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I signed the petition for the removal of Sheldon Pollock as mentor and general editor of Murty Classical Library, first of all, because the project did not seem to score well on the commonsensical scale of home economics. Handing $5.6 million to elite US universities reverses the very logic that made Infosys rich. If brainpower, not to mention manpower, is at least five times cheaper in India, wouldn’t we get more bang for the buck here? The annual income from the bequest works out to a very substantial $2,80,000 per annum at the modest rate of 5 per cent returns. This is the equivalent of almost Rs 2 crore. If this is how much it costs to produce the reported five volumes per year, then the cost per volume is a whopping Rs 40 lakh. Until the details of the spends are known, we can’t verify the math, but it seems likely that we could have ensured greater cost-effectiveness in India.

The second reason is more ideological and anti-colonial. In the heyday of imperialism, the West’s study of the rest was not always benevolent nor impartial.

Instead, it was involved in the West’s agenda to conquer, subdue, exploit, and even exterminate several nations, societies, and cultures. We Indians need to remember, as Bernard Cohn famously put it, that “The conquest of India was a conquest of knowledge”. No wonder, the cultural and historical memory of our own struggle against foreign domination is still fresh. What is not equally obvious is that the battle to regain India’s civilisational poise, equilibrium, and self-confidence is far from over. In matters of culture, education, and thought, we are still largely colonised and subservient. The Indian mentality, particularly that of the elites, remains a prisoner of Western categories. Not just the clash, but the clash of civilisations, is as much a struggle over epistemic categories and representations, as it is over economic and political interests.

Paradoxically, even as India has powered ahead in the latter spheres, its educational and cultural institutions have deteriorated. Regretfully, the politicisation of academics by caste, language and regional lobbies has eroded the credibility of our universities. The possibly related emigration and relocation of lakhs of gifted Indian intellectuals to Western countries has only exacerbated our sense of inferiority. Indian knowledge production, especially in humanities and social sciences, lacks global recognition. No wonder, Rohan Murty preferred the prestige and brand value of Columbia and Harvard for his Library. He is not the only one; many Indian business leaders have chosen similarly to endow foreign universities rather than Indian ones.

In a recent article, Murty laments that we have allowed “our institutions, manuscripts, and scholarship… to fall into a state of disrepair. And this I am going to help rebuild.” How? By giving $5.6 mn to the likes of Pollock at Columbia and Harvard? How will they help rebuild Indian scholarly institutions and traditions? Murty could have been visionary and courageous, trying to set up an editorial collective in India itself, even if it were not housed at a conventional university. Such a move might have been a game-changer in Indian academics, perhaps inspiring copycat endowments, in addition to instituting best practises in Indian critical and cultural production.

To reverse the situation for argument’s sake, suppose a library of 500 best books of American culture, with an endowment from, say, Bill Gates, was handed over to Chinese scholars to produce, wouldn’t interested Americans protest? The analogy may not be entirely apt but shows Murty’s lack of confidence in our own abilities to read, translate, and publish books of our culture. There could have been other models, more participatory and collaborative than the present, which I am not sure were fully explored.

Moving to the more controversial demand to sack Pollock, in his 1985 essay, “The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual History,” the learned professor damns the entire shastric tradition, which he considers co-extensive with Sanskritic culture, as authoritarian.

The basis for such a sweeping indictment is a reductive misreading of the Vedas not only as fixed, transcendental signifiers and authorisers of chaturvarga, but as also responsible for the wholesale and systematic blocking of critical thinking through the entire course of Indian civilisation. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of India would balk at such an egregiously arrogant impeachment.

From such a perspective, pre-modern India becomes an object of modern rectification, if not rejection. We did nothing for thousands of years except oppress one another: Now “a great white man” must, messiah-like, take charge of our tradition to rescue us from our own oppressive legacies. Isn’t it obvious how such demonisation of Indian pasts serves to re-authorise neo-Orientalism, almost requiring an outsider from the dominant Western academy to help set us right? And doesn’t our history demonstrate that where scholars lead the charge against Indian culture, missionaries are only too ready to follow through?

Indeed, Pollock has increasingly identified himself with left-liberal, even Hindu-phobic causes, signing various petitions, working to nix positions in Indic studies that diaspora philanthropists wished to endow in the United States, in addition to advising the government of India reportedly to end “its authoritarian menace” on Indian campuses. This smacks of politically motivated hegemonic practices, which are ideological rather than academic. Aren’t such attitudes bound to influence the content, translations, and outputs of the Murty Library?

