Understanding Hindu Civilization

The problematic encounter between Westernizing modernity and Hindu civilization is—more than that of Christian missionary activity (continuing unabated in foreign-funded proselytizing), (institutional legacies of) colonial rule and administrative measures, increasing integration into a globalizing capitalist economy (with upper-caste Hindus having ended up the wealthiest immigrant community in the United States), hegemony of new disciplines (history, archaeology, linguistics, psychoanalysis, etc.) now being studied by Indians themselves, Hindu mobilization to defend their traditional values (with the global diaspora beginning to take a leading role)—primarily the challenge of translating between two diametrically opposed taxonomies of knowledge, conflicting ways of organizing the world around us. Given that the Indian state—through its electoral setup, education curriculum, economic policies, etc.—is the single largest determinant of the future of its religious constituencies, the overt and sometimes aggressive politicization of this 'civilizational' agenda in the form of 'Hindutva' was perhaps even more inevitable than is Christian fundamentalism in the United States today.


Dialogues [click to see digests of Dialogues at the Abhinavagupta forum pertaining to Hindu Civilization]

FRIENDS

Alfred Collins (click on Alfred Collins to see his svAbhinava profile and relevant content)

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Alvaro Enterría

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Indica Books (publishing-house and bookshop in Benares)

Pilgrimage to Kāśī [external]

Antoine Soucé Pitchaya (français)

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Antonio de Nicolas (Christ, español)

A world of rapid experience ...traveler, poet, author (español)

Articles in English (artículos en español) [external]

 Some of Antonio's books online (español) [external]

 Complete list of Antonio's books (Barnes and Noble, Amazon) [external]

 The Fool - Secret of the Forest (from Moksha Smith: Agni's Warrior-Sage)

 Dialogues: Trinity

Ashok Chowgule

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Shri Klaus Klostermaier on the Ethos and the Future of Hinduism [external]

Christianity in India  The Hindutva Perspective  [external]

A frustrating dialogue (with David Ludden) - Angst of Prof. David Ludden  -  [external]

Hindutva and the Religious Minorities [external]

Arun Shourie and the Missionaries in India [external]

Illegal Migrants in India [external]

Aryan Invasion Theory vis-à-vis Social Issues in India Today (1994) [counters temporarily disabled]

Dialogues: Hinduism a Religion? Politics of iconophilia

Bharat Gupt (Abhinava, Athens, Friends)  (click on Bharat Gupt to see his svAbhinava profile and relevant content)

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Carl Vadivelle Belle

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  British ideologies of Empire and modern Tamil identity (2003-04) [counters temporarily disabled]

 Review of Elizabeth Fuller Collins, Pierced by Murugan’s Lance [counters temporarily disabled]

  Thai Pusam in Malaysia - (First International Conference on Skanda-Murukan) - abstract

Carlos Aramayo (español)

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Interview with Peter Brunhardt (Vipassana coordinator in Bolivia) - note (español)

Chitra Raman (Friends)

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 The Price of Looking Away - on the Tsunami (India Abroad, January 2005)

 Review of Maggi Lidchi-Grassi, The Great Golden Age of the Mahâbhârata (note)

 Transcending Culture: Indian and Western Ideas of Feminism (July 10, 2004)

 Antonia Maury - [written before 2004] - (note)

 Dialogues: Hindu Eros, ethics

David Dubois

David Peter Lawrence

 Tantric Argument: Transfiguration of Philosophical Discourse in Pratyabhijna (1996)

 Siva's Self-Recognition and The Problem of Interpretation (1998)

 The Mythico-Ritual Syntax of Omnipotence (1998)

 Aspects of Abhinavagupta's Theory of Scripture (2003) - #4, paras 1-56

Dileep Karanth (Indo-Roma, Mecca-Benares)

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Foreword to Danger! Educated Gypsy: Selected Essays by Ian Hancock (01 November 2010)

Khalil Jaouiche, India's Contribution to Arab mathematics (Nov. 1997) - source of English translation, original French paper

Hindu-Buddhist Conflict in the Chachnama: Fact or Fiction? (2008)

Amir Khusrau's Contributions to Indian Music: a preliminary survey (2008) [counters temporarily disabled]

Caste in Medieval India: The Beginnings of a Reexamination (2003-2004) [counters temporarily disabled]

 The Unity of India (2003-2004) [counters temporarily disabled]

 Andre Malraux on India and Bangladesh (Sulekha - Aug 2005) [external]

Félix Ilarráz

The Castes of India - published in Spanish in the Sarasvati journal

Wisdom of the Great Forest  - Prologue by Òscar Pujol

Francesco Brighenti (italiano)

