An Independent Review of Paul Courtright's book on Ganesa - Chapter 17 part 1

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Editors’ Note:

In this chapter, Vishal Agarwal and Kalavai Venkat provide a detailed review of Paul Courtright’s book, Ganesa, Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings. Their analysis raises very troubling questions about the quality and integrity of Courtright’s scholarship. Nevertheless, Courtright, Doniger, and her followers, continue to evade these questions about methodology by demonizing their critics.

Doniger has recently adopted an interesting new tactic to silence criticism while simultaneously appealing to American liberals. She has started comparing those who criticize her to fundamentalist Christians opposing the teaching of Evolution in schools. She casts herself in the role of Darwin, as a courageous ‘scientist’ being attacked by obscurantists who are unwilling to deal with empirical evidence. The allegation is that her critics are irrational. This charge is over and above her prior allegations that her critics—along with their deities and spiritual traditions—are violent and immoral.

To enlist liberal sympathies against the Indian–American minority, Doniger disingenuously positions the debate as between scientific reason, represented by her school, and unreason, represented by the Hindu diaspora.

Ironically, most Indian-Americans who have criticized Doniger’s scholarship are scientists or professionals with considerable technical training, while Doniger and her cohorts are typically trained in the humanities, and questionably, at that. In addition, many critics within the Hindu diaspora have had lifelong instruction in many Indian languages and in Sanskrit. They have, importantly, knowledge of multiple versions of narratives based on regional differences, chronology, or schools of thought, besides a culturally rooted understanding of texts.

In an interview with a local American newspaper, posted on UChicago’s public relations website, Doniger engages in undisguised us-versus-them branding and insinuation by misrepresenting her critics’ positions. The newspaper reported that Doniger:

sees some parallels with the debate in Kansas about how much teaching on creationism should be allowed in the classroom. ‘This same fight is going on in my field,’ Doniger says. ‘Not literally, of course, about Darwin and the Hebrew Bible and Genesis, but whether the scholarly attitude of the events in the history of Hinduism or the faith attitude to the history of the events in the history of Hinduism is the one that should be taught in school. There’s a very close parallel.’

The ‘fight going on in [Doniger’s] field ‘is not a battle between modern scientific approaches, represented by RISA et al, versus a tradition-bound obscurantist Hindu diaspora. It is a debate

between, on the one hand obscure, arbitrary approaches to Hindu Studies based on Eurocentric paradigms and poor evidence, which make unverifiable inferences about the meanings’ of the events in the history of Hinduism’ versus an approach to Hindu Studies that insists on rigorous training, accuracy in translation, independent peer-review and cultural authenticity. The reader should judge for herself whether Doniger is justified in calling her followers’ approach to Hinduism ‘scientific’, i.e. comparable with Darwin or even ‘historically accurate’. On the one hand, Courtright’s book, carrying Doniger’s endorsement, won a prestigious history prize. Courtright has also tacitly compared himself to noted historians and chroniclers like De Tocqueville and Myrdal, even though he is not trained as a professional historian. Courtright’s work was supposedly peer-reviewed by other Western academic scholars prior to publication to ensure scientific rigor in the use of evidence and theory. On the other hand, this chapter demonstrates the value of independent peer-review, when the academic peer-review system is broken. The reader can judge for herself whether Courtright’s book is, in fact, scholarly and evidence based; or relies upon fabricated data, shoddy research and arbitrary theorizing—dressed up with a scholarly gloss to disguise prejudice.

Introductory Remarks:

Background and Importance of Courtright’s Book

In the years 2003–2004, a fierce controversy involving Hindu- Americans on one side and certain Indologists on the other, broke out over Paul Courtright’s book on the Hindu deity Ganesha. The controversy gathered steam in November 2003 when a chapter of the Hindu Students Council (HSC), at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, started an online petition criticizing the book. The petition reproduced several passages regarding Lord Ganesha from Courtright’s book that were deemed pornographic in nature. Within a matter of days the petition successfully attracted almost 7000 signatures. Unfortunately some anonymous signatories took advantage of the privacy that the Internet offered them and posted death threats to Courtright on the petition. The HSC members who started the petition immediately took if off the website before the situation got out of control. Meanwhile Motilal Banarsidass, which had published the Indian reprint of the book, withdrew it from circulation before the controversy reached Indian shores. The publisher also apologized to the protestors for hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus.