The battle for our sanskriti is raging in full force.

On one side we have the Hindu bashers operating under the Western Indology flag. This is a highly developed eco system as they hold the reins to prestigious Ivy League institutions in the U.S. and anyone seeking degrees in the field of Indology are required to subscribe to their views. Thus have they been able to leverage the prestige of the institutions to build an army of misinformed and prejudiced people. These people have been inducted into Indology study departments all over the world and are currently spilling lies and hate with the goal of destroying our civilization and dividing our people. They have multiplied astronomically over the years and spread their tentacles across the globe through students (degree holders). In addition, their livelihoods are dependent on their mastery in spilling this hate, which is why they have come up with many unique and original approaches to do the job.

On the other side, we have Rajiv Malhotra+. The reason I say this is, he is the lone person who discovered what was going on, researched the industry and reached out to Indians through his books (Invading The Sacred, Breaking India, Being Different, Indra’s Net and The Battle For Sanskrit). The + denotes Truth, similar to what The Pandavas chose in the battle of Kurukshetra. It also means that like it or not, Malhotra’s decades of tapas have started to pay off and both the Indian people and many ordinary Westerners are increasingly seeing what is going on. So his side is swelling in numbers.

Given the path-breaking nature of Malhotra’s latest book, The Battle For Sanskrit, a series of events have taken place over the past few weeks. I first present here the chain of events and then show the reactions of the press so the reader can judge for him/herself how good a job the press has done.

Event Highlights

1. Rajiv Malhotra released his book called the Battle for Sanskrit, which included an extensive critique of Western Indologist Professor Sheldon Pollock among other things. This work is purported to be a first of its kind since Pollock has been writing on Hinduism for several decades and has his own thriving ecosystem but traditional scholars weren’t aware of his contributions, or their effects on Indian society and social discourse. Malhotra, being located in the U.S. with a deep understanding of the American milieu as well as the Hindu tradition to which he was born, decided to take up the task. Because of his background, he could bridge the gap between the Western Indologists and traditional scholars, many of whom endorsed his work and sought alliances with him.

2. What followed was a petition by 132 distinguished Indian traditionalists to remove Pollock from the position of general editor of the Murthy Classical Library of India (MCLI). MCLI was set up to translate 500 Indian works in various languages. The petitioners quoted from Pollock’s lecture titled “What Is South Asian Knowledge Good For?” where he says, “Are there any decision makers, as they refer to themselves, at universities and foundations who would not agree that, in the cognitive sweepstakes of human history, Western knowledge has won and South Asian knowledge has lost? …That, accordingly, the South Asian knowledge South Asians themselves have produced can no longer be held to have any significant consequences for the future of the human species?”

3. A Western Indologist called Prof. Dominik Wujastyk took exception to the petition and alleged that the traditional side hadn’t read the entire piece by Sheldon Pollock on which the petition was based. He correctly said, “In this passage, Prof. Pollock is criticising the administrators of western universities who do not give proper recognition and value to Indian knowledge systems, and only view India as a place to make money or to make practical applications of knowledge systems of the West”. He quoted from various pages of the lecture to support this claim.

4. In a subsequent rebuttal, Professor Krishnamurthi Ramasubramanian quoted Pollock from the same lecture: “greater part of South Asian achievements and understandings” have “no claim whatever … to any universal truth value in themselves, and precisely because they pertain to what are specifically South Asian modes of making sense of the world.” Professor Ram agreed that Pollock has a way of making concessions during his lectures but comes back to refute them thereafter, upholding the view that the petitioners pointed out. His concluding lines are also significant: that “our understanding of ‘usefulness’ and ‘truth’ [of South Asian knowledge] has grown substantially in the time since Marx and Weber” (clearly displaying his bias and conclusion about the drishti or lens with which the studies are to be done). He also pointed out Pollock’s political activism: “Prof. Pollock has been a prominent signatory of two statements which have strongly condemned the actions of the authorities of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the Government of India in taking constitutionally mandated legal actions against the anti-national slogans raised by an unauthorized assembly of protesters at the JNU on the 9th of February 2016. While castigating the actions of the democratically elected Government of India as an “authoritative menace”, these statements do not condemn the protesters who called for the dismemberment of India and abused the Supreme Court of India for “judical killing”. As regards Wujastyk’s claim that the petitioners weren’t familiar with the whole lecture he said “We are not upset by Prof. Wujastyk’s claim that “Prof. Ramasubramanian has misunderstood Prof. Pollock’s views by 180 degrees”, though it is totally incorrect. But we are deeply dismayed by his insinuation that many of those who have signed this petition (most of them eminent Indian scholars) “have signed Prof. Ramasubramanian’s petition, presumably without having read Prof. Pollock’s work for themselves, or having failed to understand it.” As indicated by Gandhi, statements exhibiting such condescension borders almost on racial prejudice.”

