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Wendy Doniger

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Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty
Wendy Doniger in May 2015
Born
Wendy Doniger

(1940-11-20)November 20, 1940(age 83)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma mater
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsUniversity of Chicago
Doctoral advisor
Doctoral studentsJeffrey Kripal,Alexander Argüelles[1]

Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty(born November 20, 1940) is an AmericanIndologistwhose professional career has spanned five decades. A scholar ofSanskritand Indian textual traditions, her major works includeThe Hindus: An Alternative History;Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva;Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook;The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology;Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts;andThe Rig Veda: An Anthology, 108 Hymns Translated from the Sanskrit.[2]She is theMircea EliadeDistinguished Service Professor of History of Religions at theUniversity of Chicago,and has taught there since 1978.[2]She served as president of theAssociation for Asian Studiesin 1998.[3]

Biography[edit]

Wendy Doniger was born in New York City to immigrant non-observant Jewish parents, and raised inGreat Neck,New York, where her father, Lester L. Doniger (1909–1971), ran a publishing business. While in high school, she studied dance underGeorge BalanchineandMartha Graham.[4]

She graduated summa cum laude in Sanskrit and Indian Studies fromRadcliffe Collegein 1962,[4]and received her M.A. fromHarvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciencesin June 1963. She then studied inIndiain 1963–1964 with a 12-monthJunior Fellowshipfrom theAmerican Institute of Indian Studies.She received a Ph.D. fromHarvard Universityin June 1968, with a dissertation onAsceticism and Sexuality in the Mythology ofSiva,supervised byDaniel H. H. Ingalls, Sr.She obtained a D. Phil. inOriental StudiesfromOxford University,in February 1973, with a dissertation onThe Origins of Heresy in Hindu Mythology,supervised byRobert Charles Zaehner.

Doniger holds theMircea EliadeDistinguished Service Professor Chair in History of Religions at the University of Chicago.[4][5]She is the editor of the scholarly journalHistory of Religions,[6]having served on its editorial board since 1979, and has edited a dozen other publications in her career. In 1985, she was elected president of theAmerican Academy of Religion,[7]and in 1997 President of theAssociation for Asian Studies.[3]She serves on the International Editorial Board of theEncyclopædia Britannica.

She was invited to give the 2010Art Institute of ChicagoPresident's Lecture at theChicago Humanities Festival,which was titled, "TheLingamMade Flesh: Split-Level Symbolism in Hindu Art ".[8]

Reception[edit]

Recognition[edit]

Since she began writing in the 1960s, Doniger has gained the reputation of being "one of America's major scholars in the humanities".[9]Assessing Doniger's body of work, K. M. Shrimali, Professor of Ancient Indian History at theUniversity of Delhi,writes:

... it (1973) also happened to be the year when her first major work in early India's religious history, viz.,Siva, the Erotic Asceticwas published and had instantly become a talking point for being a path-breaking work. I still prescribe it as the most essential reading to my postgraduate students at the University of Delhi, where I have been teaching a compulsory course on 'Evolution of Indian Religions' for the last nearly four decades. It was the beginning of series of extremely fruitful and provocative encounters with the formidable scholarship of Wendy Doniger.[10]

Doniger is a scholar ofSanskritand Indian textual traditions.[2]By her self-description,

I myself am by both temperament and training inclined to texts. I am neither an archaeologist nor an art historian; I am a Sanskritist, indeed a recovering Orientalist, of a generation that framed its study of Sanskrit with Latin and Greek rather than Urdu or Tamil. I've never dug anything up out of the ground or established the date of a sculpture. I've labored all my adult life in the paddy fields of Sanskrit,...[11]