 Shamanistic echoes in rituals of Hindu Devotional Ordeals - 2003 (italiano)

 Buffalo Sacrifice and tribal mortuary rituals - 2003 (italiano)

 Ritual Stealing of Sacrificial Buffalo’s Flesh among Kondhs of Orissa (2003)

 Aryan Invasion (AIT) versus Out-of-India (OIT) Theories  (2003)

Frank Burch Brown

 Correspondence (aesthetics, religion, politics) - note

 Reaction to the World Trade Center attacks [2001] - English

 Good Taste, Bad Taste, Christian Taste [October 2000] - English; read the Prologue

 Dialogues: Trinity, unicorn, Babette's Feast, historicity of Christ,

Gautam Sen

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 Academic researchers versus Hindu civilization [June 2004]

 Writing Indian history [Jan -Feb 2002; A Tribute to Hinduism]

Post-reform China and the international economy (2001; first press)

 Indian power and the threat to the world (Sep 2000; rediff.com)

 Is globalisation cheating the world's poor? (2000; first press - PDF)

 The trouble with Third World leftists (12 March 1997, The Indian Express)

 Triumph of the outsider (10 February 1997, The Indian Express)

 Dinesh Chandra Sen on Tantric practices (Temples of Birbhum) - note

Ian Whicher

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 Countering World Negation: World Affirming & Integrative Dimension of Classical Yoga [2002]

Jacqueline and Roland Bouchet

Review of visit of 20 Indian writers to Paris (French) - 2002

Thus went the children of Zarathustra (French) (review - 2003)

Identity, multiculturalism, and laicism

Jacques Vigne

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Jakob De Roover

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Secularism, Colonialism and the Indian Intellectuals (note) [viewed x since 14 March 2007]

The Vacuity of Secularism: On the Indian Debate and Its Western Origins (Sep 2002)

Dialogues: Hinduism a Religion? does it exist?

Jayant R. Kalawar (Christ)

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Jeffery D. Long

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 Visit Jeff's faculty page at Elizabethtown College [external]

 Check out Jeff's Wikipedia profile (posted by a third party) [external]

"After 150 Years, the Voice of Vivekananda Still Resounds" (Hinduism Today, Jan-Mar 2013) [external]

"Who am I to write a book about Hindu Identity? Confessions of an Irish American Hindu"   [external]

Jainism: An Introduction (published 07 July 2009, at Amazon.com)  [external]

"Truth, diversity, and the incomplete project of modern Hinduism" (Oct 2007) [external]

A Vision for Hinduism: Beyond Hindu Nationalism (published Jan 2007, at Amazon.com)  [external]

Press reports: OneSabbath; AScribe (22 Jan 07); Ewtonian (19 Sep 08); Newswise (22 Jan 07); BNet (03 Apr 07)   [external]

Karine Ladrech

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 The club-wielding Bhairava (French) - 2002

Koenraad Elst

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Visit Koenraad's home page at Bharatvani

Psychology of Prophetism: a Secular look at the Bible (français)

Asterisk in Bhâropîyasthân (chapters 0 - 7) - November 2006

 0. Asterisk in Bhâropîyasthân - Foreword) - November 2006 [counters temporarily disabled]

  1. The official pro-invasionist argument at last - 1999 [counters temporarily disabled]

 2. The Rg-Veda in Afghanistan? - 1999 [counters temporarily disabled]

 3. hp ArticleHits("Koenraad Elst - Asterisk (AIT politics)", "01 June 2009") ?>

 4. Savarkar, Hinduness and the Aryan Homeland - June 2003 [counters temporarily disabled]

 5. - June 2003 [counters temporarily disabled]

 5. The Harappan script controversy - late 1999 [counters temporarily disabled]

 6. Petty Professorial Politicking in The Indo-Aryan Controversy - October 2005 [counters temporarily disabled]

 7. Astronomical Chronology of Vedic Literature : Some New Arguments - March 2006 [counters temporarily disabled]

Lakshmi Bandlamudi (⇐ click to see complete profile with links)

