Wendy Doniger (was Re: [Advaita-l] bhAgavata purANa)

[Abhishek RK]

Namaste,

On 8/22/06, Ram Garib <garib_ram at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>
> Except for the religions of Indic origin, philosophy
> and theology are quite different disciplines and
> Coomaraswamy is a philosopher in the strictly western
> sense of philosophy.
>

How? The first part of your statement sounds like it contradicts the
second. Anyway, see: "His writings of this period are filled with
references to Plato, Plotinus, Clement, Philo, Augustine, Aquinas,
*Shankara*, Eckhart, Rhinish and other Asian mystics." and " his
metaphysical writings aimed, among other things, at demonstrating the
unity of the Vedanta and Platonism" from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananda_Coomaraswamy.

> Even in this sense, situation in philosophy is by and
> large not any better than in theology. Followers of
> advaita tradition may take some comfort in the fact
> that situation here is not as bad as in some other
> schools of Indian philosophy. It is still not uncommon
> to find a practicing advaitin teaching the course in a
> university of repute. However, the same cannot be said
> true about dvaita or vishishtadvaita, which have
> become completely inward looking and cut off from the
> academia. As with any other discipline, the result of
> dissociation of academia from the industry practice
> leads to gradual deterioration of quality here also.
>

While Advaita Vedanta or even Dvaita and other systems are clearly
defined in numerous works, the karma-kANDa portion of dharma, or
pravR^itti dharma, is the one that is most misunderstood by academics
in the West and manipulated by interested parties in India. So I'd
like to see Hindus  who practise Dharma to take up the study of the
larger karma-based philosophy (excluding "Vedanta") of Hinduism in
academia.

For example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asvamedha. Is this the
view of traditional shrauta paNDitas?

Regards,
Abhishek
-- 
satyena dhAryate pR^ithvi satyena tapate raviH|
satyena vAti vAyushca sarvaM satye pratishThitam||

calA lakShmIshcalAH prANAshcalaM jIvita yauvanaM|
calAcale ca saMsAre dharma eko hi nishcalaH||