These two developments in turn raised a storm among a section of scholars of South Asian Studies in the American academic community. They went on to denounce the publishers and protestors as ‘Hindu fundamentalists’ bent on damaging freedom of speech in American Universities by intimidating the author of a ‘scholarly’, ‘sensitive’, ‘thoughtful’, ‘peer-reviewed’, and ‘excellent’ book.

Courtright’s book cannot be ignored and it is in fact a prominent yet controversial Indological publication for several reasons outlined below. First, the text bears a Foreword by none other than Wendy Doniger, who currently acts as the reigning Czarina of Indological Studies in the United States. She is a cult figure for a very large number of her students, who have a profound influence on how India and Hinduism are depicted at American Universities. Even those who are not her students, nevertheless feel proud of their association with her, such as Courtright. Second, the book has received a national award for its presumed excellence.

Third, the dissension actually prompted Oxford University Press, one of the most reputed academic printers in the world, to publish a 2003 reprint of the book in the West.

Fourth, its reprint in India was brought out by Motilal Banarsidass, the largest publisher, exporter and distributor of Indological books in the country. As a result, the book was also noticed and commented upon in India. We will refer to some of these reviews in our own extensive comments here.

Fifth, it appears that perverse descriptions of Ganesha from the book have started to creep into mainstream society in the West. For instance, in a recent exhibit on the Hindu deity Ganesha arranged by a museum in Baltimore, the book served as a seminal text that was quoted in citations accompanying the displays.

Sixth, since the publication of the book, Paul B. Courtright has been acknowledged as an authority on the subject of Ganesha. This is evident from the way in which numerous other writers of books on the deity not just acknowledge his help and guidance; they also often quote his text either approvingly or at least in a neutral manner. Conversely, the list of people whom Courtright acknowledges in his book for their help reads like a veritable ‘Who’s Who’ in the world of Hinduism studies in the United States.

Seventh, the book is derived, at least in part, from the author’s Ph.D. thesis and therefore should be considered a result of intensive research. The thesis was completed in 1974, eleven years before the publication of the book. It is reasonable to assume that the book therefore contains the fruits of his intensive research as a doctoral student, and perhaps a lot of other subsequent research in the eleven years thereafter. Moreover, the author has published several journal articles on themes related to the subject matter of his book.

Eighth, in the wake of this controversy, a number of professional scholars of Hinduism Studies and in related fields have actually gone on record with whole-hearted praise of the book. Such academic support not just defends Courtright’s right to free speech; it actually praises his book for its content and analyses.

Ninth, Courtright has done better professionally than most scholars in Hinduism studies. He is currently a tenured professor and former co-chair of the Department of Religion at Emory University; a feat attributable to the accolades his book has drawn in the past.

Tenth, a cursory search on WorldCat and other electronic catalogs shows that approximately 300 college and school libraries in North America alone have a copy of his book on their shelves. This is a large number for any Indological publication and attests to the widespread acclaim and popularity that his text has attained in American academia, almost to the point of canonization.

Finally, a sourcebook on Hinduism and Psychoanalysis cites long extracts from his book to explain the father-son relationship in the Hindu society! These citations actually constitute some of the most obscene and offensive sections of the book. Obviously according to the

editors of this sourcebook, Courtright’s psychoanalysis provides seminal understanding of family relationships amongst Hindus!

Being such an important book also means that the controversy raises many other issues besides the question of free speech and academic freedom. In our review, we restrict ourselves to the issue of Paul Courtright’s misuse of primary data from Hindu texts for developing his theses. (For more on the methodology, please read page 194 and 195, chapter 17)

Psychoanalysis and Indology in the United States: When the Cigar becomes a Phallus

Sigmund Freud had a lifelong relationship with cigars. He was rarely photographed without one between his lips. It is said that he enjoyed as many as twenty of them every day. When his friends suspected that he was addicted to cigars, he argued that they were a very private aspect of his life that should be insulated from psychoanalysis by others. This disagreement with peers supposedly gave rise to a statement at times attributed to Freud, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” The implication being that people should not see something else in his cigar since it really was just a cigar.