Dr. Lakshmi Bandlamudi is psychology professor at LaGuardia College, City University of New York (CUNY). She grew up in Chennai (Madras) and after completing high school moved to Bangalore, where she did her undergraduate studies and then lived in Hyderabad for few years before immigrating to USA in 1981. In addition to her mother tongue Telugu, she is fluent in Tamil and Kannada. She earned her M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University in Developmental Psychology and her Ph.D. from Graduate Center, CUNY in 1994 in the same subject.  She has published extensively in professional journals in her discipline and is the author of Movements With the Cosmic Dancer: On Pilgrimage to Kailash – Manasarovar (New Age Books, 2006), a chronicle of her physical and spiritual quest in the Himalayas, with a foreword written by H.H. The Dalai Lama. She has taught at CUNY since earning her doctorate, serving as an adjunct at Queens College and Lehman College, before joining LaGuardia’s Social Science Department in 1993.  Dr. Bandlamudi is the recipient of a 2010 Fulbright Nehru Research Award that enabled her to spend August 2010 through mid-February in India to expand upon research derived from her book: Dialogics of Self, the Mahabharata, and Culture: The History of Understanding and Understanding of History (Anthem Press, 2010). An interdisciplinary psychological interpretation of India’s epic text the Mahabharata, the Dialogics of Self examines that work through the lenses of personal and cultural past. Deeply influenced by Russian theorists L.S. Vygotsky and Mikhail M. Bakhtin (dialogism, carnival, clown), her thought remains shaped by Indic culture and values, especially as embodied by Abhinavagupta: she intuitively felt Hindu tradition and sensibility to be full of the carnival spirit and subsequent fieldwork has only confirmed these perceptions. She is currently (co-) organizing (with Prof. Prafulla Kar) the first All-India Bakhtin Conference planned for (probably summer) 2013 at the Forum on Contemporary Theory in Baroda (Gujarat).

[This profile was created on 10 Sep 2011: Lakshmi emailed on 15 August 2011 to introduce herself and invite my participation in the Bakhtin Conference. I subsequently received an electronic version of Dialogics of Self (25 August) and a dedicated print copy of Movements with the Cosmic Dancer (27 August). Having immediately introduced her to our Abhinavagupta and related forums, I began a dialogic reading of her Movements With the Cosmic Dancer starting 30 August 2011. She had come across the reference to my unpublished work through Lee Siegel (Laughing Matters), who participated at the 1986 Madison TS pilot-conference, and must have sent her my Transgressive Sacrality (TS) paper (that she subsequently also read at our svAbhinava webpage). The distinction between 'ascending' (sakoca) and  'descending' (vikāsa) realization was further reinforced by readings in Kashmir Saivism, Aurobindo, and Nietzsche. Her ongoing engagement with my thought has been from the perspective of dialogism: exploring the carnivalization of consciousness and its critical role in catalyzing developmental events.] 

 Check out Lakshmi's profile at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY - Fulbright Award

 Movements with the Cosmic Dancer: On Pilgrimage to Kailash Manasarovar (Amazon - preview) - 2006

  Dialogics of Self, Mahabharata and Culture: History of Understanding and Understanding of History (2010)

  Dialogics of Self, the Mahabharata and Culture (2010) - Google Book extracts, Amazon.com,

 Movements with the Cosmic Dancer - a dialogic reading by Sunthar Visuvalingam (digest) - Aug-Sep 2011

 Illustrated notes on street clown performances in India - 2011 

 

Makarand Paranjape

The official Makarand Paranjape website (notes)

 Biographical profile / Interview with M. Giridhar

 Essays |  Poems | Academic Papers (notes)

 Evam - Forum on Indian Representations (notes) - volume III contents (coverpage)

 Samvad India  Foundation - committed to dialogue (notes)

 Report on India-China cultural exchange (9th - 16th March 2001)

Mary Searle-Chatterjee

Wahabi sectarianism among the Muslims of Banaras

Islamicization in a Globalizing Context [1994] - English

McKim Marriott

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[Click on McKim Marriott to view his individual profile and links to his content]

Mohan Thampi, G. Bala

 Abhinavagupta's Commentary on the Gîtâ (book review - 2003)

Mukur K. Khisha (español)

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A Defense of Hindu Revivalism [2001] - English

 Time and Again (new book - 2004)

Narsi Patel

  New Poems: big bell, primal cry, who am I, love, being oneself, belonging, lost & found, dawn of civilization, truth, evil, classes, perspective, roots,...