Her books both inHinduismand other fields have been positively reviewed by the Indian scholarVijaya Nagarajan[12]and the American Hindu scholarLindsey B. Harlan,who noted as part of a positive review that "Doniger's agenda is her desire to rescue the comparative project from the jaws of certain proponents ofpostmodernism".[13]Of herHindu Myths: A Sourcebook Translated from the Sanskrit,theIndologistRichard Gombrichwrote: "Intellectually, it is a triumph..."[14]Doniger's (then O'Flaherty) 1973 bookAsceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Śivawas a critique of the "Great traditionŚivapurāṇasand the tension that arises between Śiva's ascetic and erotic activities. "[15]Richard Gombrich called it "learned and exciting";[14]however,John H. Marrwas disappointed that the "regionalism" so characteristic of the texts is absent in Doniger's book, and wondered why the discussion took so long.[15][16]Doniger'sRigveda,a translation of 108 hymns selected from the canon, was deemed among the most reliable byhistorian of religionIoan P. Culianu.[17]However, in an email message,Michael Witzelcalled it "idiosyncratic and unreliable just like her Jaiminiya Brahmana or Manu (re-)translations."[18]

Criticism[edit]

Beginning in the early 2000s, some conservative diaspora Hindus started to question whether Doniger accurately describedHindu traditions.[19]Together with some of her colleagues, she was the subject of a critique by Hindu right-wing activist speakerRajiv Malhotra,[20]for usingpsychoanalyticconcepts to interpret non-Western subjects.Aditi Banerjee,a co-author of Malhotra, criticised Wendy Doniger as grossly misquoting the text ofValmiki Ramayana.[21]

Christian Lee Novetzke,associate professor ofSouth Asian Studiesat theUniversity of Washington,summarizes this controversy as follows:

Wendy Doniger, a premier scholar of Indian religious thought and history expressed through Sanskritic sources, has faced regular criticism from those who consider her work to be disrespectful of Hinduism in general.[22]

Novetzke cites Doniger's use of "psychoanalytical theory" as

... a kind of lightning rod for the censure that these scholars receive from freelance critics and 'watch-dog' organizations that claim to represent the sentiments of Hindus.[22]

PhilosopherMartha Nussbaum,concurring with Novetzke, adds that while the agenda of those in theAmerican Hinducommunity who criticize Doniger appears similar to that of theHindu right-wing in India,it is not quite the same since it has "no overt connection to national identity", and that it has created feelings of guilt among American scholars, given the prevailing ethos of ethnic respect, that they might have offended people from another culture.[23]

While Doniger has agreed that Indians have ample grounds to rejectpostcolonial domination,she claims that her works are only a single perspective which does not subordinate Indian self-identity.[24]

Her authorship of the section describing Hindu Religion inMicrosoft's Encarta Encyclopediawas criticized for being politically motivated and distorted. Following a review, the article was withdrawn.[25]Patak Kumar notes that Doniger has given a "dispassionate secular critique" of Hinduism, which is met with defensive responses by Indian scholars such asVaradaraja V. Raman,who acknowledged the "sound scholarship" of Doniger, but urged "appreciation and sensitivity" when "analyzing works regarded as sacred by vast numbers of people."[26]

The Hindus[edit]

Doniger's trade book,The Hindus: An Alternative Historywas published in 2009 by Viking/Penguin. According to theHindustan Times,The Hinduswas a No. 1bestsellerin its non-fiction category in the week of October 15, 2009.[27]Two scholarly reviews in theSocial Scientistand theJournal of the American Oriental Society,though praising Doniger for her textual scholarship, criticized both Doniger's poor historiography and her lack of focus.[28][29]In the popular press, the book has received many positive reviews, for example from theLibrary Journal,[30]theTimes Literary Supplement,[31]theNew York Review of Books,[32]The New York Times,[33]andThe Hindu.[34] In January 2010, theNational Book Critics CirclenamedThe Hindusas a finalist for its 2009 book awards.[35]TheHindu American Foundationprotested this decision, alleging inaccuracies and bias in the book.[36]

