A masterpiece that invokes debate on a storytelling faith.

'The Hindus' explores the religion with anew lens

YOU cannot fault Wendy Doniger on her self- deprecating humour. She almost always gives the impression that she either finds her research funny or she treats herself as a quaint caricature of an " outsider" writing about Hinduism and India.

But that could be a charming trait in a person who is otherwise so serious about Hinduism and ancient Indian texts that her books are part of university courses in several Indian universities. She holds two doctorates in Sanskrit and Indian studies from the Universities of Harvard and Oxford. She has held positions at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and at the University of California, Berkeley. And of course, she is currently the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago.

She is a guru, in the true sense of the word.

Like her previous books on the Rig Veda, the Kama Sutra, Doniger does not wish away the frailties of characters from Hindu mythology, even gods that have been revered for several thousand of years find their personalities being critiqued.

And therein lies part of the problem for self- styled defenders of the Hindu faith in India, whose violent actions in London in the year 2003 prevented her from visiting India for the launch of the book.

The real reason for their antagonism could be that Doniger's texts -- as is the case with The Hindus -- has strong gender equations that could " hurt the sentiments" of the Hindu right- wing. This is patently a wrong accusation that is often thrown at Prof Doniger for two reasons: One, no one who ever attacks her ever reads her books; and two, those who hurl eggs at her -- as they did in London during a lecture -- just don't have the intellectual capability of even understanding what she is talking about or even of contextualising it.

The fear about The Hindus is something similar -- Doniger writes the history of Hinduism not from the point of view of kings and their kingdoms and the wars they fought, but from the point of view of women, of lower castes, of merchants and of even animals.

In the process, she tackles the Ramayana partly from Sita's point of view. It is almost sacrilegious to talk about Sita's sexuality, but isn't that what Lord Rama did after he rescued his wife from Lanka, the kingdom of the demon king Ravana? Hindu mythology records -- without much debate -- that Sita's fidelity was indeed questioned by her husband and that she responded by asking Mother Earth to swallow her if she was not " pure". But what if Lord Rama himself was fallible in many ways by doubting his own brother Lakshmana, following an encounter with the monkey brothers Sugreev and Vali, the monkey king.

Vali, who fought a demon inside a cave but could not come out for a long time, was presumed dead by his brother Sugreev who returned to the capital to be anointed king. Vali eventually returned, but was furious at seeing his brother's apparent " betrayal". A massive disagreement and a wife's abduction later, Lord Rama eventually kills Vali while he is fighting Sugreev.

Doniger's thesis that women were more than just passive observers of events or of history itself therefore bears fruit in many such illustrations where women, even if they are central characters to any story, have a profound influence on how history unfolds. Indeed, would there have been an epic as great as the Ramayana if Sita weren't abducted? Of late, scholars of Hindu texts and of Indian history have come to accept the role of the " marginalised" -- including women -- in shaping historical events.

Doniger's tome, therefore, is not really an " alternative history" in that sense; it is merely a different point of view. S HE has a similar take on the Mahabharata , perhaps the greatest epic in Hindu literature, and therefore, has a special place in the hearts of millions. It is here that she illustrates the last chapter of the Mahabharata , the tale of the Pandavas ascending to heaven, but only the eldest brother Yudhisthira and a loyal dog managing to make it.

Giving importance thus to those who we rarely hear about in the daily din of the Hindutva version of the faith makes Doniger's book more than just a work of accurate and painstaking research. If anything, it turns out to be one of the fascinating books written on the HindusC* ever.

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