What we are referring to is the complete Freudianization of Indological parlance, or lingo, by a small band of academics. The phenomenon has advanced to such an extent that words and phrases like ‘castration’, ‘flaccid-penis’, ‘sexual-fantasy’, ‘erect penis’ and such have become a sort of lingua-franca through which the intellectual intercourse of closely-related scholars achieves effect in their academic publications.Wendy Doniger, the doyenne of academic studies on Hinduism has summarized the weltanschauung of these scholars in the following words:

Aldous Huxley once said that an intellectual was someone who had found something more interesting than sex; in Indology, an intellectual need not make that choice at all.

Who wrote the Mahabharata?

The Foreword to Courtright’s book is written by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty who, in her typical colloquial and superlative style, praises his book without apparently adding anything substantial. Except she does reveal undisclosed lore about the writing of the Hindu epic the Mahabharata, “ . . . in which Ganesa dictates the epic to Vyasa” (Courtright, viii.)! Hindu tradition, however, is unanimous in informing us that it was the Sage Vyasa who dictated the epic to Ganesha rather than the other way around as Doniger states. No, this is not a slip of the tongue on Doniger’s part, unless it is some kind of a Freudian slip, because she actually constructs a pseudo-psychology out of her erroneous version of the tradition:

In Courtright’s defense, we must point out that he himself has correctly referred to the tradition about the authorship of the Mahabharata in his book (Courtright, pp.151–53). Doniger herself perhaps did not read the book thoroughly even though she wrote the ecstatic Foreword to it.

Lord Ganesha does not get to bask in the glory of his surprise, albeit ephemeral, promotion from a scribe to the narrator of the epic. Courtright brings Ganesha down from the heavenly realms to the earth and transforms him into something of a eunuch, an incestuous son, and a homosexual. Had Ganesha indulged in the ephemeral glory bestowed on him by Doniger then one must indeed pity his naivety, because Doniger had earlier forewarned:

Ganesa has everything that is fascinating to anyone who is interested in religion or India or both: charm, mystery, popularity, sexual problems, moral ambivalence, political importance, the works. [added emphasis]. (For more on this, please read page 197, chapter 17)

Misuse of Textual Sources

Courtright attempts to base his study on the contents of Hindu texts and then interprets them to derive a particular thesis. The two major classes of texts he deals with are the Vedas and the Puranas. The Tantras and the Upanishads are largely left out, except for a stand-alone translation of the Ganapati Atharvasirsa Upanishad in the appendix. In this section, we examine the validity of Courtright’s use of Hindu texts in his study.

Dubious Vedic Textual References

In Chapter I, titled ‘The Making of a Deity,’ he explores the evolution of Ganesha as a deity in the Hindu pantheon from a historical perspective. He begins with the antecedents of the deity in Vedic literature and proceeds to make dubious statements. For instance, while dismissing all Vedic references as evidence that the worship of Ganesha was known when the Vedic texts were the primary source of Hindu practice, he says:

A similar invocation in another Brahmanic text addresses ‘the one with the twisted trunk [vakratunda]’ (Tà 10.1.5), also leaving it uncertain whether it is Ganesa or Siva who is being addressed.

This is puzzling, because vakratunda is distinctly another name for Ganesha. Moreover, the last portion of the mantra (called the Vighneshvaragayatri in the Hindu tradition) reads—tanno dantih pracodayaat (Taittiriya Aranyaka 10.1.5), which is clearly a reference to the tusk of Ganesha. Courtright also mistakenly classifies the text as ‘Brahmanic’ or from the Brahmanas, whereas in reality it is a mantra. Another obvious reason why this mantra containing the word vakratunda refers to Ganesha and not to his father Shiva is that the preceding mantra is in fact addressed to Mahadeva and Rudra (other names of Shiva), and the mantra after the Vighneshvaragayatri is addressed to Nandin, the mount or vehicle of Shiva. Thus from the words of the mantra and its context as well, we should infer that this mantra is clearly addressed to the deity Ganesha and not to Lord Shiva. (For more on this, please read page 198 and 199, chapter 17)     

Finally, Courtright claims that ‘TB [Taittiriya Brahmana]10.15’ contains the word dantin. This reference by Courtright is problematic because Taittiriya Brahmana is divided into 3 books that are further divided into smaller sections. Therefore, the citation of TB 10.15 does not make much sense. The Vedic Word Concordance of Vishvabandhu also does not indicate any occurrence of the word dantin in the entire Taittiriya Brahmana. Courtright attributes the textual reference to a publication of Louis Renou. After referencing Renou’s article, however, we did not find any mention at all of the Taittiriya Brahmana in it. The reference in Renou’s article is in fact to

Maitrayani Samhita 2.9.1. The presence of so many erroneous and apparently invented textual citations in just one page of the book is simply unacceptable from an academic perspective.

