My review.

Wendy Doniger, The Hindus- An Alternative History

Library Thing is sadly deficient in women’s history and information relating to the East. It is my hope that people will see issues that are raised by the review and the book and expand further using their more extensive experience and expertise on what are only a few hesitant steps on my part here.

This book is a substantive work (779 pages in the hard back edition) with important implications to the current dialogue between the religions in India. While accessible to most people, this work will probably have as its primary audience people focused on the Hindu faith and its meaning in today’s world.

The author Wendy Doniger holds two doctorates, in Sanskrit and Indian studies, from Harvard and Oxford; has done numerous translations, and is currently a professor of History of Religions at the University of Chicago.

This is an alternate history in that it sets out to address history of Hinduism from its beginning to present in terms of ‘women, lower classes and castes and animals.’ In addressing the issues of women, lower castes, and classes, I would suggest that since most of Hindu tradition has resulted in the exclusion of this material that this book is truly much needed and long overdue.

One of the many gems of the book are her comments in the beginning:

“The relevant materials can be found in the bibliography as well as in the notes for each chapter, which will also provide browsing material for those readers (I confess that I am one of them) who go straight to the back and look at the notes and bibliography first, reading the book like Hebrew, from right to left, to see where the author has been grazing, like dogs sniffing one another’s backsides to see what they have eaten lately.”

While there are many ways to take this particular statement, I chose it to be just one more reflection of the substantive nature of the book and its author and that the book to follow is not a light hearted effort. It is also a practice I will seek to follow in the future.

Other gems in this book include the layout of the book. That being, it offers not just its major 696 pages of analysis but also additional pages of:
o a Chronology;
o a Guide to Pronunciation and Spelling of Words in Sanskrit and other Indian languages;
o a listing of Abbreviations;
o a Glossary of terms in Indian languages and names of key figures;
o a listing of footnotes in standard format-a rare joy;
o a bibliography, and
o a index.

And each one of these sections is truly comprehensive rather than token, and consequently a real aid to the reader. Why other historians don’t make similar efforts to assist the reader is a mystery to this reader.

Her breadth and depth of treatment of these subjects is surely praiseworthy as is the use to which she puts the material in her conclusions and how she suggests everyone might learn from history today.

This is not an author who resides in the ivory tower, but one who has truly come down into the streets to show how history can help with the religious and political debates of today.