5. At around the same time, the South Asia faculty issued Changes to the school curriculum in American Schools “South Asia faculty suggested edits to grade 6 school text books: World History and Geography: Ancient Civilizations”. The changes clearly show that the department is phasing out the existence of India and Hinduism from the minds of school children. We all know that people tend to trust school text books unquestioningly, so these children are being prepared to fight for untruths, with the potential for spilling further hate. It appears that while we blame Muslim terror groups for working on the minds of young children, the South Asia faculty is doing much the same thing although under the cloak of civility.

a. instead of “Northern India”, “Indus Valley Civilization”
b. add “Pakistan” so the line reads “Indus Valley River in India and Pakistan”
c. Arabian peninsula, India and equatorial Africa should be changed to “Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Ocean littoral and equatorial Africa”
d. Change India to the Indian subcontinent
e. “The early civilization of India” should be changed to “The early civilization of South Asia”
f. Change Harappa to Indus
g. Delete reference to Hinduism and replace with religion of Ancient India

6. Rohan Murty is batting for Pollock.

Role Of Media

The media was relatively silent until Prof Dominik Wujastyk entered the picture.

In fact, Malhotra had a mega launch, visiting many leading institutions all over India and lecturing packed halls. He also visited the Kanchi Shankaracharya for blessings and collaboration. I read just a couple of stories at the time describing his “whirlwind tour” and noted some fear that the social media was becoming more important than the regular one.

But after the petition was filed and gathered 10K supporters within a couple of days (the number keeps growing), Dheeraj Sanghi wrote in a personal blog that he had “no idea about Prof Pollock”, but had read the whole lecture. In what remains of this blog, he talked about the distinguished scholars/academics behind the petition with great disdain as if that too should be part of free speech. He went on to talk at length about the need to critique Pollock on objective terms. He doesn’t appear to have read “The Battle for Sanskrit” yet. Some of the comments below this article are enlightening.

The Economic Times Bengaluru was also one of the first out with a story. The tiny news story took a tone that many would term neutral but the following line in Pollock’s support was a giveaway: “Those aware of Pollock’s work held that the signatories “misrepresent Pollock to achieve their end”.” This is of course a clear indication that the writer was aware of the details of Pollock’s work and also had personal knowledge of the fact that none of the signatories of the petition were so aware. This feels presumptive and dishonest.

Anushree Majumdar’s piece in the Indian express as it exists today appears relatively neutral (although she does have an inexplicable laudatory tone for MCL et al). Also, she starts off with the words “ Nearly six years after American scholar Sheldon Pollock was chosen to steer the course of the Murty Classical Library of India”, but doesn’t mention the reason for the stir after six years, i.e., a certain detailed critique of Sheldon Pollock’s work called The Battle For Sanskrit.

Then came Mridula Chari of Scroll, who could hardly hold her praise of Pollock (since Scroll doesn’t welcome comments and has for long been a mouthpiece for Western Indologists, this is very easy to do). She dismisses Pollock’s anti-national politics as a “fashionable allegation”. This article also included selective quotations from Pollock’s lecture.

Then there was an article by “sepoy” (amazing how the modern web doesn’t require you to display true identity when you are obviously out to slander others and talk in favor of breaking up nations and dividing people). The writer talks at length about school text books and the history of Ramayana, but doesn’t bother to explain the anomaly: the existence of Ram Mandir before the Mughal period is now archeologically proved. She/he then goes on to talk about an utterly laughable claim that “Hindus claim to have pure Aryan descent”, when this is a construct of Western Indology 200 odd years ago to divide the people of India (we have Dalit separatism today because of it). The Aryan invasion theory has since been proved archeologically incorrect, but the argument goes on.

