Survey of Hinduism - A Great Recollection

INTRODUCTION 5
psychoanalyzing of our Gods, Goddesses and heroes” erupted in February 1991
in one of the unlikeliest of places, in the Department of South Asian Studies
at the University of California at Berkeley. 4 Individual American scholars
were criticized for considering Rāma a symbol of “the type of Indian son who
makes a passive homosexual identification with his father” or taking Ganesa
as an “example of a story representing the primal Oedipal triangle of a son,
father and mother.” 5
The aim of this Survey has been to describe Hinduism as the living tradition
of the Hindus; a tradition with its own logic and with a dynamic of its
own. The intention was to portray Hinduism in such a way that contemporary
Hindus would be able to recognize their own tradition and outsiders will understand
something of the Hindu tradition, when they encounter it.
The method adopted reflects the purpose of the book: to offer reliable
information on Hinduism as a whole and to make a modern Westerner understand
some of its meaning. As for information: this has to be selective.
Hinduism with its long history and its many manifestations is simply too large
a subject to be exhaustively dealt with in a volume of this size. Much has been
written about Hinduism that need not be repeated here but can be referred to.
As for understanding: this can, obviously, only be communicated to the extent
that it is available. Understanding usually implies a translation of foreign
concepts into more familiar categories. The choice of the categories into which
one translates is crucial and must not be arbitrary. Understanding takes place
within certain systematic contexts, and it always operates with certain presuppositions.
6 Thus an interpretation of a phenomenon like Hinduism in modern
Western categories takes place within a given philosophical or theological,
sociological or anthropological, historical or political framework. These frameworks
facilitate the integration of information, but they also may hinder us
from seeing the specifics and those aspects for which there is no parallel. As L.
Dumont remarked: “Hindu religion, or philosophy, is at least as all-embracing
in its own way as any sociological theory may be.” 7 The same can be said about
any philosophical or psychological theory.
In some areas of interpretation of Indian history and its intellectual and
religious meaning a notable rift has emerged between “Western” and “Indian”
scholars. 8 There is no doubt that much early Western scholarship on India was
influenced not only by prevalent European historical and philological methodologies
but also by colonial interests. There is equally little doubt that some
contemporary Indian scholarship is motivated by an urge to prove Indian popular
traditions right and by an effort to establish intellectual priority or moral
superiority. Over and above such unscholarly tendentiousness and prejudice
there is, of course, a cultural context that influences both the choice of topics
and the aim of investigations. Typical “Western” investigators may consider
their task accomplished if a text has been philologically and grammatically
analyzed, without commenting on the meaning expressed. A typical “Indian”
scholar would identify with the issues with which the text is dealing, would