he has such book knowledge, but to make the case that my knowledge is obsolete because I am stuck in old knowledge. However, he cites no evidence at all to prove that such lofty quotes apply to me. Ganesh assumes that quoting someone about the criteria for failure automatically proves that the criteria apply to me. This is a ridiculous level of illogical reasoning.

In fact, had Ganesh taken the time to read my works, he would know that I emphasize new knowledge acquired in several ways, including the following methods:

  • I regard the “rishi-state” of higher consciousness as a method our exemplars have used to constantly refresh knowledge, and not get frozen in time;
  • I have read a vast corpus of literature by our opponents pertaining to a broad spectrum of topics in the humanities and social sciences;
  • I engage opponents in debate as often as I can because this is an important form of knowledge acquisition;
  • I promote and participate in the use of modern scientific empiricism to study old knowledge with open minds, in order to benefit both the science and our improved insights about the tradition; and
  • I advocate the adaptation and writing of new smritis for our times.

Ganesh’s obvious statement about the need for new knowledge should not require him to cite quotations by an Indian X and validating the Indian by citing a Harvard professor Y. It is an example of very pedantic, commonsense points made in his article. He then gives us a tutorial on sanatana dharma that mentions rather well-known things. None of this pertains to Pollock’s work or my purva-paksha of Pollock.

I wish to turn his argument back on him: The complaint he cites about pandits being ignorant of the latest knowledge from new sources is applicable to those traditional scholars who are not up to date in knowledge of Western Indology, which is the subject matter of our discussion.

Furthermore, our tradition has always encouraged and even valorized innovative thinkers who seemed to lack formal training in some field, but who successfully challenged those with eminent “credentials”. His branding me right up front as unqualified is unscholarly and elitist. Ganesh says that “Malhotra’s understanding of Sanskrit and Sanskriti seems second hand since he puts a premium on form (rupa) as against content (svarupa) and uses pseudo-logic instead of non-qualified universal experiential wisdom to counter the enemies (see pp. 44-49 for an elaborate but hazy diagnosis of the problem).”

My response is as follows:

  • On what basis can he conclude that I lack first-hand experience of sanskriti? He fails to define the scope of sanskriti and then show that I am deficient in it. This would require him to do detailed pariksha of my background, my sadhana, my guru, and so forth – something he has not done. This goes to show that Ganesh has a somewhat reductionist view of what our sanskriti is, and he makes sweeping judgments of others whom he hardly knows.
  • His argument about the distinction between rupa and svarupa is irrelevant. Yes, in metaphysical contexts, the aim is to transcend rupa into understanding of svarupa but that has nothing to do with the context of defending dharma socially and politically from hostile interpretations.
  • His reference to my book’s pages 44-49 shows a lack of basic understanding of my book. In those pages I do not discuss the “enemies” at all, but rather our home team’s internal shortcomings. This is a standard SWOT analysis done to assess one’s competitiveness. It is based on numerous interviews I did over the years to assess the views and preparedness of various kinds of individuals who ought to be on our home team. Ganesh seems to be unfamiliar with such techniques, and dismisses it as “an elaborate but hazy diagnosis of the problem.” He wants to pass judgment on everything whether he has a clue or not.
  • Pollock also resorts to this kind of hubris many times. It reminds me of a corporate slogan: “If you cannot dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit!”

Q: What are your thoughts on Ganesh’s strengths and knowledge gaps?

Ganesh is a great scholar but I find him lacking knowledge of the specific meta-narrative in which Sheldon Pollock’s work is located. Without understanding this fully, it is useless and in fact misleading to attempt to do purva-paksha on isolated verses and statements made by Pollock. The following four-tier model explains the layers of knowledge one must bring to bear on such a purva-paksha. It organizes scholarship into categories, from the most general to the narrowest:

  1. Wide sweeping critique of western Indology. Cover lots of old Indologists, from Christian to secular, clubbing all of them under a simplistic profile as “western”. Most postcolonial scholarship has focused on this and some of it has been pretty useful. Few traditional Indian scholars have done serious work here, and most of them regurgitate bombastic, emotional and politicized criticisms. In any case, this is not where my focus lies in TBFS. We already have lots of such material from numerous writers over many decades. But this genre of ideology is not what we encounter today, because western Indologists like Pollock have moved on and other more sophisticated theories have superseded.
  2. Present ecosystem of Western Indology and where the Pollock School fits in. This tier looks at prevailing infrastructure for knowledge production, such as: institutions, ideologies, agendas, distribution channels, etc. This research looks at not only western scholars but also their Indian collaborators and sepoys. What are their strategies at work? Who funds what? What is the purpose of all this work? To do this type of work, one must have expertise in industry analysis. I would say Breaking India is a book in this genre.
  3. Deconstruction of Pollock school’s specific lens. Here one must look at this school’s meta-theories, narratives, key vocabulary, plans. What are the implications to dharma being studied in this way? How has this knowledge spread over the past 30+ years? Who is who in their army? This requires a multi-disciplinary approach, and knowledge of heavy English, Western thought and the ability to decode multilayered (including sly/deceptive) writing style that is typical of western scholars who want to look politically correct. I request the reader to please go through my article, The Challenges of Understanding Sheldon Pollock, available at: http://swarajyamag.com/culture/rajiv-malhotra-explains-the-challenges-of-understanding-sheldon-pollock
  4. Text specific micro-analysis. This entails analysis of specific Indian texts as per Pollock school and as per our tradition. This supports our uttara-paksha. It requires serious knowledge of Sanskrit and also of texts in detail.

My interest is in tiers 2 & 3. I saw this huge gap in our home team’s work thus far. Most of them regurgitate tier 1 repeatedly. But that writing is too superficial to make any impact. It is also obsolete as even the westerners today have disowned it. Westerners have replaced this old Orientalism with their own new Orientalism.

In a nutshell, Ganesh and most Indian scholars miss tiers 2 and 3 entirely, and do not seem to realize this. Their ideas of western Indology are frozen in the old era of tier 1. They investigate specific issues (i.e. tier-4) in the context of tier-1. Because they miss the middle tiers, which is where Pollock’s original and creative theories and lenses belong, they miss out on what is special about Pollock.

Therefore, Ganesh and I are doing two different types of yajnas. They entail two distinct subject matter areas, with different kinds of opponents and issues. I am aware of my shortcomings, and explain in my book the necessity for more specialists like Ganesh to join as teams. But unfortunately, he sees his corner of the field as though it were the entire global kurukshetra. For some mysterious reason he is blind to his own limitations. Nevertheless, Ganesh and other traditional scholars need to undertake the important work based on the tier 2 and tier 3 analysis of Pollock.

Theme 2: Issues concerning methodology and Ganesh’s overall approach

Q: What was your first reaction to R. Ganesh’s review of your book, The Battle For Sanskrit?

I wish to thank Shri R. Ganesh for showing interest in my book by writing a lengthy critique. Any such critique has the effect to wake up traditional scholars and draw their attention to the prevailing intellectual battlefield.

However, there are many serious errors, misunderstandings and contradictions in Sri Ganesh’s article. I would like to point out a few of the statements that are irrelevant/pedantic or that misrepresent what is written in TBFS. I would also like to clarify my domains of expertise and repeat TBFSs call for traditional scholars to work in collaboration with me in ways that complement one another.

Q: Ganesh dismisses your thesis of breaking India forces, calling it a “conspiracy theory”. What is your response?

Ganesh complains that my notion of western orientalists appropriating the Indian left “sound like conspiracy theories”. Had he written this before my books Breaking India and Being Different became extremely influential, that would be one thing. But in the past several years a large number of Indians in multiple disciplines have read and appreciated that thesis. Someone dismissing it as “conspiracy theories” today is clearly out of touch with the real-world events that are taking place all around us. Our experts must be better informed about the world or else not opine so authoritatively.

Q: Please respond to Ganesh’s charge that your “meticulous analysis of the works of Sheldon Pollock”, is “also an indicator of Malhotra’s obsession with Western academia, to the extent that the reader gets the impression that Hinduism will not survive unless Western academia views it in a better light.”

Ganesh contradicts himself and cannot seem to make up his mind on whether such a systematic purva-paksha is a good thing or not. He accepts Pollock’s importance and the principle of purva-paksha, and yet finds my “meticulous analysis” to be a sign of obsession. This is like someone complaining of the “obsession” of Shankara and other exemplars of purva-paksha to critique their opponents with rigor.

Ganesh also accuses me of “playing the blame game” and advocates that we must “counter Pollock with facts.” This charge assumes that I did not counter Pollock with facts. It is a ridiculous misrepresentation, given I worked so hard to get into the “facts” of Pollock while Ganesh shows no knowledge of Pollock apart from what he sees in TBFS.

Ganesh also misrepresents me when he says that I want Western academia to view Hinduism in a better light. My fight is exactly in the opposite direction: I oppose funding western Indology chairs that hope to win over Western academia. I want Swadeshi Indology to become strong.  The Indian Grand Narrative must be home grown and only then can we export it. Others will not respect us until we respect ourselves with unity. Anyone who has read my works knows all this well.

Q: What is your response to Ganesh’s criticism that: “The first imperative step of establishing pramanas is missing in The Battle for Sanskrit.”

In the absence of common pramanas between Western Indology and our tradition, it is impossible to debate because we may be talking about rishi consciousness but Pollock being a Marxist, disregards that such a thing even exists, and he only cares about socioeconomic dimensions. TBFS is constantly showing that Pollock rejects the claims of sacredness, and hence automatically rejects Vedas and experience of higher states.

The important point raised in TBFS is that the battle has to be initially fought on western terms, since the West is presently “the establishment” and we are their consumers.  TBFS is targeting the heart of establishment. This is an unfortunate state, but realistic. Once we become the main knowledge producers in modern Indology, we can dictate the terms and establish the pramanas for debate. Right now, we live in a society governed by laws and processes that are not based on our pramanas. To enter the debating court, we are being required to fit within Western Universalism.

I am acutely aware of this dilemma and have spent most of my adult life arguing against this state of affairs. But I am also a pragmatist and cannot limit myself to the old style of argumentation just to show off that I am knowledgeable in pramanas. Today’s research methodology must be inter-disciplinary. I like to take the fight to the opponent’s battlefield, and this cannot be achieved as a conversation among insiders only.

Q: You mention that Ganesh is at times confused between your position and Pollock’s position that you criticize. Please give some examples.

I often quote or paraphrase Pollock to explain his thoughts to my readers, but Ganesh takes it as my position and starts to criticize it. For example, he says: “Why this divide between sacred and beautiful?” This divide is Pollock’s divide, not mine. Pollock wants to put a wall between shastra and kavya. I go through great pains to try and explain what Pollock says, and then I give my rebuttal. Just to make it perfectly clear, I do not believe in any absolute Pollock-like divide between sacred/beauty or between shastra/kavya. Unbeknownst to Ganesh, what he says is in agreement with my views; we both oppose Pollock on the issue of sacred/beauty.

Another example is when Ganesh claims that I do not understand what shastra and kavya mean, but does not prove this allegation by citing my writings. Instead, he seems to refer to my paraphrasing of Pollock’s views; he misunderstands these as mine. Ganesh’s following statement is in alignment with what my book says:

“Any organized body of knowledge is sastra; it serves two purposes – to govern and to reveal. A system of grammar is a sastra. It tells us what is the right usage (governs) and shows us new connections (reveals). A sastra may or may not be connected to the Vedas. Any creative work that evokes rasa (art experience; aesthetic delight) is kavya.”