Scott Jaschik had an article on the issue as well, where he expressed solidarity with Western academics. The article had little else to add to the discourse, until right at the end, where he made a claim that “some scholars in India whose views clash with nationalists report losing their jobs or their influence” (he links to another American site as evidence, where a Muslim writer rues the plight of an Indian leftist, liberally sprayed with references to Indian political parties). One wonders at the use of the word nationalist as if it is a special kind of sin perpetrated by Indians, as if Americans are not required to be nationalist or uphold nationalistic sentiments.

The Economic Times also hosted Muslim writer Arshia Sattar who is known for her deconstruction of the Ramayana under Pollock’s guidance. While she couldn’t resist defending her mentor, she didn’t add anything to the debate.

Indrani Basu applauded Rohan Murty, junior fellow at Harvard University, who claimed that the petitioners were like people sitting in a peanut gallery throwing shells at those who were actually working. Basu doesn’t mention the rebuttal from Professor Ram and actually has nothing else to add about the whole thing at all.

There are many other news stories and rebuttals, but I’m stopping quoting them here because I have to stop somewhere. Also, this platform doesn’t allow me to hyperlink as I would have liked to do, which limits the scope of this piece.

When a reader goes through these stories, some obvious similarities and features stand out-

A Question Of Motivation

All of the above write-ups take a very strong stand in favor of Pollock, driving one to wonder about their motivation. After all, when so many Indian scholars and academics have taken such a strong stand and the repercussions for the unity and integrity of India are openly visible to all, it’s strange that the media is spewing out one story after another although they can find nothing new to add. This naturally leads one to believe that there is a publicity campaign going on, but whether it’s Sheldon Pollock or the Murthys doing it is anyone’s guess. The Murthys certainly have the money and Pollock the required ecosystem, so it appears to the outsider that the two are in bed together.

A Question Of Sensationalism

The first news stories covering the issue were enough proof of this. While touching on the contents of the petition itself and skirting around the seriousness of the concern, the writers used their eloquence to push the JNU sedition case to the forefront while expressing their solidarity with antinational activists.

While the public was trying to figure out whether a politically motivated depiction of their history was indeed harmful to them, the second lot of writers was getting ready. This lot picked up Prof Wujastyk’s objection to the petition to spin stories about how the Indian traditionalists hadn’t read the whole lecture and poked fun at their interpretation of Pollock’s 1985 paper on Sanskrit shastras.

A Question Of Rigor

While Pollock has manufactured debatable and at times, utterly outrageous theories, no one can deny that he worked very hard to secure the finances and then do the job. Journalists would have done well to read Malhotra’s book before jumping to conclusions, but they were obviously rushing to get the story out without much care for authenticity.

A Question Of Ethics

The more I think about it, the more I am amazed at the easy immorality of journalistic representations. There seems to be no mandated responsibility to report the truth and the facts. Protected by an umbrella called “free speech” that applies to them alone, they can go about condemning or praising according to their wishes. Their hosting organizations can allow or omit any comments as they desire under the pretext of “review” and the public voice can be crushed as if it didn’t exist.

Bottom Line

It is evident that journalism is a modern concept because, if there was a shastra on journalism, the ethical standards of journalists would be higher and they would be motivated by the social responsibility built into the dharmic way of life. The world would therefore rid itself of these regressive, self-destructive tendencies and move peacefully towards higher truth.

In a market economy where words aren’t valuable in themselves as vehicles of transcendence but as the currency for political control, academic “findings”, the fabrication of history and news production are increasingly merging and transforming into a dangerous monster playing on humanity for the greatest financial gain. The intelligent amongst us would do well to take note.

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

December 31^st, 2003.

To: Editors of Ghadar magazine.
CC. Vijay Prashad (Forum of Indian Leftists – FOIL); Sekhar Ramakrihnan, Abha Sur (SINGH Foundation)

From: Rajiv Malhotra

Subject: Request for a dialog with the Indian left.

Dear fellow Indians,

I am delighted to learn that you are planning a special issue of Ghadar to discuss South Asia as a category, and I am interested in participating in your discussion. Since your special issue seems open to debate about fundamental categories, I would like to present some ideas, such as the following, that are part of my personal on-going thought process. Please note that I approach this out of my personal intellectual interest only, that I believe in making models and testing them as working hypotheses, and that I adopt the scientific and business philosophy of improving the models continually based on experience and better data. So there is nothing “final” in these perspectives, and they are more like topics to trigger conversations:

1) LEFT/RIGHT CATEGORIES: I start by asking why “left” and “right” often seem to be positioned as mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories in the case of India, and why various hybrids and entirely new frameworks are not appearing. Liberation Theology, as developed by Catholics in Latin America, is an example of a hybrid. Gandhi’s use of Hinduism combined with contemporary social ideas is an important lead in this direction. In the latest issue of the leftist publication, “In These Times,” there is an article titled, “A Merry Marxy Christmas,” about how several Marxists are going back to Christianity. (See: http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=514_0_4_0_C). I have defined myself as a “non-Hindutva Hindu,” and selectively accept ideas from all “sides” depending on the issue, and changed my mind often. Note that I am not demanding as precondition for dialog that every leftist interlocutor must first prove that they are not interested in Stalinism or Maoism, that they disavow the totalitarian Communist states, that they disavow the Communists’ use of History as a political tool, etc. However, I do wonder why syncretism is not being encouraged by the left as a way forward.

2) HISTORY-CENTRISM: In my essay (posted at: http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/column.asp?cid=303135 ) I have posited that religious conflict stems from historical fixations rather than ahistorical spirituality. When historically unique claims become necessary conditions for a religion’s survival, it gets boxed in. But the Indic notion of the past is more pliable and less literal, and Hinduism (except for certain denominations), Buddhism and Jainism do not DEPEND upon unique historical interventions by God, i.e. they are not History-Centric in the sense defined in my essay. Therefore, to what extent have the Abrahamic notions of God’s unique interventions in History become implicit in the way “history” and “religion” are viewed by secularists today? My thesis suggests that some Hindutva forces seek to turn Hinduism into a history-centric religion along the lines of Abrahamic religions (with Ram = Jesus, and Ayodhya = Jerusalem), when, in fact, it is not. Traditional boundaries between denominations and entire faiths in India were not so rigid or permanent, because they were not constrained by history. Is history-centrism the culprit behind many conflicts? (BTW: I have not been interested in fights to build a temple in Ayodhya.)

3) CONTINUITY/DISCONTINUITY: Given the Abrahamic history-centrisms, change often consisted of destroying the old historical narrative and replacing with a new one. This led to discontinuous “advancements” in the west. Is the category “progressive” limited to discontinuous change, or would you be willing to consider “progress” to include advances that do not erase traditions, but that renegotiate and adapt? Historically, Indians made many advances of this kind of adaptive progress from within. In other words, are pre-modern, modern, and postmodern necessarily sequential, discontinuous, and representative of “stages”, or can there be other kinds of healthy societies, including those where all three coexist in parallel? The reason I ask this is that many Indian leftists seem determined to demand a thorough destruction of the old and rebuilding of an imagined new often guided by a teleology, while essentializing Hindus as perpetrators for all the current problems. On the other hand, when leftists held power for extended periods in certain countries and attempted erasing their past heritage, their success was thin. Once their own teleologically-driven mission ran out of steam, the Russian Orthodox Church, Chinese Buddhism and Taoism, etc. bounced back with a vengeance. What lessons is India’s left learning from this? Was it useful to try to erase the past and to invent a new society? (I experienced first-hand the transitions of the former Soviet Block in the 1990s, because I spent considerable periods of time there.) Furthermore, India’s rapid economic advancement today is coming from free international trade, and not from any discontinuous “progress” thrust upon its people. Does this recent success not invalidate Marx’ view that colonialism was good for India’s modernization, given that we now see proof that free Indians use free trade to modernize themselves much better and faster than under tutelage or hegemony? Is it time to formally revisit Marx’ perspectives on colonialism, especially since he had no hard data on India and relied solely upon colonialist renditions of history? (This issue does not mean that I support globalization wholeheartedly, as my position on it is rather complex and still forming.)

4) FOREIGN INSTITUTIONAL CONTROL: Indians have always been assimilating foreign influences and incorporating them into Indian culture, while at the same time, also exporting Indian culture and thought. But one needs to distinguish between foreign individuals and foreign institutions, as agents of change in India. Syrian Christians came as individuals and not as official representatives of some Syrian king, and settled happily in Indian society without foreign allegiance. But Portuguese Christianity came centuries later as soldiers of Portugal’s rulers, in the same manner as the conquistadors went to America to bring glory to Spain through conquest. The two kinds of foreign influence (individual/institutional) are entirely different, as the institutions can be vehicles to project foreign power, but I am unsure if the left has appreciated this. While being critical of commercial MNCs, the left has failed to see Religious Multinationals in the same light – the Vatican’s control over Indian Catholic Churches, the Saudi control over thousands of Indian Madrassas are examples of foreign institutional “influence” that have clear loyalty to foreign nexuses. (Yet there are also millions of Indian Christians and Muslims living happily in their faiths without being under the control of any foreign nexus.) Is the left’s criticism of commercial MNCs, without a comparable criticism of non-commercial foreign MNCs, a contradiction made in the interest of realpolitik and leftists’ institutional careers? In their critiques of foreign MNCs, one should include non-commercial MNCs, such as globalized religions, Ford Foundation, various European foundations, etc., that use money and symbolic power to drive Indians’ intellectual discourse top-down.

