Table of Contents
Preface: Why this book
xiii
Introduction: Debating Hinduism
1
Overview
1
Two opposing camps: continuity vs. discontinuity; unity vs. disunity
2
We are all jewels in Indra’s Net
4
Indra’s Net and Buddhism
13
Influences on modern society
15
Who is a Hindu?
18
Hinduism: Surfing Indra’s Net
20
Framing the debate in three disciplines
22
Battleground 1: Economic Development and Jobs
xvi
Part 1 : Purva PaksHa (Examination of My Opponents’ Positions)
1. Eight Myths to be Challenged
29
Myth 1: India’s optimum state is Balkanization
30
Myth 2: Colonial Indology’s biases were turned into Hinduism
31
Myth 3: Hinduism was manufactured and did not grow organically
32
Myth 4: Yogic experience is not a valid path to enlightenment and tries to copy Western science
33
Myth 5: Western social ethics was incorporated as seva and karma yoga
35
Myth 6: Hinduism had no prior self-definition, unity or coherence
36
Myth 7: Hinduism is founded on oppression and sustained by it
38
Myth 8: Hinduism presumes the sameness of all religions
39
Summary of both sides of the debate
39
2. The Mythmakers: a Brief History
44
Challenging the Neo-Hinduism thesis
44
Missionary origins
46
Founders of the Myth of Neo-Hinduism
48
The Chorus Line
55
3. Paul Hacker’s construction of ‘neo-Hinduism’
62
Initial romance with Advaita Vedanta and its personal influences on Hacker
62
Hacker starts his attack on contemporary Hinduism
64
Alleging political motives and appropriations from the West
68
Hacker on Vivekananda and the West
70
Allegation 1: Importance of Direct Experience
72
Allegation 2: ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ ethic
74
Allegation 3: Nationalist agenda
77
Allegation 4: Inclusivism and sameness
79
4. Agehananda Bharati on Neo-Hinduism as a ‘Pizza Effect’
81
Pizza Effect: Indians copy Westerners
82
Hinduism deviates from Indian tradition
84
Fear of sexual impotence drives neo-Hindus
85
Bharati’s definition of neo-Hinduism tenets
86
5. Ursula king’s bridge from Hacker to rambachan
88
6. Rambachan’s argument to fragment Hinduism
96
Using Shankara to shoot down Vivekananda
96
Issues with methodology
102
Essentializing Shankara
107
Challenging the direct experience of the rishi-yogi
110
Is Rambachan fixated on Christian assumptions?
113
Allegation that yoga makes people less rational and intelligent
117
Political allegations
118
Western scholars’ support for Rambachan
119
Many scholars disagree with Rambachan
120
7. The Myth Goes viral
125
Richard King
126
Brian Pennington
133
Peter van der Veer, Sheldon Pollock and others
137
Hindu leaders echo the chorus
143
Some academic defenders of contemporary Hinduism
145
Part 2 : uTTara PaksHa (My response)
8. Historical Continuity and Colonial Disruption
153
Traditional categories of astika (those who affirm) and nastika (those who do not affirm)
154
Pre-Colonial Hindu Unifiers: Example of Vijnanabhikshu
159
From Vijnanabhikshu to Vivekananda
162
The colonial disruption
163
European debates: Are the Hindus Aryans or Pantheists?
165
Reduction into ‘Indian schools of thought’
167
Post-modern and post-colonial distortions
171
Challenging the Neo-Hinduism thesis
172
9. Traditional Foundations of social Consciousness
174
Western methodological straitjacket misapplied to Vivekananda
177
The ‘world-negating’ misinterpretation of social problems
181
Origin of Christian Philanthropy
183
Conditions that led to the revival of Hindu seva
185
Sahajanand Swami and social activism in contemporary Hinduism
187
Swami Vivekananda’s sevayoga
191
Challenging the Neo-Hinduism thesis
197
10. Harmonizing vedanta and Yoga
198
Vedanta’s evolution at the time of Shankara
201
Theory of two realities
206
Yoga and classical texts
208
Shankara’s mentor’s writing
209
Upanishads
209
Bhagavad-Gita
211
Shankara’s own kind of yoga: cognitive shift without action
213
Systematic withdrawal from particular to universal
213
Dissolving the text/experience gap
215
Difference from Patanjali’s Yoga
217
No causation is involved
218
Flexibility on anubhava
218
Summarizing Shankara’s posture on anubhava/yoga
222
Respect for yoga
222
Yoga as preparation for higher practices
223
Comparing different levels of meditation, dhyana
224
Reasons for rejecting yoga at times
225
Advaita Vedanta beyond Shankara
226
Four historical periods
227
Vivekachudamani
229
Other later texts
231
Challenging the Neo-Hinduism thesis
232
11. Mithya, Open architecture and Cognitive science
233
The unity of all existence
235
Purna
235
Mithya as Relative Reality
236
Samavesha principle of integrality
260
Common toolbox and open architecture
242
Adhyatma-vidya
246
Rishis and cognitive science
251
Robustness of the ecosystem over time
254
Challenging the Neo-Hinduism thesis
259
12. Digestion and self-Destruction
260
The metabolism of digestion
260
The flea market of modern gurus
264
Digestion and the neo-Hinduism thesis
268
Conclusion: The ‘Poison Pill’ for Protection of Hinduism
269
Hinduism’s predicament today
270
The Porcupine Defence and the Poison Pill Protection
273
Astika and Nastika: Redefining the terms of the interfaith debate
278
The criteria for nastika: Principles that must be rejected
283
History Centrism
283
Disembodied knowing and self-alienation
284
Synthetic cosmology
287
Fear of chaos
288
Controversial Implications of the Astika/Nastika Approach
289
Refuting the myth of sameness
295
Poison pill versus digestion
300
How the poison pill strategy works
303
Notes
310
Bibliography
351
Acknowledgements
363