He also writes: “In general, yajña refers to an act of self-dedication or service above self.” But this has always been my view, and yet he claims that I do not understand yajna. Similarly, he gives well-known definitions of terms like darshana, etc. straight from elementary textbooks, without telling us why his quotes are relevant to my book.

Theme 3: Disagreements concerning the interpretation of our sanskriti

Q: He accuses you many times of not understanding the diversity of Indian traditions. Can you respond to the following charges he makes?

  • “[Malhotra’s] understanding of the nature of sanatana dharma as a transcendental system is flawed. He aims to show that Hinduism is exclusivist in its own way …”
  • “Western scholars are familiar with dissent but they often lack a framework to reconcile with the differences and transcend them. While Malhotra respects this spirit, he is unable, unfortunately, to express it clearly in his book.
  • “We must also realize that diversity is the way of the world and should learn to tolerate opposing views.”
  • He claims there are “many instances of Malhotra’s monolithic view of Indian culture and tradition.”
  • “He should realize that the same tradition that he is defending has these diverse views.”

One of the most glaring misrepresentations of my work is his repeated assertion that I am against the diversity of Indian traditions. No serious reader of my work has ever said such a thing. In fact, my earlier book, Being Different, which he cites, says the exact opposite: it contrasts Indian diversity with the Western focus on the normative and the Abrahamic emphasis upon “one truth”. In fact, a key highlight of Being Different is that it goes beyond the common platitudes we read about our diversity, and proposes a comprehensive theory on why there is diversity.

The contrast between what I call history-centrism and adhyatma-vidya are key building blocks I have formulated to explain not just the diversity in our traditions, but more importantly why this diversity exists. This insight as to the underlying causes of diversity in one civilization and monoculture in the other civilization is worked out in considerable detail in my work.

In my subsequent book, Indra’s Net, I develop this thesis further into what I call the open architecture of dharma systems. Not only do I explain the immense diversity, I also examine the profound underlying unity – hence there is no fear of chaos as in the case of the Abrahamic systems. There is no control-obsession in our culture in the sense that the West has. I explain why this unity-diversity is there, whereas most writers have been content merely praising it, without adequately asking what sustains it.

Given that this theory of our diversity has been one of my important areas of work, I find it disappointing that Ganesh misunderstood me. For instance, he does not understand the notion of integral unity as explained in detail in my writings, when he writes: “Malhotra speaks about an ‘Integral unity of Hindu metaphysics’ (pp. 98-102) without caring to look at divergent view from within the tradition.”

By definition, an integral unity allows plurality within a shared architecture. Sometimes, blind orthodoxy blurs the appreciation of any novelty in articulating our heritage. One of the hallmarks of our tradition is its ability to evolve with the changing times. This requires us to be receptive and open to new knowledge from new sources.

Q: What do you think of Ganesh’s criticism of the categories “tradition” and “American Orientalism”? He writes the following:

  • “Often clubbing all insider views as ‘the traditionalist view’ – his argument is rendered weaker.”
  • “He begins to falter when he compares the ‘Sanskrit Traditionalists’ and ‘American Orientalists’.”
  • “There is no single group that one can call ‘Sanskrit Traditionalists’.”

Ganesh’s foundational misunderstanding of my work concerns the nature of unity-diversity, and this feeds into numerous other incorrect analyses by him. He does not understand the cluster nature of various dharma systems in their integral unity. He has not read chapter 2, one of the largest chapters in TBFS, which is devoted to explain this. Frankly, I doubt Ganesh knows much about the category I have designated as American Orientalists, which I emphasize must be differentiated from earlier European Orientalists.

I go to great length to explain that insiders/outsiders and traditionalists/Orientalists are clusters and not homogeneous categories. Pages 30-34 are entirely devoted specifically to define and nuance these terms. Pages 35-43 list nine separate ways in which the traditionalists differ from Orientalists, and give a brief overview of each difference to show its significance. I refer the reader to the tables on pages 24-25 and 76, along with the accompanying text, and invite him/her to assess whether my analysis of this matter deserves to be so flippantly dismissed.

Q: You have made a core point in your book about Pollock’s removal of sacredness from Sanskrit texts. How does Ganesh see this?

TBFS argues against Pollock’s allegation that sacred Sanskrit texts are toxic and that they oppress Dalits and women. He espouses removing the sacredness and I oppose him vehemently on this. It is in this context that I state in my book that: “Traditionally, Hindus have read Sanskrit for the purpose of understanding the ideas of ultimate reality.” To me, this sentence makes perfect sense for the intended purpose and context.

However, Ganesh picks this very same sentence from my book and rejects it summarily without explaining the context of what I am trying to establish. He writes: “The ultimate reality is beyond form – it is immaterial if Sanskrit is used as a means.” It is true that the ultimate reality is beyond form, but how does it follow that Sanskrit can be disposed of as a means to the formless? Sanskrit mantras are important to many sacred practices, and reaching the formless ultimate reality does involve vyavaharika processes in certain practices. Besides, my reasons for questioning Pollock’s removal of sacredness is not only based on his rejection of our idea of ultimate reality; my concern is also that such a removal is a mischievous effort by the Left to accuse sacred Sanskrit texts of violating human rights. Once again, Ganesh is shadowboxing an imaginary position without understanding the context of what I am refuting in Pollock theses.

He writes: “Further, how does he account for the teachings of many poets and sages who were unaware of Sanskrit?” Of course, we all know that many poets wrote in other languages. But Sanskrit’s sacred usages do not imply that other languages are useless. Ganesh seems to think that sacredness of Sanskrit is a claim of its exclusiveness among all languages for sacred purposes. When I say that an entity X has a property Y, I am not saying that other entities cannot have property Y as well.

Furthermore, while it is correct that learning Sanskrit is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for spiritual enlightenment on an individual basis, it is dangerous to dismiss the importance and criticality of Sanskrit to the transmission of the dharmic traditions at a societal level.  Sanskrit is the language in which the Vedas have been transmitted, and it is the language in which our mantras have been revealed; in the very sounds of the Sanskrit language lay pathways to the transcendental realms.

Q: He criticizes your interpretation of mantras. Please comment.

The context in which I mention mantras in my book must be understood before one can evaluate what I say. The context is that I am refuting Pollock when he considers mantras (and other “non-secular” aspects) to be socially toxic and oppressive against Dalits and women.

Ganesh cites my view that: “Meditation mantras…produce effects which ordinary sounds do not.” Ganesh gives a rejoinder by assuming that I must refer to “healing effects” of mantras, but that is a false assumption. He tries to show that mantras cannot heal in Ayurveda; but that is beside the point because their effects can be of various kinds, not necessarily for healing.

Ganesh is arguing about the issue of healing, whereas my book is arguing on a different issue, namely, that mantras and other sacred elements do not cause social oppression. They produce effects. But TBFS does not go into any specific kinds of effects, and certainly makes no medical claims.

Q: Is Ganesh misinterpreting what you mean by transcendence?

Ganesh is bothered by my use of terms like “supersensory experiences,” “higher states of consciousness” and “‘rishi’ state of consciousness”. He dismisses all such statements as “arbitrary”, presumably because they do not fit the jargon he has learned. He is particularly troubled with my statement that: “The idea of selfhood that is transcending the ordinary ego is increasingly accepted in scientific inquiry.” The fact is that cognitive scientists and neuroscientists now discuss states where the subject does not experience a separated, isolated experience of self.

Rather than being inquisitive to pursue such new knowledge, Ganesh hastily tells us that: “All such remarks only weaken his argument since the debate is happening at the level of pratyaksa and anumana.” He must appreciate that western cognitive science does not claim to have “measured” the higher states of consciousness, but claims to have discovered correlates to it that are measurable. This is a big difference to be appreciated. It is also a big breakthrough in modern science. I wish he would be more interested in reading the literature on recent studies, and join in the effort to show that the west is busy digesting our knowledge into their own paradigms.

Furthermore, Ganesh is missing a key point. It is not correct that this debate is happening at the level of pratyaksa and anumana. To concede this point would be to concede the battle to Pollock.  Pollock as a Marxist is by definition materialist and would dismiss the relevance of the levels of consciousness that deal with the para – those which can be experienced through aparoksha gyanam (direct experience) that is not reliant on sensory experience or intellect alone.  But Sanatana Dharma cannot be confined to a materialist understanding of the universe alone – therefore, any materialist interpretations like the Marxist ones and what Pollock champions inevitably distorts and warps the tradition.  To play into the lens Pollock uses would be to concede the battle before it is even fought.  Just because Pollock dismisses the higher levels of pramana we use in understanding our tradition does not mean that we should, too! The whole point of TBFS is to put forth our own interpretations of dharma to debunk his distortions.

Q: He does not like your term “beyond” to explain paramarthika. What is your response?

Ganesh misinterprets my statement that “paramarthika is the realm ‘beyond’”. He retorts that “paramarthika is not just beyond but also within.” He assumes that beyond means some spatially removed place out there in the sky, as in an Abrahamic notion of heaven. But I use “beyond” (which I put in quotes in my text for this nuance) in a way that does not have anything to with inside or outside in a spatial sense. It means beyond the ordinary state of consciousness, beyond what is ordinarily experienced by most of us. It is roughly equivalent to the prefix “para” (adopted from Sanskrit into English). To be clear, in the very same sentence I say that vyavaharika, by contrast, is “the ordinary reality around us.” A more technical way might be to say that “beyond” refers to what the six pramanas cannot reveal – these being Pratyaksha (Perception), Anumana (Inference), Upamana (Comparison), Arthapatti (Postulation), Anupalabdhi (Non-apprehension), and Sabda (Verbal Testimony).

Furthermore, Ganesh contradicts his own position in another part of his article when he writes “The ultimate reality is beyond form.” If his view on “beyond” above is valid, then this statement by him would also be falsified.

Ganesh is also concerned that “Malhotra has not given a direct quote of Pollock rejecting the paramarthika.” This shows Ganesh’s inability (or disinterest) in reading Pollock beyond surgical punch lines in isolation. If he has read Pollock’s magnum opus, “The language of gods …”, he ought to be able to track the references to it given in TBFS. He would easily discover Pollock’s reliance upon Vico throughout. TBFS mentions how Pollock translates parmarthika-sat and vyavaharika-sat to correspond to the Latin terms, verum and certum, respectively. Pollock’s arguments that follow based on this mapping lead to his sidelining of paramarthika. This level of understanding Pollock is a prerequisite before Ganesh can begin to write any non-trivial review.

Q: Ganesh says that your statement about four ‘levels’ of speech is incorrect, because according to him, there are four ‘stages’ in chronological sequence and not ‘levels’. Please respond.

He is wrong in his understanding of vac. For example, Sri Aurobindo discusses levels. The significance of levels is that they can exist simultaneously whereas stages are in a strict chronological order, one at a time. Advanced tantra and other yogic techniques take practitioners to higher states where they are simultaneously able to function in higher and lower levels. These are not always mutually exclusive.

In any case, this is an example of a very pedantic issue, as it would not make any difference to my thesis if I were to replace ‘levels’ with ‘stages’. The point TBFS is arguing is that Pollock is wrong in considering the oral tradition to be useless. My argument is that some of the pathways from external speech all the way to subtler forms and the ultimate para level are important, and if one has only text but no orality these would get sidelined. The real point here is that the four levels/stages are unavailable in text mode, but are available in oral practices. This point is unaffected whether these are stages or levels. Ganesh missed the point and quibbles over something very pedantic.

Q: Are you troubled that Ganesh does not buy into your argument on the non-translatability of certain Sanskrit words?

