topics: |  hinduism | history | india

this is a serious academic text on hinduism, but it breathes the spirit of modern-day religious practice, and not the dead text in ancient leaf manuscripts. the author is a bhakta-scholar, who lived for several years in a vrindAvana Ashram, and then did his PhD from the University of Bombay.

about the global discourse on history, dipesh chakrabarty has influentially stated:

"europe" remains the sovereign, theoretical subject of all histories, including the ones we call “indian,” “chinese,” “kenyan,” and so on.
- provincializing europe, 2008

this also tends to be the fate of much scholarly writing on Hinduism - the tendency is to focus on ancient texts and derive its connotations in western terms, and ignore the practices as they exist today.

many scholars working in this area talk only with one another, and cite only western sources. it's as if these topics are of no interest to indians, or that indian scholarship on these topics are incompetent. for a recent work in this spirit, see hartmut scharfe's education in ancient india (2002), which does not mention a text with an identical title, education in ancient india (1944), until chapter 4, when the work is largely denigrated.

 
in this light, it is a pleasant change to find klostermaier's work, which
consciously rejects this type of academic research:

	when i conceived the structure of the survey of hinduism, i
	deliberately did not follow the schemata of the then-used textbooks
	but developed, based on my own life experience, a topical approach
	that, i felt, not only was closer to actual hinduism but also avoided
	the superimposition of western categories and schemata on eastern
	culture and thought. p.14

The texts are presented not in terms of their dry semantic content, but in
the social context: 

	The reading of a Hindu religious scripture is always carried out with
	some kind of solemnity in a worship setting. In order to ward off all
	unfavorable influences and to create an auspicious disposition, a
	so-called maṅgala-śloka is recited before the text proper begins,
	hymns of praise and devotion to a number of deities, to the guru, and
	to the text to be read.

as you turn the pages, you walk the crowded temple bylanes and breathe the
pungent aroma of dhoop in the Arati as Klostermaier brings us the practices
of hinduism as it lives, while embedding it in a scholarly discourse
highlighting how the practices have evolved from ancient texts.

Excerpts

from Introduction

as a young man and as a student of indian religions at a european
university, i made a quite deliberate decision not to publish anything on
hinduism unless i had seen indian reality for myself and experienced
hinduism in loco.  looking for an opportunity to immerse myself in the
hindu milieu after i had earned my doctorate, i accepted an invitation from
the late swami bon mahArAj to join his institute of indian philosophy in
vr^indAvana, uttar pradesh.

In contrast to Ancient Greece and Rome, whose classical literatures and
traditions have been the major inspiration of Western humanities, but whose
modern successor nations have little in common with them, India is a modern
country in which much of its ancient tradition is still alive. It is alive
not only in the age-old rituals that continue to be performed, in its
ancient temples and places of pilgrimage that attract millions of
worshipers, or in the popular stories from epics and Purāṇas that are still
enjoyed by contemporary audiences in theaters and films, but also in the
structure of its society and many of its laws, in its institutions as well
as in its popular customs. p.3

It would be wrong, however, to portray Hinduism as a relic of a fossilized
past, a tradition unable to change, a museum exhibit that must not be
touched. On the contrary, Hinduism in its long history has undergone many
changes, rapidly adapting to modern times, constantly bringing forth new
movements, and taking new directions. Hinduism has always been more than a
religion in the modern Western sense... 

Much scholarly writing on Hinduism focuses on the past of India—the literary
and architectural monuments, the practices and institutions of ancient
India. A great amount has been written—and continues to be written—on Vedic
ritual and ancient Indian kingship, topics no doubt of great historic
significance but of very marginal relevance today. Many a book on Hindu
mythology, on the gods and goddesses of India more often than not does not
attempt to tell the reader how contemporary Hindus understand these
divinities and how and why they worship them, but frequently tries to prove a
Freudian, a Jungian, or some other psychological or anthropological thesis,
playing around with structuralist, functionalist, or other theoretical models
which are clever and appear plausible to Western intellectuals, but explain
little and often distort a great deal of Hindu reality. p.3


when i conceived the structure of the survey of hinduism, i deliberately
did not follow the schemata of the then-used textbooks but developed, based
on my own life experience, a topical approach that, i felt, not only was
closer to actual hinduism but also avoided the superimposition of western
categories and schemata on eastern culture and thought. p.14

it may be appropriate to begin this survey with a [traditional]
kshama-prArthanA, directed not so much at those who look for information
about hinduism in this book, but at those about whom the book is written.
the very idea of writing, as an outsider, about the life and religion of a people
as large and as ancient as the hindus, requires, i believe, an apology. p.14

ch 1: beginnings of hinduism

india, the cradle of civilization?

based on the early dating of the ṛgveda (ca. 4000 bce) and on the strength of
the argument that vedic astronomy and geometry predates that of the other
known ancient civilizations, some scholars have made the daring suggestion
that india was the “cradle of civilization.”
	[s. kak and d. frawley, in search of the cradle of civilization.
	wheaton, ill.: the theosophical publishing house, 1995]

they link the recently discovered early european civilization (which
predates ancient sumeria and ancient egypt by over a millennium) to waves
of populations moving out or driven out from northwest india. later
migrations, caused either by climatic ch