Errors of Vedic citations are seen in other parts of the book as well. For instance in Chapter II of his book, Courtright claims: “The association of the thigh with the phallus in the Indian tradition dates from the Rig Veda (RV 8.4.1).” The mantra in question reads:

yadindra praagapaagudam nyag vaa uuyase nrbhih

simaa puruu nrshuuto asyaanave.asi prashardha turvashe

Ralph Griffith’s translation reads—

Though Indra, thou are called by men

eastward and westward, north and south,

Thou chiefly art with Anava and Turvasa,

brave Champion! urged by Men to come.

There is no reference to the penis or thighs here. We therefore question what Courtright was thinking. A majority of references to Vedic texts by Courtright in Chapter I of his book and others in subsequent chapters are either interpreted incorrectly, or they are non traceable. Thus we question if Courtright even had a first hand, or even a reasonable second hand, knowledge of Vedic texts when he wrote his book.

Mythology of Ganesa and Abuse of Puranic Texts

Chapter II of the book, titled ‘Mythology of Ganesa,’ deals with the different ways in which academics studying religion can approach the mythology of the deity. Courtright lists five such levels, of which Wendy Doniger is credited for explicating the first four while the fifth is Courtright’s own contribution. This particular chapter seems to focus on the first or ‘narrative’ level, in which the story of the deity is stated in all its versions. Varying divergent and convergent versions of the story of Ganesha are scattered throughout a diverse set of Hindu texts belonging to different centuries. Courtright treats these texts in a combined, holistic manner to explore the thematic, structural, and interpretative dimensions of these myths. Courtright says that he has treated all Puranic accounts as belonging to a single ongoing tradition in order to paint his picture of Ganesha. We believe that this is not a sound approach, because each of the Puranas catered to the needs of a particular Hindu sect and some of them are known to display sectarian rhetoric against other sects and their deities.

Winternitz presents a very relevant example to demonstrate this sectarian bias, bordering on the absurd, as reflected in the Puranas regarding the deities of a rival sect. (For more on this, please read page 201, chapter 17)

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The children of colonial psychoanalysis - chapter 13-part 2

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Phallocentric Circles

Freud seriously questioned humanity’s dependence upon religion, even though he was proud to be ethnically Jewish. One thing he pathologized in religions was the belief in a supreme being. He felt that the concept of religion in the ‘final form’ taken by present-day Christian civilization was fatally flawed. He was highly critical of Christianity and saw it as an expression of infantilism.

Though Freud may have had revulsion to religion, the origins of psychoanalysis are deeply rooted in encounters with Biblical religious traditions. The Bible is among the primary sources where Freud extracted his symbols and myths, and from where all of his patients were situated, upon whom he based his prognoses, Ipso facto, the entire corpus of his knowledge or experiences of religion and spirituality were extracted from within the Judeo-Christian context.

Although much of Freud’s work serves as a critique of religious feelings, psychoanalysis nevertheless employed and carried forward the core themes of the Bible. Judeo-Christian tropes dominate psychoanalytical concepts, as Freud mined Biblical literature to extract analogies for his favorite phobias. The ‘primal scene’. which Freud associated with Original Sin, signifies the experience when a child sees the parents engaging in sex, which means, according to Freudian

psychoanalysis, that the child will be traumatized for the rest of his or her life, or until properly psychoanalyzed.

In Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis, Richard Webster explains how the ‘cryptic Judeo-Christian ethos’ was the very foundation of what was touted to be a scientific theory. Webster notes that Freud misdiagnosed several of his early patients as traumatic hysteria when they were “actually cases of injury-related brain damage and epilepsy”. He called psychoanalysis a “crypto-theological system” which encompassed “a modernized reworking of traditional Judeo-Christian morality, sexual realism, and restraint”.