Ganesh disagrees with my notion of non-translatability of certain Sanskrit words. He gives the following rejoinder: “In general, the defining feature of a technical work (pertaining to philosophy, or medicine, or science) is that it can be translated, since it has a precise language of its own (and is not bound to a particular language).”

Ganesh goes on to argue that “anything that comes within universal experience can be translated.” My arguments on non-translatability have been made very extensively in Being Different, with a whole chapter devoted to this. The reader should go through that chapter and decide whether Ganesh is patently wrong in his views on whether certain Sanskrit words are non-translatable.

He then says something that is simply irrelevant to the issue at hand: “Further, even in Sanskrit, the same word has different connotations in different subjects.” Being Different already explains this fact with numerous examples, but this is an independent point unrelated to non-translatability.

Theme 4: Who is being logical or illogical?

Q: Ganesh questions your logical abilities and calls it “pseudo-logic”.  You have pointed out illogical statements made by him. Please explain.

Ganesh is making some illogical statements, ironically with the stated purpose of exposing “Malhotra’s pseudo-logic”. I offer a few examples.

  1. In some instances, he adopts my position and yet says I am wrong. For instance, he quotes me: “Dhyana (meditation) is available without the need for analysis since it is entirely experiential. (p. 98)” Then he disagrees with this, saying: “If this is the case, how do we account for the fact that dhyana has been analyzed extensively on the basis of experience?”

Analyzing an experience after the fact does not mean the analysis is required to have the experience. My statement that dhyana does not require analysis, is not refuted by his valid statement that some people have analyzed dhyana. That they have analyzed does not mean the analysis is mandatory for attaining the experience.

  1. Ganesh’s failure to understand the context of my statement leads him to think it is incorrect. He quotes TBFS: “…Natya Shastra was a text developed to enable the theatrical performance of itihasas.” This statement is taken from the section on Integral Unity (pages 98-102) where I am arguing against Pollock’s claim to decouple paramarthika and vyavaharika. In order to refute Pollock’s claim, I cite numerous examples of their unity and one of them is that Vedas, itihasas and Natya Shastra are linked and cannot be decoupled into separate camps with mutual tension the way Pollock does. Ganesh states some irrelevant facts which have nothing to do with the context in which I state my position about the integral unity of our traditions to jump to his conclusion that this is “one of the many instances of Malhotra’s monolithic view of Indian culture and tradition.” He offers no logic as to how he reached this conclusion.
  1. Ganesh reaches an illogical conclusion in discussing my reference to the critical edition of the Ramayana that was compiled by MS University. TBFS mentions that the critical edition was later misused by Western Indologists to make incorrect interpretations. This critical edition gave them easier access which they previously lacked. Does this mean we should not do such critical editions? Certainly not. All I am pointing out is that just as China controls the way foreigners can access its intellectual resources, so also we could at least make some policies on when to allow Westerners unfettered access. For instance, we could consider having some scrutiny over their access. They must state the purpose for which they are requesting the access, and we must monitor their works to verify that they have not violated their obligations. Moreover, knowing their motive will help us do a thorough purva-paksha of their positions, and also help produce rejoinders (as uttara). This ensures a balance between freedom and control and firmly establishes the adhikara with our civilization.

As an analogy, I offer the following: The Kumbha Mela is very open (point X). But western scholars have used this openness to infiltrate it with nefarious designs that I have recently written about (point Y). Because we don’t like Y, the solution is not to stop X (i.e. we should not end our openness). One possible solution is to bring some mechanisms of monitoring, and taking corrective action when required. Simply abandoning the adhikara and letting outsiders have a free run is unwise.

Ganesh does not understand the logic involved in this point. He misinterprets my written words (page 322) when he asserts: “Malhotra opines that it was unwise of M S University, Baroda to have compiled a critical edition of the Ramayana and preparing an English translation (p. 322).” This is not at all what I wrote and I never blamed MS University’s project either. Rather, I blamed western scholars for taking advantage of this openness, and what we can learn from this experience. What I propose is to have some controls, and not passively give away our adhikara.

  1. Another example of an illogical analysis concerns my statement about popular culture. In my discussions with Kanchi Shankaracharya, he explicitly agreed with my view written in TBFS that “Kavya is literature that can be merely entertaining, or can also be a means for experiencing transcendence.” In fact, the Shankaracharya emphasized numerous times that we must develop a strategy to popularize our knowledge through visual entertainment such as film, TV and theater. He explained to me the importance of doing this today.

Yet, Ganesh quotes the above statement from my book, and classifies it under the heading: “Ignorance of Existing Literature and Divergent Views.” The factoid he cites has no bearing on the falsification or otherwise of my position. He uses the approach of muddying the issue by excessive citation of texts as if merely quoting proves anything by itself.

Theme 5: What should be the future course for our sanskriti?

Q: He seems to disagree with you on whether to encourage new knowledge production in Sanskrit. Can you respond?

Ganesh dismisses the idea that Sanskrit’s revival could include producing new knowledge. He writes:

“Also, his suggestion for the revival of Sanskrit is to produce new knowledge in Sanskrit. Is this even practical given that scholars from many mainstream non-English languages (like Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Spanish, etc.) are finding it hard to make a name for themselves in the academic community, which is under the firm grip of English?”

Ganesh disagrees with Chamu Krishna Shastry (quoted on page 297) that Sanskrit must once again become a language of innovation and change, absorbing new words from elsewhere, and inventing new ones internally, as and when the need arises. Ganesh retorts that “Innovation is not language-specific. Appropriating works (and words) into Sanskrit is not of practical value since the world is becoming a global village.”

I wish to point out that China and Japan are examples of government programs to produce new knowledge in their native languages. Mumbai based Shri Arnaal has developed software for machine translation of texts pertaining to specific subject matter, such that it would bring about a paradigm shift in the ability of non-English knowledge production. Machine translation is expected to usher in a new age of non-English languages becoming empowered in their own right.

Another concrete example is that Prof Bal Ram Singh (a biochemist) and Prof Girish Jha (a Sanskritist) have had productive collaborations where new scientific meanings and significance of Sanskrit terms are being discovered in sophisticated experiments in medicine. Old Sanskrit texts are the basis for their experiments today.

One can also examine how computational linguistics is thriving in the West as a field built on the study of Sanskrit grammar. It is at the cutting edge in computer science. Many persons (most notably BVK Sastry) have pointed out the loss of intellectual capital by the Indian side when this field is being de-Sanskritized by the west with the full collaboration of Indian scholars. This is what happens when we adopt the posture of not developing new knowledge on our own terms, and allow others to further enrich their intellectual platform at the cost of ours.

Finally, I want to point out that Ganesh’s position on new knowledge production in Sanskrit is aligned with what Pollock means by calling Sanskrit dead. Pollock rightfully says that a language cannot be alive by merely parroting old materials. This is precisely what happened to Greek/Latin and hence they became classical/dead languages whose only purpose is for rituals and occasional opera that very few understand and that serve for nostalgia only.

I expected Ganesh to champion Sanskrit as a living language for innovation, and not use it only for performances to entertain audiences.

Q: Explain Ganesh’s disagreement with your proposal that new smritis must be developed for today.

Ganesh attacks my suggestion that we must write new smritis and adapt old ones for this era, and that traditional scholars should play an important role in doing this. He writes:

“How is this practical? If someone were to compose a new constitution of India in Sanskrit, would s/he be taken seriously? For example, refer to the sastras and smritis composed by great scholars like Vasishta Ganapati Muni and Pullela Sriramachandrudu – what is the value given to their works by the laity and by the scholars? One can compose a smriti but what executive authority does s/he have? What are the kind of new texts can traditional scholars develop in Sanskrit? And what to make of compositions in Sanskrit hailing a tyrant like Lenin…”

We clearly disagree on how to interpret the notion of smritis for our time. And yes, the constitution does serve as a smriti whether we like it or not.

The issue of what authority such a new smriti would enjoy is a complex one. Many smritis written in the past did not necessarily become official state policy enforced on the public. They were in many cases a proposal or a particular individual’s view of society at a time and place. They were debated among experts in the marketplace of ideas. Some were merely descriptive (how things happen to be) and not necessarily prescriptive (how things ought to be). Others have the tone of formal authority.

Ganesh is blind to a very serious challenge we face: Today, the Indian Left led by Pollock’s team is in the process of developing new smritis very actively and very politically. They don’t explicitly call them smritis in order to not raise flags prematurely. But anyone who has properly read Pollock ought to know that his call to scholars to do what he terms “liberation philology” is precisely this kind of project of writing new policies for society today. There are plenty of doctrines about Dalit empowerment today that function like smritis in a pragmatic sense. Pollock’s “political philology” is the descriptive part and his “liberation philology” is the prescriptive part. The latter is what leads to calls for foreign interventions in India.

While our opponents have been busy formulating new positions, then turning these into formal policies, and finally using international agencies to make official international laws that can be imposed on India, most of our own brilliant traditional scholars seem clueless and disinterested in entering this battle of new policies. This is analogous to someone who claims to be leading an army, but who does not believe in any R&D for new weapons, even though the enemies all around have been upgrading their weapon systems. Smritis are like weapon systems in ideological warfare, and we cannot afford leaders who just don’t get this.

Q: Is Ganesh accurately representing your stance on Sanskrit as it relates to non-Indian languages?

I advocate against studying Sanskrit texts using the methods developed for the study of Greek/Latin classics, because those are dead languages and officially acknowledged as such. I cited Arabic, Mandarin and Persian as examples of old languages that are treated as living languages by their government and intellectuals. Ganesh misses my point completely. He says: “Malhotra wants Sanskrit to be bracketed with Arabic, Mandarin, and Persian instead of Greek and Latin (p. 377).” Bracketed in what sense?

He says that Sanskrit grammar has been static whereas the grammars of widely spoken languages like Arabic, Mandarin, and Persian have undergone changes over the years. This is true, but it does not impinge upon my suggestion that we should decouple from the methods of Western Indologists that are based on studying dead languages. Whether Sanskrit grammar should or should not evolve beyond Panini is an unrelated issue.

My concluding remarks

I do hope these responses by Rajiv Malhotra will reduce the tension caused by Ganesh’s rash statements, and that both sides will be able to work constructively together. Sanatana dharma needs this today. Many of us also feel that Ganesh might have been misled by some individuals with their own petty politics and agendas. However, given his stature, we hope he appreciates the big picture issues that are at stake here.

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Battle for Sanskrit, Blogs

What the Buddhist translation project can teach Rohan Murty and the rest of us

October 20, 2023

The Buddhists have been diligently at work on a massive translation project that is expected to continue for a few generations. There is a lot to learn from this. Please visit this site for an idea of the well organized long-term Buddhist translation project: http://84000.co/about/vision

The translators are from across the world. So its not about ethnicity/race/citizenship. The point is that 56% of them are from dharma ashrams, and the remaining 44% are academics mostly initiated by Dalai Lama or some other major Buddhist guru. Hence almost all of them are insiders to that tradition.

The funding is from diverse sources of practicing Buddhists. There is no one money bag in control, nor one larger-than-life editor who decides and who is too big to criticize (such as Sheldon Pollock).

The standards, policies and ideological guidelines, are set by Buddhist insiders. Each translation gets reviewed to check for compliance with this.

The project is explicitly seen as having its central purpose to protect the spiritual legacy – i.e. no question of secularizing the texts or looking for “human rights violations” in them.

Note there is a similar very large project in China to build a library of ancient Mandarin works, another project in Korea for their legacy, in Japan, etc.