5) REVISING HISTORY: I do not support amending history for political purposes. For instance, I consider both Aryan migration-into-India and the opposite (migration out-of-India) to be too simplistic, and neither is provable with existing data. Neither is central to my primary areas of interest. Nor am I concerned about establishing the age of the Mahabharata, for instance. However, historiography is about researching for fresh data that often results in radical new rethinking. Recent examples include: (i) blacks have changed the way Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are depicted in American history; (ii) Latin Americans have changed the depictions of Christopher Columbus and reinterpreted 1492 as “conquest” rather than “discovery;” (iii) Scott Levi’s new book challenges the common view that the Silk Road and India’s trade with Central Asia died in the 15th century, by showing that it was thriving until the 19th century; (iv) Subalternists are revising the history of India’s underclass; and (v) Gail Omvedt’s book is rewriting the history of Indian Buddhism. One can make a very long list of “revisions” supported by many mainstream History Departments around the world. On the other hand, Western History contains many false philosophical reconstructions: Christianity was truly a discontinuity against Platonic ideas, and the two remain mutually contradictory today, no matter how much the western thinkers would like to pretend otherwise. Pedagogic summaries of western traditions help maintain a myth of a smooth continuum of constant accretion of positive developments. Hence, one must distinguish between rewriting history that is based on solid scholarship from rewriting history mainly to serve political goals. Are leftists willing to accept that there may well be legitimate revisions of (Indian and non-Indian) history by non-leftists, in ways that contradict the “sequence of history” mandated by leftist ideology, and that these could be based on solid non-politically driven scholarship? Or are Indian leftists’ minds closed on history, in which case historiography should be replaced by reading library books and applying the trendy “literary theories” received from western Ivy Leagues? If history is simply to be treated as “text,” should History Departments get folded into English Departments under the care of “theorists”?

6) ELITISM: Are the left’s criticisms of the elitist Brahmins’ control over Sanskrit (and hence over discourse and culture) also applicable to: (a) the equivalent role of the elites well versed in Persian language during the Mughal period; (b) the dependence of today’s Indian Muslims on what the elite Arabic-knowing ulema say about both sacred and mundane matters, with little local freedom or autonomy in matters of interpretation; (c) the elitism in the Christian Churches in matters of interpretation; (d) the hegemony of Russian language in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that Russians were a minority in most states in the federation; (e) the dominance of Mandarin in China, that is systematically erasing the ethnicity of Tibetans and Muslims in Xingjian province (see: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/DI05Ad03.html ); (f) the way Ivy League Literary Theory has today become the yard-stick to determine who gets certified and licensed to speak with adhikara (authority) in prestigious secular circles; and (g) the role of English language in general, including the way Call Centers are breeding a new kind of elitism in India? I would like to meet Indian leftists who are seriously working against elitism that runs across the board.

7) INDIAN SCIENCE: I do not approve that traditional Indian science should be labeled as “Vedic Science.” Yet there is considerable unacknowledged history of Indian science based on physical hard evidence – in metallurgy, civil engineering, medicine, mathematics, etc. This history is not dependent on the texts of any religion. What is your stand on Indian scientific history that was not religion based? Does it throw a hammer at the Marxist Grand Narrative, according to which traditional Indian society must be shown to be feudalistic and pre-scientific, so as to qualify India for the Communist revolution? In other words, what if Indian society simply did not fit either Capitalist or Feudalist models – what would that do to the linear “progression” required by Communist theory? Is it to avoid this dilemma that Marxists have refused to consider the compelling evidence of science and technology in traditional India – and thereby inadvertently strengthened the Eurocentrism prevailing in the history of science curricula?