 Poems in Gujarati

  Indian Community at the Crossroads [2000]

 Pinch Yourself and Touch Someone  (Cover)

 Carnival in Benares - Burhwa/Yuvâ Mangal (1949)

Sunthar's musings on Narsi's poems: classes, dawn of civilization, nostalgia & mother,

Oscar Pujol Riembau

Probably the most promising Sanskrit scholar from Spain, Oscar is currently Director of the Instituto Cervantes (global network cultural centers run by the Spanish goverment) in Fez, Morocco. He previously held the same position in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and before that in New Delhi, India, where he founded the Indian branch from ground up. He lived for 16 years in Benares with wife Mercedes, gaining his Ph.D. in Sanskrit Grammar in 1999 from Banaras Hindu University. His first Sanskrit teacher was Vāgīśa Śāstri Tripāṭhi and subsequently worked on a Bengali grammar with Śrīnārāyaṇa Miśra. Oscar also taught Spanish at BHU. His wife Mercedes is a Bharata Nâtyam dancer, who did her arangetram in Delhi in 1999. She regularly teaches Bharata Nâtyam in Mallorca, Spain. Vasant, his multilingual son, went to school in Banaras where he was born. The reconversion of his Sanskrit-Catalan dictionary into Sanskrit-Spanish is currently in press. He has published several other books, especially the translation of Abhinavagupta's Abhinavabhâratî on Rasa. Oscar has been very active in promoting cultural exchanges between traditional Indian and contemporary Spanish/Catalan scholars (he's currently working on a Spanish text "From the Ganges to the Mediterranean").

We got to know Oscar and family shortly before we quit India in early 1989, and I was able to renew our friendship at his parents' place in Barcelona in June 2001. During the intervening period, Oscar worked closely on various projects with Félix Ilarraz (who subsequently undertook an extended stay in Benares), ending with a Spanish book on Indian philosophy (in press). He was a prime mover behind the Fundación Purusa. - Sunthar (webmaster and editor)]

Pathmarajah Nagalingam (Mecca)

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Check out (the essays on Hinduism and spirituality at) Pathma's multilingual website

Dialogues: Shivalinga a phallic symbol? Politics of iconophilia

Pedro Soto Adrados / Maria Orduña Anunciación (espagnol)

 Fundacion Purusa  web-site and Sarasvati journal - Spanish

 Contribute articles to the Sarasvati journal for publication in Spanish

Peter Heehs

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 Shades of Orientalism: Paradoxes & Problems in Indian Historiography (2003)

Radhakrishna Warrier (friends)

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Dialogues: Afro-Dravidian, etymologizing, shivalinga, caste, iconophilia, topless, ethics, transgressive sacrality, etc.

Rainer von Grafenhorst (Deutsch)

Raja Mylvaganam

 The Holdeen Funds - chapter from thesis on the Unitarian-Universalists and India

 William Roberts - chapter on the Unitarian-Universalists and India

The Missionary Paradigm - chapter on Unitarian-Universalists and India

Rajiv Malhotra (Friends)

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Ravishankar V.

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Politics of Knowledge Production (Feb 2005) [counters temporarily disabled]

Dialogues (Fear China?)

Sanjay Garg

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Visit the Hindu American Foundation homepage (note)

Visit the RBC Asian Indian radio station in New York (note)

Visit the Hindu Society of Manitoba homepage (note)

Dialogues (Fear China?)

Sankrant Sanu

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Are Indians corrupt? (Sulekha, 5 March 2004)

Why India is a nation (Sulekha, 9 October 2003)

The English Class System (Sulekha, 22 April 2003)

Need I belong to only one religion? (Sulekha, 14 February 2003)

Are Hinduism studies prejudiced? A look at Microsoft Encarta (Sulekha, 24 Sep. 2002)

 Towards an Indian Pluralism (Views Unplugged 2001-2003)

Sitansu Sekhar Chakravarti

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Misrepresentation of the Tantras in David White’s book (July 2004)

Consequentialism and the Gîtâ - a Response  to Amartya Sen (Feb 2004, Evam #3)

Sunthar Visuvalingam

Sumi Sivaratnam

 Pleasure and the Plotinian Good (2001)

 Assimilation to God as Self-KnoPleasure and the Plotinian Good (2001)">2001)

Tan Chung

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Dunhuang Art Through the Eyes of Duan Wenjie (1994)

Tan Yun-shan - A historical Role / life-sketch (1999)

Cultural Interchange between India and China - Tan Yun-Shan (1999)

My Devotion to Tagore  (3rd April 1941) / My first visit to Gandhiji - Tan Yun-Shan (1999)

Ahimsa in Sino-Indian Culture - Tan Yun-Shan (10th October 1949)

Introduction to the Sino-Indian Cultural Society - Tan Yun-Shan (1999)

India and China: from brotherhood to partnership (June 2004)

 Chinese fangshen and Indian yoga: two idiographic developing models (June 2004)

Valerie J. Roebuck

 Excerpts from the Upanishads (2001)

William P. Harman

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 Check out Prof. Harman's faculty web page

 The Martyr Bomber Becomes a Goddess: Women, Theosis, and Sacrificial Violence in Sri Lanka (2009) [counters temporarily disabled]