Why did Rohan Murty not survey similar projects before deciding how to proceed with his MCLI? Why has no journalist writing on the MCLI controversy mentioned these other role models we can learn from?

I thought it is standard practice that before embarking upon a massive undertaking that will last decades, it is a good idea to closely examine other similar projects.

I am so glad that Dr. Sampadananda Mishra, originator of the Vande Mataram Library initiative, is going to look at this Buddhist project for ideas.

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Battle for Sanskrit, Book review

Refutation of Sheldon Pollock on Sanskrit and Sanskriti by Shrinivas Tilak

October 20, 2023

In my review of The Battle For Sanskrit (HarperCollins 2015) in Hindu Vishva (January-March 2016), I discussed author Rajiv Malhotra’s fair and faithful presentation and rigorous examination (Purva paksha) of Professor Sheldon Pollock’s allegations that Sanskrit is dead, politically motivated, and socially oppressive. In this follow up article I present Rajiv Malhotra’s (hereafter RM) spirited and energetic refutation (Uttara paksha) of Professor Pollock (hereafter Pollock) in the form of nirnayas (considered verdicts or decisions) delivered on points of order pertaining to Sanskrit and sanskriti raised in Pollock’s various writings: Nirnaya on Sanskrit and Prakrit, Nirnaya on Shruti, Nirnaya on Kavya and Shastra, Nirnaya on Sanskrit and Sanskriti, Nirnaya on American Orientalism.  

Nirnaya on Sanskrit and Prakrit

Agreeing with Pollock that Vedic Sanskrit was used mainly for ritual purposes, RM explains in his The Battle For Sanskrit (hereafter TBFS) that a simplified form of Sanskrit nevertheless served as a basis for languages derived from Prakrit and spoken by ordinary people. Sanskrit has always functioned as a meta-language for these languages (RM rejects Pollock’s use of ‘vernaculars’ for languages derived from Prakrit) facilitating a bi-directional flow between the two. This interaction has remained a continued source of decentralized and open architecture encompassing unity and diversity in India. Sanskrit has also acted as the template of sanskriti with its various angas (limbs)–architecture, dance, theatre, sculpture, poetry, etc. Rejecting them in favor of modern, westernized cultural practices as demanded by Pollock would alienate Hindus/Indians from their traditional roots. Furthermore, Sanskrit has made available its rich vocabulary for engaging in discourse in sciences and in other fields that are meaningful and necessary in everyday life activities (natural sciences, mathematics, linguistics, medicine, ethics, and political thought). RM laments that Pollock fails to acknowledge this power and potential of Sanskrit. Merchants and monks who travelled long distances for trade and commerce were able to engage in conversations, debates, and lectures with locals spreading in the process Sanskrit (and often some Prakrit-derived languages) across India and beyond. Since Vedic metaphysics held a deeper place in the lives of people it was replicated in different places with local geographies and kingdoms substituted in place of those mentioned in such source texts as the Ramayana.

Nirnaya on Shruti

RM vigorously contests Pollock’s suggestion that mantras, being in some cases meaningless in the conventional sense, could be discarded. RM argues that such action would amount to rejecting the important place the concept of vac has in Hindu cosmology. Such a step would entail loss of a key adhyatmika (inner science of self) resource. Chanting of mantras has also been an integral part in the performance of yajna, which plays a significant role in social cohesion. Discarding the practice of chanting mantras in yajna or in meditation as demanded by Pollock would result in loss of the integrative power of traditional rituals of Hindus rendering them more intellectually dependent on (and subservient to) the West.

RM further clarifies that chanting of mantras from the Shrutis, as part of meditative practices, serves a useful purpose for the sound vibrations (spanda or spandana) that are produced are beyond (or above) the limited literal or conceptual meanings Pollock associates with them. Spanda is the dynamic aspect of shakti, the energy of Shiva, the supreme Self. In Hinduism spanda is not a fantasy or a merely philosophical concept, it can be experienced and felt directly as expounded in the Spanda Karikas, a classic text of Kashmir Shaivism, from the 10th century CE attributed to Vasugupta.

Nirnaya on Kavya and Shastra

While Pollock deliberately breaks shastras from kavya in his deliberations, RM takes them together following the traditional convention. While acknowledging that the kavya and shastra are two distinct types of works, RM insists that this distinction is only a heuristic device and not a clear-cut or absolute boundary as posited by Pollock. Indeed, many kavyas demonstrate keen awareness of knowledge of various types from shastras. Conversely, shastras are often expressed in a poetic format and often display an excellent literary quality. Indeed, Sanskrit spread through its cultural applications via such shastras as ayurveda, astrology, philosophy, mathematics, and performing arts. Pollock selectively quotes from one chapter of Kalidasa’s Shakuntala as an example of the politicization of Sanskrit kavya. Had he added the traditional lens to his gaze, observes RM, Pollock would have recognized that Hindus appreciate such works for their aesthetics independently of (or in addition to) any political motive or framework. Pollock talks about Bilhana’s Vikramankadevacarita, in the eleventh century, as another example of political kavya. But he does not mention Bilhana’s Caurapancashika (The Love Thief), which is appreciated for its romantic aesthetic. One should also consider the reproduction of Ramayana in Tamil (twelfth century, by Kamban) and in Avadhi (sixteenth century, by Tulsidas) as non-political kavyas expressive of bhakti (TBFS endnote # 263).

Nirnaya on Sanskrit and Sanskriti

RM is particularly keen to controvert Pollock and company’s sinister attempts to break Sanskrit away from sanskriti. Sanskrit is better studied, he argues, using traditional methods and models that are compatible with its function both as a language of rituals and sacred discourses as well as worldly matters. He denies Pollock’s charge that traditional Sanskrit scholars are averse to the critical study of Sanskrit or to using tools of philology, cognitive science and history developed for this purpose.

People of India or Southeast Asia did not approach Sanskrit exclusively through the lens of politics; rather, they saw it in the context of cultural practices and spiritual realization. This is in conformity with ongoing Indic ethos—an interconnected network of Sanskrit, sanskriti, and dharma. As to Pollock’s charge that women in India are/were denied access to Sanskrit; the fact is that women have internalized Sanskrit, and for many of them, the intimacy with it is based on oral culture rather than written materials. While Pollock et al think of Sanskrit as a ‘religious’ language, it is fascinating to find out that Indian women have preserved the oral and worldly dimension of Sanskrit to this day.

In Chapter seven of TBFS (‘The Web of Sanskriti as a Potential Alternative Hypothesis’) RM presents the ‘web of sanskriti’ as an alternative approach to the notion of Sanskrit cosmopolis put forth by Pollock.  RM demonstrates how grass-roots spirituality can play a meaningful role in the spread of languages and culture. In Chapter ten (‘The Re-colonization of Indian Minds’) RM suggests ways of correcting the distorted perceptions of Sanskrit, sanskriti, and dharma that have spread beyond academia into media, industry leadership, government, and even among many traditional centers of Sanskrit learning (pithas) in contemporary India.

RM foils Pollock’s attempt to divide and set the people of India against each other through agency of the caste system. RM points out that select elements of Vedic metaphysics, the web of sanskriti, and the Sanskrit language could be replicated in different places because they enjoyed a deep place of respect in the hearts and lives of local populations. Sanskrit and its texts expressed the fabric of cosmic reality and Indians (kings, brahmins, merchants, or farmers) were naturally drawn and inspired to explore, discover, share, and celebrate the manifestation of this reality in their personal and social lives.

Nirnaya on American Orientalism

Pollock’s call to ‘liberation philology’ (designed on the lines of a movement called ‘liberation theology’ that challenged Roman Catholic collusion with oppression in the nineteen-sixties and seventies) for secularizing Sanskrit is an important plank of American orientalism. RM strenuously objects to this allusion because it obscures a significant difference between ‘liberation philology’ and liberation theology, which was a movement internal to Christianity and fully accepting of its fundamental principles. Indeed, this latter was largely a call for a return to these principles. However, Pollock rejects the Vedic roots of the Sanskrit tradition altogether and regards them as no more than relics of primitive thinking or attempts to blind people to their oppression. Furthermore, his liberation philology seriously misrepresents the texts it purports to illuminate, and distorts both the evidence and the function of these texts in the lives of real people, both in the past and the present.

As an alternative to Pollock’s ‘liberation philology,’ RM proposes what he calls a ‘sacred philology,’ [I would prefer to call it ‘sadhana philology’] a philology rooted in the conviction that Sanskrit cannot be divorced from its matrix in the Vedas and Upanishads or from its orientation towards the transcendent realm. RM’s proposed alternative is quite different from the stance of the Western, secular academy that Pollock represents because sacred philology would involve a respect for and a practice of tapasya and meditation that constitutes the basis of all four dharmic pathways to liberation originating in India (i.e. Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism) (TBFS 282-283).

After a fair and faithful depiction and scrutiny of Professor Pollock’s views on Sanskrit, i.e. Purva paksha without bias (puravgraha or pakshapata) and their refutation (Uttara paksha) Rajiv Malhotra provides his own well thought out and crafted plan to preserve and promote Sanskrit and sanskriti (to be discussed in a subsequent issue of Hindu Vishva).

* Shrinivas Tilak (Ph.D. History of Religions, McGill University, Montreal, Canada) is author of The Myth of Sarvodaya: A study in Vinoba’s concept (New Delhi: Breakthrough Communications 1984); Religion and Aging in the Indian Tradition (Albany, N. Y.: State University of New York Press, 1989); Understanding karma in light of Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical anthropology and hermeneutics (Charleston, SC: BookSurge, revised, paperback edition, 2007); and Reawakening to a secular Hindu nation: M. S. Golwalkar’s vision of a Dharmasāpekşa Hindurāşţra (Charleston, SC: BookSurge, 2008). Contact <shrinivas.tilak@gmail.com>

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Battle for Sanskrit, Book review

The Battle for Sanskrit Review

October 20, 2023

Introduction

Why The Battle For Sanskrit matters

In chapter one of The Battle for Sanskrit the author Rajiv Malhotra succinctly explains his purpose (prayojana) in writing this book: Sanskrit has been the heartbeat of Indian civilization (sanskriti) for several thousand years. It could even be said that bharateeya sanskriti has Sanskrit embedded in its DNA. Put differently, Sanskrit provides the vocabulary with which Indian civilization is encoded. Even those who do not explicitly use Sanskrit often draw upon knowledge stored in Sanskrit texts—Shruti, Smriti, and epics (mahakavyas) such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. One would think, continues Rajiv Malhotra (hereafter RM) that a major takeover of Sanskrit studies by Western scholars would not go unnoticed in India particularly when their works discount or undermine the core values of Sanskrit and sanskriti. In the United States it is Sheldon Pollock (Arvind Raghunathan, Professor of South Asian Studies at Columbia University, New York) who leads and shapes the anti-Sanskrit/Sanskriti brigade. After acquiring his Ph.D. in Sanskrit Studies from Harvard under the famous Indologist, Daniel Ingalls, Pollock spent the next four decades working diligently on a variety of Sanskrit texts. His publications cover a vast canvas of topics in Sanskrit studies. Chapter two of The Battle for Sanskrit (hereafter TBFS) provides a detailed account of Pollock’s activism. A leading Sanskrit scholar, Sheldon Pollock (hereafter Pollock) is regarded as a hero by many fellow academics and leftists in the USA and in India. He has trained and inspired an army of young American and Indian scholars, popular writers, and other opinion-shapers to use his interpretations of Sanskrit for a completely new analysis of Indian society. The new breed of intellectual leaders groomed under his aegis includes a number of young scholars from across the world that pretend to claim newly earned authority on Sanskrit history, social structures, and their political implications. Patrick McCartney, a PhD candidate in the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University, is one such aspiring scholar inspired by Pollock’s views on Sanskrit. The title of his proposed Post-doc research, for instance is: Imagining Sanskrit Land: A Sociolinguistic Study of Spoken Sanskrit, Global Identities and Hindu Nationalism (see https://www.academia.edu/19566419/Post-doc_Research_Proposal).