8) ANTI-INDIA: What is the left’s concept on India as a nation state? Without compromising their ideals, are Indian leftists open to question their uncritical loyalty to western idioms and politics, and to their stances against Indian nationhood? After all, one does not find them questioning the nationhood of any western nation, not even those in the making, such as Czech, Slovakia, Bosnia, or Slovenia. Nor do they deploy “sub-nationalism” to challenge the concept of United States of Europe or of China. However, they appear to use such concepts as self-determination and the other more popular weapon of neo-imperialism i.e., ‘human rights,’ as tools to de-legitimize the state of India. The newly released very patriotic movie, LOC Kargil, has many Indian Muslim actors and the dialog was written by a prominent Indian Muslim. How does the Indian left explain its opposition to the Kargil war when Indian Muslim leaders supported it? I hope to discuss whether leftist ideals of social fairness are just as achievable in a unified strong India, instead of a fragmented and divided India which seems so attractive to the Indian left. Does unilateral universalism (and/or breakup into sub-nations) on the part of India continue to make sense to Indian leftists, especially in the face of many powerful nations having trajectories to enhance their hegemonies and neo-colonialism?

9) YOGA: What do Indian leftists think of re-introducing yoga into Indian education (from where it remains banished on the grounds of being “anti-secular”), considering that 18 million Americans spend an estimated $27 billion annually to learn and practice yoga? I know many progressive desis who still consider yoga/meditation to be part of the Evil Brahmin Conspiracy to oppress the masses and to keep them poor through superstition. Yet, when I explain this “progressive” Indian view to my American friends, they cannot help laughing at the absurdity of it. (Yoga Journal did a recent survey of Indian-American progressives’ attitudes on yoga.) On the other hand, I understand the left’s dilemma that if yoga/meditation were legitimized in India’s intellectual circles and education, it would open the door for better awareness of the philosophy behind it, and ultimately, the appreciation of Sanskrit texts. I would like to know what leftists think of the compelling mainstream western scientific evidence of meditation’s benefits, and of the use of Indic epistemology by western neuro-phenomenologists and Christian theologians in developing what is popularly being called the Emerging Worldview. Are leftists remaining on the wrong side of science, health care and philosophical trends?

10) INDIAN CLASSICS: A good liberal arts education in the west is usually built on a solid foundation of the Western Classics (combining Greek, Roman and Judeo-Christian), because these texts are said to equip a young mind not only to understand the past of his/her great civilization, but also as tools to be applied to deal with intellectual problems of today. On the other hand, Indian leftists seem to continue the Macaulay trend of despising the Indian Classics. It is true that certain stanzas of the Manusmriti and of many other texts contain ideas that run counter to contemporary human rights. But, by that token, Socrates had slaves, and Plato wrote some horrible things promoting atrocities; and yet teachers simply ignore those specific portions without expelling the entire Western Classics canon. John Stuart Mill, regarded as the founder of modern liberalism, worked his entire life for the British East India Company, helping them subvert human rights of the colonies. Hegel rationalized genocide against the Native Americans and slavery of the blacks. Yet, these and many others like them comprise the backbone of what is taught by liberal-minded westerners. Why is there this double-standard against Indian Classics? Furthermore, why could the Puranas not be seen as serving a combination of (i) western narratives such as Homer, Dante, Viking sagas, Germanic tales of the Nibelungs, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and (ii) postmodernist myths such as Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, many of which were, in fact, inspired by Joseph Campbell’s work on Indian Classics?

My overall thrust is that achieving social equity and justice requires a scientific understanding of cultural and political formations, based on objective empirical observations, rather than sweeping generalizations (subsequently postulated as theories) coming out of 19th century European experiences. Ashutosh Varshney is rare in having based his theories on empirical data and not on regurgitating old materials.

Would there be any interest on your part in having open discussions/debates on such topics? I do not believe in the finality of knowledge; so whatever I know now is not necessarily representative of the views that I held in the past, and is not likely to remain unchanged in the future. This gives me freedom to think creatively, especially since I am not interested in defending any institutional structures (including left/right type of dichotomies) and nor do I have any followership to protect. Being new to the humanities field is counterbalanced by being less constrained.

It is likely and hopeful that we already agree on many issues listed above. Some issues might even be misunderstandings on my part as to what your position is. These serve merely as a starting point to get a sincere conversation going.

Finally, I request that in case you agree to a samvad, that it be carried out in the spirit of the purva-paksha tradition of debate, i.e. to discover the truth, and not to “win” or to turn this into inter-personal ad hominems. I have made a sincere attempt in this letter to articulate issues and my doubts, and I hope to dialog in order to advance my own thinking.