Its very structure was church-like, in that psychoanalytic treatments in Freudian practice were modeled after the Catholic confessional. The psychoanalyst replaces the priest, who is relatively invisible to the patient just like the priest is not visible during confession. The patient confides the traumas he or she has experienced just like the Catholic confides sins. In so doing, the patient is relieved of a burden, and redeemed into good mental health just like the sinners who confess are saved from their sins. (For more on this, please read page 141, chapter 13)

Freud brought phallic symbolism intimately into our lives. In A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis, David Friedman notes how psychoanalytic interpretations have enduringly placed the penis and associated anxieties at the center of society. Friedman suggests that: “attitudes toward the penis have been instrumental in mapping the course of both Western civilization and world history”. He notes that through the centuries, “the penis has been deified, demonized, secularized, racialized, psychoanalyzed, politicized and, finally, medicalized.” This extreme cultural focus on the phallus, codified (overcoded?) by Freud, brought concepts such as ‘castration anxiety’ and ‘penis envy’ into popular discourse.

Freud had visions of grandeur,and his personality and ideas certainly achieved immortality. He

shared with Karl Marx a belief that religion is an illusion—neither man believed in a soul or life after death.

E.M. Thornton wrote in The Freudian Fallacy:

Freud’s concept of the unconscious must be attributed to his cocaine usage. Death wishes, infantile incestuous desires and perversion are not the pre-occupations of the normal mind. Constantly recurring throughout the drug literature are the same words and phrases used by Freud and his followers to describe his concept of the unconscious mind. In both psychoanalysis and this literature the same metaphors of looking down into an abyss occur.

Sometimes a Saint is Only a Saint

In The Future of an Illusion, Freud portrays religion as a fantasy that fulfills “the oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind”. In 1927, Freud sent a copy of his controversial book to his friend Romain Rolland, the renowned French Nobel laureate and humanitarian. Rolland, who was a student of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, began a thirteen-year correspondence with Freud. (For more on this, please read page 142 and 143, chapter 13)

Women, Infants, Hindus and the Irish

There were many similarities between the writings of these two colonial officers, [Berkeley-Hill and Daly] who were self-educated in what could be called pop psychoanalysis. Hartnack notes that they both had a derogatory style and an exclusive focus on negative content. Both consistently failed to note any achievement or positive aspect of Indian culture. Hartnack elaborates:

Instead, they compared the behaviour of Indians with other dependent people, with women, infants and the Irish, and time and again with European neurotics. They tried to explain group behaviour by attributing it to psychopathological defects of individuals, a procedure quite common in the international psychoanalytical discussion of their time.

Hartnack notes that this work had clear colonial overtones. Several contemporary works use parallel approaches to Indian Studies. Both [Daly and Berkeley-Hill] identified themselves fully with British colonialism. Indians were a threat and had thus to be fought, and resistance had to be smashed not only on a military but also on a cultural level. Unlike Orwell, who left Burma in order not to cope with the dual identity of a colonial bureaucrat by day and a questioning and critical human being by night, Daly and Berkeley-Hill worked to abolish these scruples and contribute to a properly functioning colonial world.

One critic in the Hindu diaspora in the USA, when reading an earlier draft of this chapter, asked “Is Doniger’s anxious eagerness in accepting Kripal’s and White’s astounding theses a symptom of the same colonial mindset?” Hartnack continued:

Contemporary psychoanalytical thought offered Daly and Berkeley-Hill models to legitimize their degradation of, and thus their separation from Indians: If one were not a healthy adult British male, one was in trouble, for all other human beings were looked down upon. They [the Hindus] were in the majority and there was the potential of hysteria, violence, revolution, sexual seduction and other supposedly irrational acts, which would be difficult to control. Therefore, it was the white man’s responsibility to keep them under surveillance, if not behind iron gates. In this context, psychoanalytical investigations offered structures of explanation, the first step toward a mastery of the perceived threat.

Contemporary professional psychologists, such as Alan Roland and Salman Akhtar, distance themselves from and disapprove of this reductionist, infantilizing approach. Some of the caveats and foibles in what has been called the Wendy’s Children genre of scholarship are also found in Freud’s work. The psychoanalytic movement at the turn of the century has been compared to that of a religious cult, disdainful of its critics and hyper-attached to a particular hyperbole. Many

similarities are in evidence.