The raison d’ȇtre of TBFS is to discuss in depth some of these politically active scholars led by Sheldon Pollock. RM laments that Indians in general (and Hindus in particular) are blissfully unaware of the fact that studies in Sanskrit and sanskriti have been and are being hijacked by Western (particularly American) Sanskritists and Indologists with a specific political agenda.  Prominent leaders of the USA-based Sanskrit studies movement like Pollock occupy powerful academic positions in a number of fields in Indology from where they (1) control the editing and authoring of many influential works in and on Sanskrit and (2) initiate or support petitions that attack Hindu institutions and leaders. They also lobby in Indian political circles, exerting influence through the media. Alarmed by the increasing hostility among Western Indologists and Sanskritists toward Sanskrit and sanskriti RM has initiated an ongoing debate with them.

The long tradition of debates/verbal battles

In India, controversial philosophical and religious doctrines have been debated and verbally battled in public discussions from the earliest times. Debates (Sanskrit samvāda = dialogue) featured different schools of thought covering such areas as philosophy, jurisprudence, literature, and medicine. One reads about arguments in which important teachers advocated their opinions fearlessly and defeated (or lost to) opponents in verbal debates. One early Indian thinker, Kautsa, was bold enough to insist on the meaninglessness of the Vedas and was taken to task by the famous etymologist Yaska for it. Yaska nevertheless retained this dissenting opinion as well as many others in his dictionary of Vedic terms the Nirukta.

In the Upanishads there are dramatic scenes of men and women ascetics, kings and brahmins regularly debating and disputing over the ultimate nature of brahman, the transcendent reality. This they did publicly before an equally erudite audience in rounds of challenge and counter-challenge. The famous debate where Gargi challenges her sage husband Yajnavalkya on the nature of the self (atman) is one such instance.

Over time, a distinct discipline of debate and dialogues (Vadashastra) emerged with set conventions about how such debates were to be held, which rules were to be followed to conduct the debates and when a debater could be declared the winner in a verbal contest. Unfortunately, manuals on debating per se from ancient India have not survived. Nevertheless, two sources–the Carakasamhita (Vimanasthana 3:8) and the Nyayasutra (chapters one and five) with Pakshilatirtha’s commentary Nyayabhashya, provide an adequate account of the rules that were to be observed in actual arguments and an indication of what handbooks or manuals of debate may have contained.

Samvada (sambhasha in Carakasamhita) can mean dialoguing in a variety of modes including ‘face to face,’ and ‘confrontation between two adversaries presided over by a referee.’ Many suktas in the Rigveda featuring such debates are called ‘Samvada suktas.’ The Bhagavad Gita too styles itself as samvada—between Shrikrishna and Arjuna about the nature of ultimate reality and how to attain it. The Mahabharata uses the term samvada to describe harmonious exchange, say, between Draupadi and Satyabhama (one of Krishna’s wives), or the more contentious one between Draupadi and Yudhishthira before they set for the forest.

Generally, a debate proceeded in three stages—Purva paksha, Uttara paksha, and Siddhanta. Purva paksha refers to the faithful depiction and critical examination of the views (mata) held prima facie by one’s opponent concerning a key idea about a major precept or practice in philosophy, jurisprudence, or medicine (pariksha). Uttara paksha involved critical assessment and subsequent refutation of the point of view of the opponent on the subject under scrutiny (nirnaya = decision).  Siddhanta meant putting forth of a ‘provisional’ conclusion (i.e. a conclusion subject to revision after subsequent round/s of debate).

Debates regularly took place among the leading scholars of the six philosophical systems (darshanas; meaning philosophical visions or views about different aspects of reality) over the merits and demerits of each system. Typically, the losing scholar would renounce his lineage to join the winner’s school. The losing scholar’s disciples were expected to follow him. This is how Mandana Mishra, the leader of the Mimamsa School, had to join the Vedanta School led by Shankaracharya after losing in one such debate.

II Opposing camps on the battlefield

The outsider and the insider

RM refers to the two antagonists in the debate/verbal battle over Sanskrit as Outsiders and Insiders. It was Kenneth L. Pike who coined the new terminology of ‘etic’ and ‘emic’ to refer to the ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’ respectively. While etic refers to a detached, trained observer’s perception of the un-interpreted ‘raw’ data; emic refers to how those data are interpreted by an ‘insider’ to the system. An emic unit is a physical or mental item or system treated by insiders as relevant to their system of behavior in terms of the context (Pike 1967). Thus, in the etic perspective, the color ‘white’ is perceived as equal presence of light of all wave-lengths by an average human eye. In the emic perspective, white is the color of festivity and joy in Western cultures. In India it denotes the notion of purity and auspiciousness; while in China it is the color of mourning. On the whole, therefore, the distinction between the etic and emic views parallels the distinction between the outsider and insider and the absolute and the relative respectively.

The outsider allegedly brings with him/her a detached observer’s view, which is one window on the world. The view of the local scene through the eyes of a native participant is a different window. Either view by itself is restricted in scope and may lead to distortion. The ‘Outsider’ looks at Sanskrit from an Orientalist and Social/anthropological studies point of view; while the ‘Insider’ camp holds a traditional Indic view of Sanskrit and tries to understand a culture the way the insiders see it.

Two important caveats may be entered here: (1) RM is categorical in stating that the ‘Outsider’ vs ‘Insider’ division is not based on race, ethnicity, or nationality. Thus, while in general the Western view looks at Sanskrit and sanskriti with an Orientalist lens, any Westerner holding the traditional viewpoint on Sanskrit would be called an ‘Insider.’ By the same token Indians holding an exclusively Social/anthropological science point of view while denying the traditional view would come under the ‘Outsider’ camp; (2) RM’s battle for Sanskrit is not physical but verbal and metaphysical. The structure of his overall argument developed in TBFS–attack, defense, and counter-attack is verbal and intellectual; not physical.

The camp opposing Pollock’s is led by RM. It wants to see Sanskrit regain and retain its power as a living language driving sanskriti and dharma. Rather than dismiss Sanskrit as a dead language, Hindus celebrate Sanskrit as a living language for its enduring sacredness, aesthetic powers, metaphysical acuity, and ability to generate and support knowledge in many domains (Malhotra 2016: 30). Unfortunately, advocates of the inside view are dispersed and not well-resourced. They are for the most part practitioners of one or the other form (pantha) of Hinduism and tend to cluster in small groups where they feel safe as they relate to one another. Many of them are ignorant of the battle at hand and hence unwittingly become complicit in the agenda pushed by Pollock and his troops.

III Purva paksha

RM’s TBFS, which ‘provides a careful survey of the ongoing contentious debate over Sanskrit, sanskriti, and dharma, provides a worthy continuity to that illustrious line of debating tradition of India by challenging Professor Pollock and his school. Initially, skirmishes took place at various seminars, public lectures, and on line followed by a meeting between RM and Pollock in latter’s office in downtown Princeton. After cordial exchange of views the two decided to meet again after TBFS was published. TBFS narrates the history of how RM built his Purva paksha around four key propositions put forth by Pollock:

I : Decoupling Sanskrit from the Vedas by removing the mystic aura surrounding it. Scholars then must direct their gaze through the window of Sanskrit into the history of India to expose the toxic role Sanskrit has had in social oppression as claimed by select historians.

II: Secularizing the Sanskrit kavya tradition (particularly the Ramayana) by peeling away its paramarthika (transcendental) dimension

III: Interpreting the Ramayana as a social and political weapon of oppression against women, shudras, and Muslims as claimed by some select historians

IV: Declaring the death of Sanskrit and the rise of vernaculars (Pollock’s term for languages derived from Prakrit). Per Pollock, Sanskrit was dead as a living language by about the twelfth century. The cause of its death was the structures of abuse that were built into it and Hindu kings accelerated that process. Pollock absolves Muslim invaders and British colonizers from any hand in the death of Sanskrit.

Pollock’s posse

RM charges that over the past few decades a group of ideologically and politically motivated American Sanskrit scholars with commitment to Marxism have successfully fused expertize of Sanskrit onto the leftist lens on India. This fusion, led by Pollock, is at the heart of what RM calls ‘American Orientalism phenomenon.’ It is important to note that the deep and systematic study of Sanskrit carried out by Pollock and his posse is not being driven by any kind of respect or attachment for Sanskrit as a language of an ancient civilization. Rather, it is motivated by a political agenda as several chapters of TBFS explain in detail (Malhotra 2016: 61ff). RM charges that Pollock and his posse (many of them being Hindu scholar recruits) have set up for themselves the task to exhume, isolate, analyze, and theorize about the modalities of domination rooted in Sanskrit as the medium of brahminical ideology of power and domination. RM’s Purva paksha (i.e. scrutiny = pariksha) occupies the major portion of TBFS (in my opinion this material could be divided into the following six fields: (1) Sanskrit pariksha; (2) Shruti pariksha; (3) Kavya pariksha (4) Shastra pariksha; (5) Sanskriti pariksha; and (6) Orientalism pariksha).

RM’s presentation of Purva paksha is masterly. There is ample evidence that he has carefully and diligently studied the principal writings of Pollock and his henchmen/women displaying for all to see their assumptions, detailed arguments, and conclusions that are detrimental to Sanskrit, sanskriti, and dharma. He has exposed the etically derived agenda of Pollock and his posse–to divide Hindus and fracture their composite sociocultural identity by artificially decoupling Sanskrit from the Vedas on the one hand, and from the ‘vernaculars’ on the other.

IV Uttara paksha

Malhotra, the musketeer: lone defender of Sanskrit and Sanskriti

RM modestly claims that the Purva paksha component of this book is more important than the Uttara paksha. I beg to differ. His Uttara paksha is as important as the Purva paksha because it is destined to awaken Hindu intellectuals and instill in them the urge to provide their own versions of spirited and creative Uttara paksha in response to the gauntlet thrown by Pollock. I would suggest to the reader that RM’s energetic Uttara paksha (albeit not as elaborate as his Purva paksha) should be understood and explained (to others) in terms of the following six verdicts or decisions (nirnayas) delivered on points of order raised in the Purva paksha of Pollock’s thesis that Sanskrit is dead, oppressive, and politically motivated: (i) Nirnaya on Sanskrit and Prakrit, (ii) Nirnaya on Shruti, (iii) Nirnaya on Kavya and Shastra, (iv), Nirnaya on Sanskrit, (v) Nirnaya on Sanskriti, and (vi) Nirnaya on Orientalism.

V Siddhanta

Every tradition faces existential challenges from time to time, and its adherents must consider (and develop) ways to maintain its viability as they enter new epochs and eras. On the whole, this is a healthy process of maintaining dynamic equilibrium. A tipping point, however, comes when opponents begin to dominate the discourse from the outside so overwhelmingly that the defenders of the tradition from within simply capitulate. Sanskrit and sanskriti are facing this challenge and plight right now. In order to ensure the revival and survival of Sanskrit and sanskriti Indians need to assemble what RM calls a ‘home team’ to represent their views collectively in debates with Pollock and others over Sanskrit and sanskriti. RM reached this crucial conclusion (siddhanta) after waging a lonely battle against Pollock and his posse for over two decades.

