The Battle for Sanskrit: Is Sanskrit Political or Sacred, Oppressive or Liberating, Dead or Alive?

603 Pages·2016·2.42 MB·English

by  Rajiv Malhotra

THE BATTLE FOR
SANSKRIT
Is Sanskrit political or sacred, oppressive or liberating,
dead or alive?
Rajiv Malhotra
HarperCollins Publishers India
Dedicated to our purva-paksha and uttara-paksha debating tradition.
With gratitude to the purva-pakshins (opponents) I have learned from.
May we engage in this intellectual yajna with mutual respect.

Contents
Introduction: The Story Behind the Book
Meeting with the US-based Sringeri leader and one of the major donors
Meeting with Sheldon Pollock
Trip to Sringeri Sharada Peetham
Who will control our traditions?
What is at stake?
Assault on Sanskrit goes mainstream
1. The Hijacking of Sanskrit and Sanskriti
Why this book matters?
Highlighting the disputes between the two intellectual camps
Where is the home team?
Offering my humble attempts
2. From European Orientalism to American Orientalism
Origins of Orientalism
The rise of European Orientalism
Sir William Jones, the European Orientalist
The American frontier
The rise of American Orientalism
Comparing European Orientalism and American Orientalism
Impact of American Orientalism on the study of Sanskrit
Introducing Sheldon Pollock: Pandit from America
Comparing two pioneering Orientalists: Sir William Jones and Sheldon
Pollock
3. The Obsession with Secularizing Sanskrit
Integral unity of Hindu metaphysics
Discarding the transcendent/sacred aspects of Sanskrit
Sidelining the oral tradition
Accusing yajnas of being linked to social hierarchy
Rejecting the shastras as Vedic dogma
Using Buddhism as a wedge for secularizing Sanskrit
Disconnecting kavya from Vedas and shastras
4. Sanskrit Considered a Source of Oppression
The crisis of Indology and a novel solution
Exposing Sanskrit’s ‘poisons’
Response: Debating varna
Blaming Sanskrit for European atrocities
Pollock’s call to action to politicize Sanskrit studies
5. Ramayana Framed as Socially Irresponsible
Pollock’s view of Ramayana as a project for propagating Vedic social
oppression
The divinization construct
The demonization construct
Sociological criticism of the Ramayana
Claiming Ramayana was popularized to demonize Muslims since the
eleventh century
Ramayana considered secular
Claiming Valmiki Ramayana came after Buddhist influence
Summary: Ramayana interpreted as atrocity literature
Ramayana-based political action plan of intervening in Indian politics
6. Politicizing Indian Literature
A dramatic break from earlier Orientalism
Sacredness removed from rasa and kavya
The theory of the aestheticization of power
Kavya characterized as primarily political
7. Politicizing the History of Sanskrit and the Vernaculars
Overview of Pollock’s account of history of how power shaped languages
Introducing the ‘Sanskrit Cosmopolis’ and sidelining sanskriti
Grammar as a form of political power
The role of itihasas in spreading the Sanskrit cosmopolis
Summary of issues with the grammar-itihasa- power theory
The rise of the vernaculars
What led so many kings to vernacularize?
Claiming parallels between European and Indian vernacularization
8. The Sanskriti Web as an Alternative Hypothesis
Diglossia versus hyperglossia models
Approaches suggested by T.S. Satyanath
Integral unity, open architecture and sanskriti web
9. Declaring Sanskrit Dead and Sanskriti Non-existent
Agenda in declaring the death of Sanskrit
Claiming Sanskrit has been dead for many centuries
Claiming Hindu kings killed Sanskrit, and Muslim rulers tried to save it
Accusing other Indian languages of killing Sanskrit
Sparing British colonialism and Nehruvianism
Silence on the extraction and digestion of Sanskrit shastras into the West
Chamu Krishna Shastry responds on behalf of the tradition
Western academic critiques of Pollock
The history of attempts to ‘kill’ Sanskrit
Rejecting Indian civilization and Indian nation
10. Is Sheldon Pollock Too Big to Be Criticized?
Two goals
The academic ecosystem
The hegemonic discourse goes mainstream
Third-party echoes: Pollock’s ideas go viral
The re-colonization of Indian minds
The Murty Classical Library of India
The rise of the American-English cosmopolis
Reversing the gaze: Interpreting Pollock using his own concepts
11. Conclusion: The Way Forward
The Sanskrit ecosystem must be revived in a holistic way
Non-translatable Sanskrit terms must enter the mainstream
Shastras must be seen as a platform for innovation
New itihasas and smritis must be written
‘Sacred philology’ must compete against political/liberation philology
The purva-paksha tradition must be revived
Well-qualified home team and institutions must be developed
Defining the hard work that is needed
Appendix A: Pollock’s Theory of Buddhist Undermining of the Vedas
Appendix B: Ramayana Evidence Prior to the Turkish Invasion
Appendix C: Pollock’s Political Activism
Appendix D: Acknowledgements
Appendix E: Editorial Policies Adopted
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Book
About the Author
Praise for The Battle for Sanskrit
Copyright
Introduction:
The Story Behind the Book
There is a new awakening in India that is challenging the ongoing
westernization of the discourse about India and the intellectual machinery
that produces it. Serious readers, regardless of their ideological affiliations,
would benefit from open and honest discussions between experts on opposite
sides. Rather than having two separate monologues, it is better to bring together
both sides of such encounters into dignified conversations with mutual respect.
However, any such conversation requires each side to be well informed about
the other. Unfortunately, this is often not the case today on several key topics.
Although the westernized side has systematically studied the traditional
Indian side’s texts and practices, the reverse has not been the case: traditional
Indian experts using their own categories and frameworks have not adequately
studied the scholarship being produced by Western and westernized Indian
scholars. My work is a humble attempt to fill this knowledge gap in the
traditional camp. In each book, I take up a specific important topic with the hope
of informing the traditional scholars so they can participate in the discourse as
equals.
This book seeks to wake up traditional scholars of Sanskrit and sanskriti
(Indian civilization) concerning an important school of thought that has its base
in the US and has started to dominate the discourse on the cultural, social and
political aspects of India. This academic field is called Indology or Sanskrit