In The Memory Wars: Freud’s Legacy in Dispute, Frederick Crews, professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, describes the coercion of clients by Freud to fulfill the mission of his institute. As a result of this, and other examinations of Freud’s methodologies,

his data gathering has been shown to have been less than authentic—a charge similar to what has been leveled against some members of the RISA school of thought.

Ninety years ago, the innovative thinkers who challenged Freudianism, such as Wilhelm Reich and Carl Jung, among others, were ex-communicated from the psychoanalytical society. Similarly, in RISA and other associated venues, not much dissent is allowed. (For more, please read 144, chapter 13)

Today a number of scholars rely on applied psychoanalysis to create new and ever more exciting research, even though they are not competent in psychoanalysis. This methodology has found its way into History, Sociology, Anthropology, and Religious Studies, among other disciplines.

Hindu-Americans who question scholarship written about their religion are perceived as invalid, inferior. They are not considered ‘legitimate intellectuals’. Those who write articles on websites such as Sulekha are spoken of as ‘dangerous’, perhaps capable of irrational acts and as Berkeley-Hill also described Indians a hundred years ago, ‘difficult to control’. Some scholars of Hinduism Studies are threatened by this contemporary challenge to their established paradigms. They have furiously begun to psychoanalyze the Hindu diaspora as the first step toward a mastery of the perceived threat. Simultaneously, Hindu-Americans have turned the ‘surveillance’ inside-out, and are gazing back with their own tools—such as the Chakra Hermeneutics described in Chapter 9—to better understand those who control the narrative about Hindu traditions.

Read chapter 13 part 2 from page 140 to 145

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Sarah Caldwell - Reinterpreting Hindu Goddess as a symbol of sex and violence-chapter 4

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Sarah Caldwell, another member of RISA, won the prestigious Robert Stoller Award for her scholarship on the Hindu Goddess. Below is a long excerpt from her research paper, ‘The Bloodthirsty Tongue and the Self-Feeding Breast: Homosexual Fellatio Fantasy in a South Indian Ritual Tradition’, for which she was given an award by her largely Western peers.

This essay demonstrates that in Kerala, symbolism of the fierce goddess [Kali] does not represent abreactions of the primal scene fantasies of a Kleinian ‘phallic mother’ or introjection of the father’s penis; rather, we will show that themes of eroticism and aggression in the mythology are male transsexual fantasies reflecting intense preoedipal fixation on the mother’s body and expressing conflicts over primary feminine identity.

The essential rituals of the Bhagavati cult all point to the aggressive and fatal erotic drinking of the male by the female, the infamous orgy of blood sacrifice of male ‘cocks’ at the Kodungallur Bhagavati temple; the male veliccappatu’s cutting of his head in a symbolic act of self castration . . . [Kali] is herself, first of all, a phallic being, the mother with a penis . . . she is the bloodied image of the castrating and menstruating (thus castrating) female . . . In this type of analysis the phallic abilities of the goddess disguise castration anxieties ultimately directed toward the father as well as homosexual desire for the father’s penis. Following Freud, such analyses stress the father-son polarity of the oedipal conflict as the central trauma seeking expression.

As Alter and O’Flaherty amply demonstrate, milk and breastfeeding are also symbolically transformed in the male imagination into semen and phallus . . . The ascetic male who retains the semen becomes like a pregnant female with breasts and swollen belly; the

semen rises like cream to his head and produces extraordinary psychic powers . . . Not only are the fluids of milk and semen, symbolic equivalents, but the act of ‘milking’ or breastfeeding becomes a symbolic equivalent to the draining of semen from the phallus in intercourse. [Emphasis added]

Caldwell uses the English word ‘cock’ for the rooster, so as to link the ritual with the phallus. Since the Keralites were not mentally imagining this English word with its double meaning for both rooster and penis during their ritual, this translation by Caldwell is a clear example of how her psychological predispositions enter into a supposedly ‘scholarly’ interpretation. She goes so far as to put quotation marks around the word ‘cock’ in order to emphasize the double meaning that she is aware of, but not the Keralites. In other words this is a projection of the scholar.

In the example cited above, the Goddess becomes shorn of all her numerous, traditionally accepted meanings and a new primary meaning is authoritatively adduced by the privileged Western scholar. Thus Kali becomes, without argument, “first of all, a phallic being, the mother

with a penis . . . she is the bloodied image of the castrating and menstruating (thus castrating) female.” [Emphasis added] This genre of essentializing, which precludes all other meanings, is a symptom of Wendy’s Child Syndrome as explained in a later chapter.