Building the ‘Home Team’ of musketeers

The ‘home team’ of RM’s dream would consist of those who would work toward seeing Sanskrit flourish as a living language, and as a pathway into the transcendent realms of experience  and the knowledge systems based on them. He suggests setting up training academies that are on par with those built upon vast research and educational apparatus controlled by the opposite side. They will sponsor academic conferences and journals, not for regurgitating old materials but for generating new ones. The context and institutions within which Sanskrit is taught today will have to be entirely revamped and re-envisioned. There, the traditional web of sanskriti could be approached critically, using a wide range of tools–from philology and social science to metaphysics and cosmology. All this would be approached from within the traditional cosmology and be lived as the ‘lifestyle’ issuing out of it.

From the mouse clicker to the musketeer = intellectual kshatriya

Another major conclusion (siddhanta) of TBFS that I found most inspiring is RM’s endorsement of the traditional adage—a true scholar is he who acts on his convictions (yah kriyāvān sa paņḑitaḩ).  Indeed, RM’s latest book is concerned to transform mouse clicking armchair Hindu of today into an intellectual kshatriya (musketeer activist) in the cause of Sanskrit, sanskriti, and dharma. It would be instructive to learn how RM himself came to acquire the adhikara to lead the mission he took upon himself two decades ago. At the age of forty-four, RM heard a call from within to serve his homeland and his people. Before long, he had summoned enough courage to come out of his cushy, comfort zone and take voluntary retirement from the lucrative business he had been operating quite successfully in the United States taking enormous personal and financial risks in the process–continuing to support and bear the responsibility of his homemaker wife with two young children aged thirteen and ten.

He next put himself totally in the hands of the guru he had chosen. This is how his true tapasya (ascetic practice) started and continues. His tapasya involved internal meditation + ascetic practices (tapas), self-initiated and guided studying (svadhyaya) and devotion to God (ishavara-pranidhana). Initially, his guru did not allow RM to go public with his experiments or experiences or saying anything about what he was doing explaining it would only inflate his ego. When his guru realized that RM had cultivated the necessary adhikara, he was allowed to go on the mission that he had chosen for himself—battling for Sanskrit, sanskriti, and dharma.

Ethos, pathos, and logos in TBFS

RM’s experience in community service, his tireless commitment to the wellbeing of his people, and his willingness to reach across the aisle and cooperate with the opposition have made him an ideal activist pandit to lead (1) the battle for Sanskrit and (2) to mobilize the masses through his writings. It is instructive to study how he deploys a three-fold strategy based on the traditional concepts of adhikara, sahrdayata, and samjna (roughly equivalent to Aristotle’s ethos, pathos, and logos respectively) in order to mobilize his readers to accept and act on his abiding message.

Ethos (adhikara)

Adhikara (ethos; Greek for ‘character’) refers to how trustworthy, credible, and qualified the writer/speaker is and how knowledgeable s/he is concerning a subject. Since the reader is familiar with RM as the writer, his reputation is relevant and important to the message he is sending through TBFS. Ethos is often conveyed through tone and style of the message and through the way the writer refers to differing views and voices. Persuasion from ethos involves the appeal from the author’s acknowledged life contributions within a community. Ethos is conveyed through tone and style of the message. It can also be affected by the writer’s reputation as it exists independently from the message—his/her expertise in the field, previous record or integrity, and so forth.

Readers are naturally more likely to be persuaded by a writer who, they think, has personal warmth, consideration of others, a good mind, and solid learning. RM’s potential readers already know something of his adhikara ahead of time thanks to the availability of dozens of videos and audio tapes in which he has developed the basic argument in defense of Sanskrit. His experience and previous performances eminently qualify RM to speak on the various issues pertaining to Sanskrit, sanskriti, and dharma.

RM’s authoritative voice marshals other qualified voices in a conversation with his readers by the device of direct and indirect quotation.  In TBFS, the quotation marks signal that someone else’s words are erupting into the text, replacing temporarily his lead voice. Carefully creating a proper perspective and context for the material he is quoting, RM makes sure how the reader will interpret the quoted passage while retaining control over the message being delivered. Because a writer can better control the other voice through indirect quotations than in direct quotation, RM uses a large amount of indirect quotations as well as paraphrasing longer paragraphs where warranted. In representing his argument in this manner RM exposes the voice of Pollock and his supporters as short-sighted and socially irresponsible.

Pathos (sahridayata)

Sahridayata is an abstract noun made by fixing the Sanskrit prefix ‘sa’ meaning ‘similar or together’ to hridaya = heart. Sahridayata is the state of common orientation, commonality or oneness and sahridaya is one that has attained this state wherein the heart of the ‘communicator’ and the heart of the ‘receiver’ of communication have become ‘one.’ Vedic teaching “Be humane and humanize others” (Rigveda 10:53.6) is significant for understanding sahridayata: all should be mutually bound with each other; each one affectionately attracting the other, the way a cow showers her love and affection for her new-born calf” (Atharvaveda 3:30.1). Everyone should look upon each other with a friend’s eye (Yajurveda 36:18). The Samanjasya Sukta (Atharvaveda 6.64) conveys a similar message: Live in harmony, in accord with each other, understanding each other, suffused with each other, with your hearts co-mingling.

Kalidasa in his Abhijnana Shakuntalam describes a sahridaya person as paryutsuk, that is, someone who was ensconced in his/her genial environment (or comfort zone as RM would have it) but has now become edgy and restless and filled with angst as a result of the call and the pull of the message received (Misra 2008: 94). Thus, it is sanskriti that provides the basis for sahridayata; however it is not an elitist notion because one does not have to be an intellectual to imbibe that quality.

Like pathos, sahridayata is an appeal that draws upon the reader’s emotions, sympathies, interests, and/or imagination. With an appeal to pathos, the reader is encouraged to identify with the author – to feel and experience what the author feels. As the meaning of pathos implies, the reader ‘suffers,’ (in the realm of the imagination that is–) what the author suffers. An appeal to sahrdayata (bandhuta) causes the reader not only just to respond emotionally but to identify with the author’s worldview and voice–to feel what the author feels.

Logos (sapramanata)

Logos (Greek for ‘word’) refers to the internal consistency of the message or argument–the clarity of the claim, the logic of its reasons, and the effectiveness of its supporting evidence (sapramanata). RM’s logic is impeccable and TBFS (as well as his other publications) is a testimony to it.  Consider, for instance, the following exchange from TBFS–During RM’s meeting with Pollock in his office in Princeton, the latter cited an impressive list of his publications and awards received and asked RM: ‘How could you think I hate Hinduism when I have spent my entire life studying the Sanskrit tradition?’(Malhotra 2016: 13). This logic, observes RM, would certainly have worked with the vast majority of Indians. The mere fact that a famous Westerner is working so hard to study Hinduism would be enough to bring awe into the minds of most Indians. In reply RM said “…there are scholars in many disciplines who study some phenomenon for the purpose of undermining ‘(emphasis added) it, not because they love it. People study crime in order to fight it. There are experts on corruption who want to expose it, not because they love corruption. There are public health specialists who study a disease with the intention of being able to defeat it.” It was fallacious, concluded RM, to assume that merely studying Sanskrit made Pollock a lover of Sanskrit and sanskriti (Malhotra 2016: 14).

VI Concluding comments

RM concludes TBFS with the hope that the world has much to learn from the long Hindu tradition of critical learning from debate and dialogue. Many of the ancient debates were about deeply felt, controversial matters particularly in philosophy and literature. Since the two camps hold widely different views on Sanskrit and sanskriti, and dharma each can profit from a dialogue with the other and appreciate both the uniqueness and commonalities of each side.

Dialogues (whether performed in public or written down) have been an indelible feature of Hinduism because its voice is multi-vocal and multi-lingual. Its doctrines, practices, and institutions have not had only one voice of authority. In almost every region of India, dialogue has been embedded in Hinduism through texts, doctrines, histories, rituals, ceremonies and in architecture and art. For thousands of years, Hindus have been debating over gods and deities, how best to represent them, and what their true nature is. Thus dialogue and debate, and critical thinking too have been a defining feature of Hindu traditional texts, rituals, and practices.

Kenneth Pike saw the outsider (etic) and insider (emic) approaches as complementary, rather than conflicting ways of achieving an understanding. In order to apply comparative concepts appropriately, therefore, it is necessary to follow the research carried out from an etic perspective by an emic one. Pike draws our attention to the two perspectives that are present in a stereographic picture. Superficially they look alike, on closer inspection they are notably different, but taken together the added perspective is startlingly novel because the same data have been presented through a bi-focal vision (see Pike 1967: 41).

RM believes that a dialogue carried out in a ‘stereographic’ manner would not only uncover commonalities as may exist but also creatively develop them bringing the two camps closer in a spirit of mutual respect. An inclusive framework might then emerge that will draw upon the synergy existing between emic and etic approaches generating a balanced perspective on Sanskrit, sanskriti, and dharma.

A harmonious sharing of a common cultural space and labor between Sanskrit and Prakrit based languages existed in the past. Available epigraphic evidence suggests that while the genealogical account in many inscriptions is in Sanskrit, the ‘business’ portion (i.e. details of the land grant etc) are in the regional language. Today, while Sanskrit would be used to interpret, supplement, and re-describe the constitutional and legal reality; in the pragmatic day-to-day affairs regional vernacular languages would prevail. Sanskrit phobia will evaporate in thin air as soon as Indic scholars are provided a place of honor in Sanskrit and Indic studies.

Bharunda: Bird with two heads

RM might consider adding to his debating points the urgent need to persuade those Hindu scholars that have joined the Pollock camp to return home (ghar wapasi). The purport of the following story from the Panchatantra may be used to impress upon them that in unity lives the wellbeing of the duality of Sanskrit and Prakrit, Kavya and Shastra, Sanskrit and Sanskriti:

Once upon a time, there lived a strange bird named Bharunda, on the banks of a lake. It was strange because he had two heads fused on to the same body. One day, as the bird was wandering, it found a delicious looking golden fruit. One of the heads started eating the fruit with pleasure. The other head requested, “Oh dear, please let me taste too the fruit that you are so praising.” The first head just laughed and said, “We share the same stomach. Whichever mouth between us may eat the fruit, it goes to the same stomach. Moreover, since I am the one who found this fruit in the first place, I have the right to eat it myself.” This selfishness of the first head hurt the second head very much.

Few days later, as they were wandering the second head spotted a poisonous tree laden with fruit. It declared to the first head, “The other day you did not share with me the delicious fruit. Now I am going to eat this fruit without sharing it with you. The first head pleaded in desperation, “Please don’t eat this fruit; it is poisonous. We share the same stomach. If you eat it, we will both die.” The second head replied in a mocking tone, “Since I am the one who found this fruit in the first place, I have the right to eat it.” Knowing what would happen, the first head began to cry. The second head ate the poisonous fruit regardless. As a consequence of this action the bird died with both the heads coming out losers. The wise indeed say: Union is strength (see http://www.talesofpanchatantra.com/shortstories_bharunda_bird_two_heads.php.; accessed on Oct 20, 2015).

References

Acharya, Poromesh. 1996. Indigenous education and Brahminical hegemony in Bengal. In The Transmission of Knowledge in South Asia: Essays on Education, Religion, History, and Politics edited by Nigel Crook, 98-118, Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Bagchi, Shrabonti. 2014. Indian tradition of debate, dialogue has much to teach us, America’s Indologist says: Interview with Laurie L. Patton. Times of India, April 14, 2014.