In 2011, a lawsuit was filed against Doniger and Penguin books byDinanath Batraon the grounds that the book intentionally offended or outraged the religious sentiments of Hindus, an action punishable by criminal prosecution underSection 295A of the Indian Penal Code.[37]In 2014, as part of a settlement agreement reached with plaintiff,The Hinduswas recalled byPenguinIndia.[38][39][40]Indian authors such asArundhati Roy,Partha Chatterjee,Jeet Thayil,and Namwar Singh inveighed against the publisher's decision.[41][42]The book has since been published in India by Speaking Tiger Books.[43]

Recognition[edit]

Works[edit]

Doniger has written 16 books, translated (primarily from Sanskrit to English) with commentary nine other volumes, has contributed to many edited texts and has written hundreds of articles in journals, magazines and newspapers. These includeNew York Times Book Review,London Review of Books,theTimes Literary Supplement,The Times,The Washington Post,U.S. News & World Report,International Herald Tribune,Parabola,The Chronicle of Higher Education,Daedalus,The Nation,and theJournal of Asian Studies.[citation needed]

Interpretive works[edit]

Published under the name of Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty:

Published under the name of Wendy Doniger:

Translations[edit]

Published under the name of Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty:

  • Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook,translated from the Sanskrit. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1975.
  • The Rig Veda: An Anthology, 108 Hymns Translated from the Sanskrit(Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1981).
  • (withDavid Grene)Antigone(Sophocles). A new translation for the Court Theatre,Chicago, production of February 1983.
  • Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism,in the series Textual Sources for the Study of Religion, edited by John R. Hinnells (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
  • (with David Grene).Oresteia. A New Translation for the Court Theatre Production of 1986.(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).

Published under the name of Wendy Doniger:

Edited volumes[edit]

Published under the name of Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty:

  • The Concept of Duty in South Asia.(with J. D. M. Derrett). (London:School of Oriental and African Studies).
  • The Critical Study of Sacred Texts.(Berkeley:Graduate Theological Union,Religious Studies Series, 1979).
  • Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions.(Berkeley:University of California Press;1980).
  • Elephanta: The Cave of Siva.Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Carmel Berkson, and George Michell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).ISBN978-0-691-04009-7
  • Religion and Change.Edited by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty.History of Religions25:4 (May 1986).

Published under the name of Wendy Doniger:

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^Curriculum Vitae,uchicago.edu; accessed June 16, 2016.
  2. ^abcShrimali 2010,p. 67.
  3. ^ab"Board of Directors: Past Presidents".Association for Asian Studies.Association for Asian Studies, Inc.RetrievedMarch 22,2017.
  4. ^abcThe John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought, "Wendy Doniger profile,socialthought.uchicago.edu; accessed February 22, 2014.
  5. ^Q&A with Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor and author of The Hindus,news.uchicago.edu, November 5, 2009; accessed February 22, 2014.
  6. ^History of Religions Editorial Board,press.uchicago.edu; accessed February 22, 2014.
  7. ^"Past Presidents: Past Presidents of the AAR".aarweb.org.American Academy of Religion.RetrievedFebruary 22,2014.
  8. ^Art Institute of Chicago President's Lecture[permanent dead link],chicagohumanities.org; accessed February 14, 2015.
  9. ^Martha Craven Nussbaum,The clash within: democracy, religious violence, and India's future,Harvard University Press, 2007 p.249.
  10. ^Shrimali 2010,p. 68.
  11. ^Doniger, Wendy,The Hindus: An Alternative History,Viking-Penguin, p. 35
  12. ^Nagarajan, Vijaya (April 2004). "[Book Review: The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade]".The Journal of Religion.84(2): 332–333.doi:10.1086/421829.JSTOR421829.
  13. ^Harlan, Lindsey (July 28, 2009). "The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth. By Wendy Doniger. American Lectures on the History of Religions 16. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. xii + 200 pp. $26.95 cloth".Church History.68(2): 529.doi:10.2307/3170935.JSTOR3170935.S2CID154582655.
  14. ^abRichard Gombrich,Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook Translated from the Sanskritby Wendy Doniger O'FlahertyReligious Studies,Vol. 14, No. 2 (Jun. 1978), pp. 273–274
  15. ^abMarr 1976,pp. 718–719.
  16. ^Kakar, Sudhir (April 1990). "Book Review:Other People's Myths: The Cave of Echoes Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty".The Journal of Religion.70(2): 293.doi:10.1086/488386.JSTOR1203930.
  17. ^Ioan P. Culianu, "Ask Yourselves in Your Own Hearts..." History of Religions, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Feb. 1983), pp. 284–286