I look forward to hearing from you. Happy Holidays and regards,

Rajiv Malhotra

Occasionally, a small group of evangelists — well-dressed and well-groomed young men and women from a local church — walks around my neighborhood ringing doorbells to spread Christianity. I always like to invite them in, offer them chai and engage in a relaxed conversation. Even though I went to a Catholic school and know the proselytizing game well, I pretend I’m the naive immigrant eager to ask basic questions. After a few minutes of small talk, one of them usually breaks open the topic by asking, “Have you been saved?”

I try to look surprised, and respond by saying, “I was never condemned to begin with!” My young, charming guests usually get thrown off. They expect me to claim that I have already been saved, and their training has equipped them with the rhetorical skills to assert that their ability to save me is superior to my present faith. I usually find them taken by surprise by my posture that I do not need to be saved in the first place.

Christian salvation is a solution to the problem of Eternal Damnation caused by Original Sin. But that problem does not exist within the dharma traditions. Imagine someone asking you if you have been pardoned from your prison sentence, and you respond by saying that you were never condemned for any crime and, hence, such a question is absurd. The implication here is that for a dharmic person to say he has been saved would imply that he accepts Christianity’s fundamental tenet that every human is born a sinner and remains so until he surrenders himself to Jesus Christ. Even when the church acknowledges other faiths as having merit, no other path can substitute for Jesus when it comes to being saved.

The closest the dharmic traditions come to salvation are the concepts of moksha in Hinduism and nirvana in Buddhism, both of which can be loosely translated as “liberation.” But there are crucial differences between dharmic liberation and Christian salvation.

Receiving assurance of salvation is the key moment in the spiritual life of most Christians. It comes as a gift of grace and its source lies outside the individual. It does not come as a result strictly of merit, spiritual practice, prayer, or asceticism. Although these may be helpful in its attainment, and even necessary in many denominations, they are not sufficient in and of themselves. That’s because the potential to achieve salvation is not innate in us.

In Jewish and Christian traditions, death is the consequence of sin. The freedom of the soul in Christianity entails, in the End of Time, the freedom of the body as well: There will be a resurrection of the dead in a “glorified” physical form, and the boundary between heaven and earth will be erased or made permeable. For most people, the full realization of this salvation can come only after death.
Dharmic liberation, on the other hand, can be achieved here and now in this very body and in this very world. Moksha is similar to salvation insofar as it is concerned with freedom from human bondage; but the nature of this bondage is quite different. Moksha really refers to living in a state of freedom from ignorance, pre-conditioning and karmic “baggage.” According to the Bhagavad Gita, the state where one is desire-less, ego-less and beyond the drives of human nature is the first major milestone; it opens the door to further evolution and eventual liberation in the fullest sense.

Salvation, on the other hand, does not entail expanded awareness or consciousness, esoteric/mystical knowledge, or physical practices (though these may attend it). Nor is it necessarily derived from complete renunciation, as is the case in Buddhist nirvana. It can be experienced only by surrendering to the will of God, and God here is specifically the God of the Bible.

There is yet another state described in Sanskrit which has no equivalent in Christianity. One who has attained moksha may choose to remain in the world and continue to do spiritual work — that is, free from past actions (i.e., karmic bondage) and yet active in the world. This person is called jivanmukta. He (or she) can, at will, either turn away from the world or turn toward it and deal with it without being touched or limited by it. The Buddhist equivalent of a jivanmukta is a bodhisattva.

The New Testament calls this “being in the world, but not of it.” There is an opening here for a potential development of a Christian jivanmukta, and St. Paul says several things about himself that would indicate he had at least tasted this state, as had other Christian saints. But the important thing is that there is no word for it in biblical metaphysics; that’s because the state was not examined, understood, or cultivated through systematic techniques. The words “saint” and “prophet” do not suffice, nor even does “mystic.” When Christians experienced such a state, it was not as a result of following a yoga-like systematic process; neither was it seen as bringing salvation. Hence such a person would still be, according to the Vatican document Dominus Jesus, “in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of the means of salvation.”

As the evangelists leave my home, I always hope our conversation has challenged their assumptions about the people they are preaching to, and that perhaps they will re-examine the idea that all people outside of their church are in a state of spiritual deficiency. But until they do, I will continue to welcome them into my living room, offer them chai and share with them the good news that there is no such thing as Original Sin. We are all originally divine.

Published: April 29, 2011