Fortunately, criticisms from within the scholarly community of the methods used by scholars such as Caldwell are not entirely lacking. But they do not go far enough in uncovering the problems that lie within these free-floating kinds of analyses. In 1999, Caldwell published another book, Oh Terrifying Mother: Sexuality, Violence and Worship of the Mother Kali.79 In her review of the book, Cynthia Humes wrote,

Caldwell documents numerous themes of sexuality, abuse, and vengeance in Keralite religion and culture. She concludes, ‘Mutiyettu actors who are particularly talented at playing the role of Kali might be traumatized individuals whose particular psychological propensities and histories compel them towards this form of performance’ I find this unconvincing. As she herself notes, Caldwell did not conduct a detailed study of or even collect the life histories of the individual Mutiyettu actors playing the role of Kali; so there is no direct evidence of even one individual fitting this typology. The implications she sees, while tantalizing and truly fascinating, are based on extended digging into and assembling a dispersed array of sensationalist and homoerotic mythological themes, combined with rumored sexual activity. The unlikelihood of the thesis is underscored by the fact that the role of Kali is only open to a handful of individuals, who must wait until the age of over fifty to even assume this coveted starring role, and further, they would need to evidence ‘particular talent’.

But how seriously does Caldwell have to take such criticism? Is such criticism serious enough to question the quality of the scholar’s work so as to insist that such work be simply disregarded? Or, in the absence of that, should at least some safeguards be put in place to ensure more rigorous quality control over work like this in the future? Unfortunately, Humes is not willing to go that far. In spite of her acknowledging the lack of evidence in Caldwell’s sweeping claims, Humes is still able to imagine how Keralite society is indeed highly charged with homosexuality, sexual trauma, and abuse, without citing any credible scholarship. In fact, later in her review, Humes agrees with certain aspects of Caldwell’s sexual interpretation of the ritual. She superimposes an entirely different sexual psychosis on the Keralites than does Caldwell, and thus the peer-review becomes merely an argument between different kinds of pathologies of Keralite Hindus.

It certainly gives the impression that criticism by RISA insiders is encouraged to remain within certain boundaries, in order to give this kind of lackluster analysis the appearance of peer reviewed integrity. On the other hand, as we shall see in later chapters, when Indians talk in a similar fashion about White scholars and their culture, they are denounced by the academic establishment as ‘attackers’. The right to criticize is a carefully protected privilege.

Autobiography as Scholarship

Cynthia Humes mentions that Caldwell’s work (like Kripal’s) is largely autobiographical in nature. In the end, they may only amount to creative psychodramas that expose personal pathologies, often hidden deep beneath wounds of past trauma. Humes writes,

I do not doubt the sincerity of Caldwell’s belief that the goddess was somehow ‘running my show’ or that her personal tragedies had ‘meaning and significance beyond my personal lusts, fears, neuroses, and confusions.’ Abundant examples of Caldwell’s lingering resentment are given free reign, deservedly in some ways toward her now ex-husband but less so toward her disapproving academic guide. This guide (despite his assistance in interviews, and arrangements to have one of his students aid her in settling in, and provision of some obviously helpful advice) she grills for his attempt to influence her research program. She further suspects him of avariciousness toward her grant and, ironically, belittles his suspicion of her possible infidelity (a suspicion that turns out to be justified). These become examples of Obeyesekere’s theories of ‘progressive orientation’, underscoring how Caldwell’s personal confession authorizes her broad psychoanalytic theories about a remarkably similar projected rage and resentment in the person of Bhadrakali. In so doing, Caldwell preserves and in important ways, I believe, even enlarges the power differential between author and reader that authorizes her participant-observer projections onto her subjects. [Emphasis added]

No single form of the Goddess represents all of her forms, and any view of the Goddess is incomplete if it is not seen as a part of a wider and more comprehensive portrayal of her. Therefore, the Westernized over-emphasis on her sensational, sexual and violent aspects is reductionism of the worst kind.

Scholars often contend that their works are meant exclusively for fellow residents of the Ivory Tower and therefore have few real-world implications for ‘outsiders’. However, such works filter into school textbooks, popular culture, media and journalism, thus becoming the accepted lenses through which many aspects of Indian culture are viewed.