    That is why, with the exception of Geldner's German translation, the most reliable modern translations of the Rgveda-W. O'Flaherty's being one of them-are only partial. However, W. O'Flaherty has, in her present translation, a wider scope than other scholars –Louis Renou,for instance, whoseHymnes speculatifs du Vedaare a model of accuracy – who prefer to limit their choice to one thematic set of hymns.
  18. ^Taylor 2011,p. 160.
  19. ^The interpretation of gods
  20. ^Shoaib Daniyal (2015),Plagiarism row: How Rajiv Malhotra became the Ayn Rand of Internet Hindutva,Scroll.in
  21. ^"Wendy Doniger Falsehood".
  22. ^abChristian Lee Novetzke, "The Study of Indian Religions in the US Academy",India Review5.1 (May 2006), 113–114doi:10.1080/14736480600742668
  23. ^Martha C. Nussbaum,The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future,(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), p. 248
  24. ^"I don't feel I diminish Indian texts by writing about or interpreting them. My books have a right to exist alongside other books." Amy M. Braverman."The interpretation of gods",magazine.uchicago.edu (University of Chicago Magazine,97.2), December 2004; accessed February 14, 2015.
  25. ^Sankrant Sanu (2002)."Are Hinduism studies prejudiced?".
  26. ^Pratap Kumar, "A Survey of New Approaches to the Study of Religion in India,"New Approaches to the Study of Religion: Regional, critical, and historical approaches,2004, p. 132.
  27. ^"Top authors this week"Hindustan TimesIndo-Asian News ServiceNew Delhi, October 15, 2009
  28. ^Shrimali 2010,p. 80: "There are several issues that need more detailed and nuanced analysis rather than straight-jacketed formulations that we read inThe Hindus.These concern terminologies and chronologies invoked, perfunctory manner in which class-caste struggles have been referred to — almost casually, complex inter-religious dialogue seen only in the context of Visnu's avataras, and looking at the tantras merely in terms of sex and political power. The work rarely rises above the level of tale telling. On the whole, this is neither a serious work for students of Indian history, nor for those with a critical eye on 'religious history' of India, nor indeed it is the real Alternative History of the 'Hindus'.
  29. ^Rocher 2012,p. 303: "She especially loves to illustrate ancient stories by interjecting comparisons with situations with which the audience is familiar: Doniger commands an unbelievably vast array of comparable material, often, though not always, from American popular culture. Doniger acknowledges that the book was not meant to be as long as it turned out to be," but it got the bit between its teeth, and ran away from me "(p. 1). Several pages are indeed filled with" good stories "that are only loosely, some very loosely, related to the history of the Hindu religion. Going into detail on the drinking and other vices of the Mughal emperors, even though carefully documented, is a case in point (pp. 539–541)....When it comes to legal history in the colonial period in particular, there are passages that are bound to raise... eyebrows.... the history of Hindu law was more complex than is represented in this volume. Anglo-Hindu law was far more than" the British interpretation of Jones's translation ofManu."
  30. ^James F. DeRoche,Library Journal,2009-02-15
  31. ^David Arnold. "Beheading Hindus And other alternative aspects of Wendy Doniger's history of a mythology",Times Literary Supplement,July 29, 2009
  32. ^David Dean Shulman,'A Passion for Hindu Myths,'inNew York Review of Books,Nov 19, 2009, pp. 51–53.
  33. ^Pankaj Mishra,"'Another Incarnation'",nytimes.com, April 24, 2009.
  34. ^A R Venkatachalapathy,"Understanding Hinduism"The HinduMarch 30, 2010
  35. ^"National Book Critics Circle Finalists Are Announced",blogs.nytimes.com, January 23, 2010.
  36. ^HAF Urges NBCC Not Honor Doniger's Latest BookArchivedFebruary 23, 2014, at theWayback Machine,as reprinted in theLos Angeles Times,The New YorkerandSify
  37. ^Kapur, Ratna (February 15, 2014)."Totalising history, silencing dissent".The Hindu.RetrievedFebruary 15,2014.
  38. ^"Penguin to destroy copies of Wendy Doniger's book 'The Hindus'"The Times of India
  39. ^"Penguin to recall Doniger's book on Hindus"The Hindu
  40. ^"How Doniger's now-recalled 'The Hindus' ruffled Hindutva feathers"firstpost.com
  41. ^"Academics, writers decry Penguin's withdrawal of Doniger's book,The Hindus",timesofindia.indiatimes.com; accessed February 14, 2015.
  42. ^Buncombe, Andrew."Arundhati Roy criticises Penguin for pulping The Hindus: An Alternative History".The Independent.Delhi.RetrievedFebruary 14,2015.
  43. ^B Mahesh (December 8, 2010)."Doniger's Hindus returns, 20 months after its withdrawal".Pune Mirror.RetrievedDecember 16,2015.
  44. ^"Wendy Doniger".American Academy of Arts & Sciences.RetrievedDecember 16,2021.
  45. ^"APS Member History".search.amphilsoc.org.RetrievedDecember 16,2021.
  46. ^PEN Oakland Award Winners: Josephine Miles AwardArchivedJanuary 4, 2013, atarchive.today.Accessed February 22, 2014.
  47. ^British Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences."The Rose Mary Crawshay Prize 2002 Awarded to Professor Wendy Doniger",britac.ac.uk; accessed February 22, 2014.
  48. ^American Academy of ReligionMartin E. Marty Public Understanding of Religion Award - Current and Past Winners,aarweb.org; retrieved February 22, 2014.
  49. ^"Wendy Doniger Named 2015 Haskins Prize Lecture", ACLS News, October 22, 2013; accessed February 22, 2013."A Life of Learning" by Wendy Doniger (with video;May 8, 2015 lecture at Philadelphia, PA)acls.com.Retrieved 2015-08-19.