Henning, Martha L. Friendly Persuasion: Classical Rhetoric–Now! Draft Manuscript. August, 1998. http://www.millikin.edu/wcenter/workshop7b.html; accessed on October 27, 2015.

Misra, V. N. 2008. Foundations of Indian aesthetics. Gurgaon, Haryana: Shubhi Publications.

Patton, Laurie L. 2014. The Biggest Loser in the Doniger Controversy? Indian Traditions of Debate. Posted on Huffington Post Blog. 02/26/2014; accessed Oct 25, 2015.

Pike, Kenneth L. 1967. Language in relation to a unified theory of the structure of human behavior [1954]. The Hague: Mouton.

Pollock, Sheldon. 1993. Deep Orientalism? Notes on Sanskrit and Power Beyond the Raj. In Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia edited by Carol A. Beckenridge and Peter van der Veer, Sheldon, 76-133, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

___________.1996. ‘The Sanskrit Cosmopolis, 300-1300: Transculturation,Vernacularization, and the Question of Ideology.’ Ideology and Status of Sanskrit. Contributions to the history of the Sanskrit language edited by Jan E.M. Houben, Leiden: E.J. Brill, pp. 197-247.

——, 2006. The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. Berkeley: University of California Press.

* Shrinivas Tilak (Ph.D. History of Religions, McGill University, Montreal, Canada) is based in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. His publications include The Myth of Sarvodaya: A study in Vinoba’s concept (New Delhi: Breakthrough Communications 1984); Religion and Aging in the Indian Tradition (Albany, N. Y.: State University of New York Press, 1989); Understanding karma in light of Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical anthropology and hermeneutics (Charleston, SC: BookSurge, revised, paperback edition, 2007); and Reawakening to a secular Hindu nation: M. S. Golwalkar’s vision of a Dharmasāpekşa Hindurāşţra (Charleston, SC: BookSurge, 2008). Contact shrinivas.tilak@gmail.com  http://beingdifferentforum.blogspot.in/2016/02/review-of-battle-for-sanskrit-by.html

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Indra’s Net, Press Release

Statement by the editor of Indra’s Net, based in Toronto, Canada

October 11, 2023

​’​As Rajiv Malhotra’s copy-editor, I can state categorically that he clearly references Andrew Nicholson’s Unifying Hinduism in Indra’s Net, and in such a way that the reader is properly informed. Even in those places where Nicholson is not cited explicitly (i.e., with an end-note reference), it is perfectly obvious that it is his ideas that are being referenced and discussed. The decision not to cite every single reference to Nicholson was based on stylistic reasons (to prevent cumbersomeness and repetition) and also because Mr. Malhotra assumes his readers are intelligent enough to make the link between Nicholson’s ideas and his own (Malhotra’s) commentary on them. To his credit, Mr. Malhotra prefers not to insult his readers’ intelligence with a barrage of footnotes — only when they are required. And so there are several places where the references to Nicholson are implicit, as opposed to explicit. These references are obvious to anyone who reads the passages in the context of the preceding passages and the overall chapter. This all strikes me as pretty plain. Mr. Malhotra’s accusers in this matter are being unreasonable and grossly unfair, to put it mildly.​’​

Thom Loree
Copy-Editor, Indra’s Net
Sent from my Toronto home on July 22, 2015

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AI & The Future of Power, Blogs

Without effective strategic planning on AI & big data India might slip towards digital colonisation

August 31, 2023

Artificial intelligence amplifies human mind and ingenuity in amazing ways across virtually every domain. It is the engine driving the latest technological disruption that is shaking the foundations of society. My use of the term includes the entire ecosystem of technologies that AI propels forward, such as quantum computing, semiconductors, nanotechnology, medical technology, brain-machine interface, robotics, aerospace, 5G, and much more.

On the one hand, AI is the holy grail of technology; the advance that people hope will solve problems across virtually every domain of our lives. On the other, it is disrupting several delicate equilibriums and creating conflicts on a variety of fronts. I discuss the impact of this game-changing technology in my book, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power.

A recurrent debate surrounding AI concerns the extent of human work that could be replaced by machines over the next twenty years when compared to the new jobs created by AI. Numerous reports have addressed this issue, reaching a wide range of conclusions. Experts consider it a reasonable consensus that eventually a significant portion of blue-and-white-collar jobs in most industries will become obsolete, or at least transformed to such an extent that workers will need re-education to remain viable.

The percentage of vulnerable jobs will continue to increase over time. The obsolescence will be far worse in developing countries where the standard of education is poor.

The routine assurance given to these reasonable concerns is that when AI eliminates certain jobs, those employees forced out will move up the value chain to higher-value tasks. This simplistic and misleading answer overlooks the fact that the training and education required to advance people is not happening nearly at the same feverish rate as the adoption of AI.

Those that promise the solution of re-education have not thus far put their money where their mouth is. The gap of employee qualifications will inevitably widen.

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All Articles, Articles by Rajiv, Being Different

INTERVIEW: Rajiv Malhotra on where his work fits within the Hindu tradition

August 3, 2023

Shri Malhotra, what are your views on gurus, acharyas, swamis and other leaders of Sampradayic traditions?  How do you see their role in the modern world? When you represent Hinduism at various public fora, are you presuming to replace these individuals and institutions with a new mould of spokesperson?

RM: Can anyone presume to “replace” them, ever? I can’t imagine how.

The leaders of Sampradayic lineages and mathas are not merely an integral feature of Hindu Dharma. They are, in themselves, proof of the core competence of our Dharmic traditions. Each enlightened master transmits the distilled wisdom of generations of embodied practice in a particular technique, a specific tradition customized to the community he or she teaches. The very existence of such masters is a testament to the enduring vitality of Dharmic spiritual practice.  It is from their inspiration, their teachings, that others in turn are guided on their own paths of personal spiritual discovery.

In my  own life, and the task I’ve committed myself to, I continuously derive inspiration from such teachers. In the 1990s, it was the influence of my own guru that inspired me to give up all business activity at the peak of my material success, and devote all my energies to the work I have taken up.

My immersion and devout association with many Sampradayic traditions goes all the way back to my childhood… when I was raised in a prominent Arya Samaj family of Punjab. Early on, I became involved with the Ramakrishna Mission in Delhi, and studied Gita under Swami Chinmayanand.  In the 1970s, I was initiated into Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation movement, in which I was active. About 20 years ago, I became an adherent of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s  Art of Living as well.

I’ve also studied with Yogi Amrit Desai, the founder of Kripalu Yoga in the USA,  and was certified as a teacher of Yoga Nidra under this tradition.  I’ve attended workshops with Swami Nityananda as well.  My experience of all these sadhanas, has proved invaluable to me.

Besides having availed of treasured spiritual interactions with living masters,  I’ve made it my business to study and imbibe the works of the historical greats: Sri Aurobindo, Ramana Maharshi, Adi Shankara, and many more recent interpreters and thinkers of our tradition.  The systematic study of Madhyamika Buddhism has also added to my understanding of Dharma.

There’s no question of my “replacing” any of these exponents of our tradition. Indeed, without the millennia of cumulative wisdom they embody, I might not even have a Dharmic tradition to fight for today.

You appear to have benefited from these relationships a great deal, but have you given back to such spiritual masters in any form? How have you helped them?

RM: I’m continuously engaged with many of them, as part of the work I do. In the process, I try to be of service in whatever form is needed of me.

Swami Dayananda Saraswati, head of the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, is one of the individuals I’ve worked very closely with.  On many occasions, he’s asked for my participation in strategic planning and discussion of issues facing Hinduism across the global theater. In 2008, I had the privilege of being centrally involved in the Second Hindu-Jewish Leadership Summit, which he convened.  The summit concluded with a historic resolution removing certain critical biases that had long endured about Hinduism… and much of the language that I proposed, as lead scholar, was included in that resolution.

[Interviewer’s Note: See the text of this declaration at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2258129/2nd-Hindu-Jewish-SummitFinal-DeclarationP-1#archive ]

Building on the success of that, I was once again included at the Hindu-Buddhist Summit of 2010 in Cambodia,  which aimed to conclude strategic resolutions between our two Dharmic traditions.

I’ve also been blessed with opportunities to be of service to the Chinmaya Mission. When their temple project in New Jersey faced legal hurdles, I actively mobilized supporting voices that were successful in overturning the local biases. Recently, I was invited to speak before three large groups by the Chinmaya Mission at Washington, DC…  other centers have sent invitations as well.

I was privileged to have been hosted by Ramakrishna Mission mathas for days together, and to have participated in discussions at the highest level regarding issues of major concern for the future of Dharma.  Subsequently, I was honored by their invitation to write an article for a special volume they are producing to celebrate Swami Vivekanand’s 150th anniversary.

Additionally, I’ve shared the dais with leaders like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on many occasions, and availed of private sessions with them to discuss the kinds of issues I raise in my writings.  I’m active in the HMEC (Hindu Mandirs Executive Committee), which is doing great work in bringing together the Hindu temples of North America on issues of common concern.  I can’t even begin to estimate the number of times I’ve been invited by Hindu temples across the USA, to address their congregations.

I do not cite these instances to emphasize the degree of my personal achievement, but rather out of gratitude that I’ve been able to provide seva at so many levels.

Some have been critical of your statement that our Acharyas should have looked beyond their traditional roles and also studied philosophers such as  Hegel and Kant, to refute the West in its own terms.  How do you justify such a statement? Do you think that the Acharyas have failed in this role, and therefore are to blame for the intellectual bankruptcy of our Brown Saheb class today?

RM: You say “look beyond their traditional roles.”  In fact, purva-paksha is very much part of the traditional roles our Acharyas have performed for thousands of years!  How else do you explain the sublime intellectual vigor of Adi Shankara in studying the diverse theological positions that existed in his day, and traveling the length and breadth of the country to debate the adherents of them all?

What do the Vaisheshika teachings expounded by Kanada,  or the Nyaya Sutras of Akshapada Gautama represent?  They are the vibrant response of Hindu traditions after having conducted purva-paksha of contemporary Buddhist and Jaina philosophies. This sort of work has been the life-blood of relevance and vitality, pumping through the veins of Dharmic tradition since it began.

I do not “fault” our traditional Acharyas for the emergence of Brown Sahebs at all… far from it. In fact, it is thanks to their efforts that Dharmic traditions endure independently even today, despite the best efforts of Brown Sahebs to aid in their cultural digestion by the West.

It is not a “failure” I’m speaking of here… rather, it is a tragedy, and the result of 800 years of predatory colonialism by brutal foreign agencies.  The magnitude of trauma that our society and its institutions experienced from this, is hard to even imagine.  Continuous, relentless suppression and frequently realized threats of extermination will eventually drive a society to look inwards to the exclusion of all else… to “keep its head down” so as to appear less threatening to the dominant outsider.  But in keeping  one’s head down, one’s horizon becomes limited, and one is denied the opportunity for vigorous purva-paksha.

The Macaulayization of our educational system directly produced the Brown Sahebs as its offspring; but that was only one aspect of it. The other aspect was to systematically, viciously delegitimize Dharmic traditions of knowledge by all methods of cultural, economic and physical violence available to it.  So it is hardly a “fault” of our Acharyas that collectively, India’s philosophical perspective turned inwards; rather, it is  a credit to them that our traditions survived through such monstrously difficult times.

Yet, the fact remains that the perspective did turn inwards; had the same intellectual vigor of Adi Shankara been applied to a purva-paksha of the West, had we studied and understood the positions of Kant and Hegel and engaged in rigorous, logical refutation using our own traditional hermeneutics, who knows what might have happened!  Instead, the Brown Sahebs were given the “legitimacy” of Macaulayite education, and through them, the Western perspectives of Kant and Hegel became universalized.