Many of these scholars have an interesting love-hate relationship with India. They appropriate the practices, symbols, vocabulary and awareness that may make them seem distinct in their own culture. The enhancement of the scholar’s status is often done at the devastating expense of India’s native culture, which nurtured them and gave them dignified lives in their own vulnerable years. This raises ethical and moral questions about whether the scholars provide full disclosure to, and obtain informed consent from, their Indian subjects and collaborators about the potential negative stereotyping of their cultures in America.

Psychoanalyzing Popular Hindu Culture

Scholars build upon each other’s work, and often expand the intended scope of such works. Thus, Caldwell supported Kripal’s work on Sri Ramakrishna, and adds another intriguing dimension. She interprets all complaints from Hindus about Kripal as signs of psychological disorders within the Hindu community, and she strongly recommends psychoanalyzing Hindu society to find out its pathologies. (For more on this, please read page 46 and 47, chapter 4)

The kind of theorizing described on pages 46 and 47 has deeply troubling implications. Academic exercises to psychoanalyze a public culture could serve as a cover for ‘ethnic profiling’ of the Indian-American diaspora, and be used to foster campaigns of hatred against Indians.

One has to note that Caldwell in the theorizing separates out the ‘personal domain as is common in Europe and America,’ and offers Euro-Americans individuality and agency; whereas, on the other hand, she denies Indians, and especially Hindus, that same individual agency. In contrast to her approach towards the ‘good white people’, whom she grants a personal domain, in the case of Indians she suggests psychoanalyzing their culture to expose the ‘distorted masculinity’ of Hindus, and the ‘confused sexuality’ of the Hindu male, as symptoms of abusive social orientations and dangerous nationalism. She culminates with a warning regarding today’s Indian/Hindu male threat—invoking tragedy, trauma and fear of the ‘other’.

By reversing the gaze, one can look at the source of this genre of scholarship as emanating from individuals who are in psychological need of a ‘Hindu Other’. Malhotra surmises that their inner-directed psychological and cultural conditioning drives them to the following allegations:

1. Sexual ‘madness’ in Hindu saints and in the Goddess is common and expected.

2. To hide this pathology from the West, Vivekananda (who was Ramakrishna’s ‘passive homosexual object’) had to repackage Hinduism into a ‘presentable’ masculine image.

3. The alleged sexual deviance and hyper-masculinity applies not only to particular Hindu individuals but also to the social culture of Hinduism in general.

4. Hence, there is urgency to study contemporary Hindu culture in a sexually explicit, psychopathological fashion. This approach is particularly ‘timely and essential’ because it enables US foreign policy the option to intervene against such ‘human rights abuses’ inherent in the ‘other’. This ties in well to the demented religious paranoia calls for fundamentalist Christian thought to drive US International Relations.

Hindus sometimes find the conclusions of psychoanalysis . . . offensive to their own self-perceptions and cultural understandings; given the psychoanalytical attempt to crack the codes of the social and intra-psychic censors and its explicit desire to reveal secrets and uncover hidden truths, it would be very surprising indeed if they reacted in any other way. In short, psychoanalysis is a method that expects to be rejected. Psychoanalysis, then, goes well beyond the anthropologist’s field study and the Sanskritist’s text and the historian of religions’ phenomenological study to answer questions that no interview, text, or phenomenological study is willing to ask, much less answer.

Thus Kripal paints his critics as being emotionally and intellectually incapable of self-reflection, thereby evading the real issues that they have raised. The primary reason Hindu intellectuals question psychoanalysis is not because they fear the codes it may crack, but because the basic building blocks and suppositions of psychoanalysis are incongruent with the foundational concepts of dharma. Aurobindo isn’t the only Indian intellectual who found psychoanalysis to be infantile. In The Analyst and the Mystic: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Religion and Mysticism, Sudhir Kakar reflected on the inapplicability of psychoanalysis in interpreting Hindu ethos, writing about ‘the existence of a deep gulf between psychoanalysis and the Indian mystical tradition’. (For more on what Sudhir Kakar states and how this explains Kripal’s statements, please read pages 49 and 50, chapter 4)

(Please read the poignant comic strips on pages 51 and 52, chapter 4)

Read the entire chapter from page 42 to 52

Pdf of the book is available for free download here.

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