References[edit]

  • Marr, John H. (1976). "Review of Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty:Asceticism and eroticism in the mythology of Śiva.(School of Oriental and African Studies.) Oxford University Press, 1973 ".Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.39(3): 718–719.doi:10.1017/s0041977x00051892.JSTOR614803.S2CID163033725.
  • Rocher, Ludo (April–June 2012). "Review:The Hindus: An Alternative Historyby Wendy Doniger ".Journal of the American Oriental Society.132(2): 302–304.doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.132.2.0302.JSTOR10.7817/jameroriesoci.132.2.0302.
  • Shrimali, K. M. (July–August 2010). "Review ofThe Hindus: An Alternative Historyby Wendy Doniger ".Social Scientist.38(7/8): 66–81.JSTOR27866725.
  • Taylor, McComas (June 2011). "Mythology Wars: The Indian Diaspora," Wendy's Children "and the Struggle for the Hindu Past".Asian Studies Review.35(2): 149–168.doi:10.1080/10357823.2011.575206.S2CID145317607.
  • Agarwal, V. (2014). New stereotypes of Hindus in Western Indology.ISBN978-1-5058-8559-0
  • Rajiv Malhotra (2016), Academic Hinduphobia:A Critique of Wendy Doniger's Erotic School of Indology.ISBN978-93-85485-01-5
  • Antonio de Nicolas, Krishnan Ramaswamy, and Aditi Banerjee (eds.) (2007),Invading the Sacred: An Analysis Of Hinduism Studies In America.Rupa & Co.

External links[edit]

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Awards and achievements
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2002
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