I do not say all this to put the blame on any of our own people, especially not the enlightened masters who inspire me and whom I engage with regularly in my work.  I say it because it needs to be recognized as a tragedy of history… and corrected by us in the present.

So how are you helping present-day Hindu samaj to correct this tragedy? How have you contributed to arming modern exponents of Dharmic tradition, with the instruments to conduct such a “purva paksha” of the West?

RM: I continuously strive towards conducting, and equipping others to conduct, such a purva-paksha. In fact, that’s one of the primary goals of the Infinity Foundation I have established.

For instance, over a ten-year period, we provided grants to a department of the University of Hawaii that researches and teaches Indian philosophy. Among other things, our efforts produced a Sanskrit book that explains modern Western thought to Sanskrit scholars.

That book was written by Professor Arindam Chakrabarti, himself a highly regarded scholar of both Dharmic and Western thought.  Professor Chakrabarti used the text in conducting workshops with a number of Sanskrit scholars, at Tirupati University as well as at Varanasi.

The results were astoundingly clear in revealing the immense potential for our traditional scholars to study the Western “other”, and to respond to it with our own system of hermeneutics, our traditional siddhanta. The success of Professor Chakrabarti’s workshops was met with many requests for more such programs to be convened.

More recently, at the World Sanskrit Conference held at Delhi in 2012, I presented my thesis on this issue as addressed in “Being Different”. Again, the responses were very encouraging: multiple invitations from the heads of Sanskrit universities and traditional mathas, requesting further workshops on purva-paksha. Similarly, following a seminar on my work hosted by Banaras Hindu University early this year, the Dean of their Faculty of Arts asked for my help in creating a new center for intercultural studies, aimed specifically at initiating purva-paksha.

Most people would agree that all this indicates a widespread and resolute acceptance of my thesis, by many of today’s Dharmic scholars and spiritual leaders. Among modern Indian intellectuals rooted in Dharmic tradition, a consensus is already forming that it is desirable, indeed necessary, to study Western thought… and to respond using the refined and sophisticated techniques of siddhanta.

Given this, it’s rather curious that a handful of cynics… these “critics” you speak of… appear to be raising “concerns” about my thesis.

What, exactly, are their “concerns” based upon? Are they aware of what purva-paksha is… of its role as a scholarly technique, in our intellectual tradition spanning thousands of years? Do they even realize that India originated critical thinking and debate many centuries before the West conceived of such things?

For that matter, what depth of substantive research have they contributed on this issue… or any other… which qualifies them to make such sweeping pronouncements of dismissal?

Their attitude in this regard betrays a blind adherence to prejudice… something more characteristic of the dogma-based religions of the desert, than of any Dharmic practice.

Some of your critics also claim that you, yourself, are doing a “U-Turn” by engaging with Christians and others through the inter-faith dialogue process. In doing this, aren’t you simply providing Christians with another window to continue their conversion of Hindus, and digestion of Dharmic wisdom?

RM: Let me ask you something. If I were not to engage in the “inter-faith dialogue process”… would it mean that all “inter-faith” dialogue would stop?

No. It would go on. And it would continue on the Western universalist terms that have already privileged the Abrahamic faiths for too long!

I do not create windows for inculturation or contextualization by engaging in inter-faith dialogue. The missionary Abrahamic faiths are continuously engaged in a number of processes to create such windows and exploit them. Dialogue is only one such process… there are many more, including the appropriation of Dharmic traditions without attribution,  the denial of mutual respect to other religions, the maintenance of history-centric exclusivity, the adoption of native cultural forms of spiritual expression to disguise the ingress of missionary Christianity. So many things, and they all go on.

I am not contributing to any of these processes by joining in inter-faith dialogue… in fact, I endeavor to bring some honesty to the dialogue, and level the playing field, by pointing these things out!

If someone did not point these things out, we would go on slumbering, and dreaming dreams of “sameness”… thinking that Western universalism was harmless in privileging Judeo-Christian faiths, because in the end all religions are the “same”.

In fact, they are not. In fact, Dharmic faiths are irreconcilably different from Abrahamic faiths in some fundamental ways.  It is only when we remain ignorant of the differences, that inter-faith dialogue can become a source of threat to us. When we are informed about the differences,  and demand that dialogue must proceed from a position of mutual respect… then, what is the threat? It doesn’t exist, except in the reactionary minds of those who remain hopelessly and persistently colonized.

But doesn’t interfaith dialogue itself provide an opportunity for missionary Christianity to further its agenda by deceitful inculturation? How do you respond to the charge that you’re contributing to this agenda?

RM: I think the question has oversimplified and confused two entirely separate issues.

Inculturation and interfaith engagement exist independently of each other. Of course, we see both phenomena exert themselves in Indian society today.

Among the Hindu elite, the fluffy popularization of the “sameness” myth… the idea that all religions are ultimately the same… has the effect of inculturating Indians in educated circles. This isn’t a consequence of interfaith dialogue, but of a fad created by some of our own writers and thinkers.

Meanwhile, inculturation in villages… where missionaries put on the external trappings of hindu forms of worship, such as aarti, and apply these to Jesus… is entirely unlinked to interfaith discussions.

Conversely, much interfaith dialogue isn’t based on inculturation, and has separate dynamics of its own. So it’s important to recognize, and treat each of these things as an independent issue.

Firstly, let’s look at inculturation, and how I’ve confronted it.

To begin with, my critiques of the “sameness” myth have considerably impacted Indian intellectuals’ appreciation of the dangers inherent in inculturation… of the deceitful claims of “sameness” that are used to confuse and disorient our people.  My entire thesis about “difference” focuses on the need to retain awareness that we are NOT the same, so that external predators cannot stealthily digest our traditional wisdom.

Critics of my work don’t seem to have the background required to understand the nature of the “sameness” myth… which, ironically, is being propagated by many of our own teachers and self-appointed spokespersons.

Moreover,  I’ve made a deep study of the history, psychology and politics of Westerners who appropriate and digest critical elements of our Dharma, aiming to boost Western identity while depleting our own. This is what I refer to as my U-Turn Theory, and as far as I know it’s the only major study of its kind in existence.

Beyond this, I’ve sought to introduce a whole new vocabulary that deepens our understanding of inculturation.  You will find that many terms of this vocabulary, including “sameness”, “being different”, “digestion”, and “u-turn” are now gaining widespread usage, becoming part of the popular idiom among thinking Indians.

Has anyone else, in recent years, conducted this extent of research on the subject… combined with fact-finding at the ground level, with an analytical understanding of both Western and Indian identity?  I’m not aware that anyone else has done so, or articulated their findings as effectively.

Secondly, let’s address the subject of my involvement with interfaith dialogue.

Besides the events that are explicitly convened for the purpose of “interfaith dialogue”, there are many other instances of interfaith interaction that are not openly identified as such.

You have discussions on TV or radio involving representatives of various faiths; often, unfortunately, the Hindu participant, who is deeply knowledgeable of dharmic tradtions,  in these discussions comes across as ill-prepared to counter the arguments of the other representatives

You have the United States government making appointments to various bodies, where discussions occur that are very similar to what goes on at “interfaith” events… shouldn’t we aim  to better empower the representatives who speak for us there? Or are we better advised to boycott such discussions, so that our place is taken by mala-fide opponents who claim to speak on our behalf?

When I first began to expose the biases of the interfaith movement, I realized that such biases were frequently exercised by designating certain types of individuals for participation in discussions on Hinduism. These included anti-Hindu leftists, Indian or Western Christians, and token “Hindus” who were neither qualified nor confident enough to speak up assertively. I responded with an awareness campaign urging our temples, our community leaders and our youth to demand a seat at the table for authoritative, knowledgeable voices.

We must realize that interfaith events are not centered on Hinduism, but on religions in general… Muslims, Christians, Jews and others have many motives of their own to participate in such discussions. Our absence as Hindus will not be enough to kill any interfaith event. The events will simply go on without us, and we will be represented by proxies who are either inadequate or hostile to our purposes.

In any case, the earlier problem has been alleviated somewhat; it has now become more common for Hindus to be invited to such gatherings.

Today, by contrast, we have a new problem. There is a clamoring horde of Hindu spokespersons who present themselves as ambassadors of Dharma, but in fact, end up selling us out. Some of these individuals have genuine intentions. Others are in it for self-aggrandizement, ego-inflation, prestige, or to network for professional or business opportunities.

All too often, our would-be ambassadors are handicapped by lack of training in debate, insufficient expertise in Dharmic scholarship, and minimal familiarity with the issues we face. Most of all, they lack any education in conducting purva-paksha of the Western mindset. All these handicaps have proved very costly to us.

To reverse these handicaps, we must organize workshops and educational programs. We must rigorously train the aspiring ambassadors of Dharma, equip them with the knowledge they need, and arm them to face public forums with confidence, so that they’re unafraid even to go on the offensive when that’s necessary. This has been another major focus of my efforts, as they relate specifically to interfaith engagement.

From your explanations, it appears that the arguments being used by some of your critics… or should I say detractors… are quite spurious. However, they continue to insist that you are against our spiritual leaders, that some of them are against you… why is this?

RM: According to our Dharma, one must draw one’s own conclusions based on the evidence of one’s own experience. Hearsay is no substitute at all.

In this case, the appropriate thing to do is to find out which specific gurus or acharyas, allegedly, are purported to have expressed hostile opinions towards me.  Personally, I am unaware of any who have.

As I’ve mentioned before,  my collaboration has been requested… and continues to be requested… by so many groups affiliated with a number of different Sampradayic traditions, both in India and in North America.  I’m honored by the opportunity to serve them through writing, speaking engagements, discussions on strategy, and so much more. I hardly think that such  relationships could be predicated on a basis of hostility… do you?

I don’t claim to understand why some people persist in making these sorts of allegations about me. The allegations themselves are easily identifiable as unfounded, and that’s what matters.

One might examine the relationship of my detractors with the types of individuals and traditional institutions, that they’re trying to portray as being hostile towards me. Do they have a depth of engagement with these institutions, similar to mine?  Is their involvement as consistently sought after by these institutions, as mine?  If not, then what qualifies them to judge the nature of something that’s clearly outside their own realm of experience?  Of course, judgments borne of personal prejudice don’t need to be qualified in this way… but most people wouldn’t consider such judgments to be valid, either.

Do you think that you’re being attacked by some people out of simple jealousy? A few individuals seem particularly obsessive about making these sorts of personal attacks on you. Yet, they seem to lack any personal contributions or achievements in your field of scholarship, that might lend credibility or authority to their attacks. How do you view such attacks: do they reflect a personal grudge, or a psychological issue?

RM:  I’m really not interested in reversing the smear. Let such persons do what they will. I shall continue with my work.

Are you ever concerned that such nuisance attacks might adversely impact your work, or your standing with others?

RM: My sva-dharma does not demand that I must compete against anybody for electoral victories, public approval, high-profile appointments or other contests of popularity. I’m busy enough as a writer and public speaker…busier than ever these days, with all the invitations to various engagements coming in.

It’s hard enough to keep up with the legitimate demands on my time and energy…  so these sorts of silly insinuations are hardly worth bothering with!   I do not think that the energetic, involved collaborators that I’d welcome would turn away from my work because of such attacks. In fact the number of serious thinkers, groups and invitations to conduct briefings has kept growing rapidly.

Published: March 29, 2012

 

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