‘The Hindus’ is an engrossing narrative

Spicezee Bureau

New Delhi: An engrossing and definitive narrative, ‘The Hindus’ by Wendy Doniger, offers a new way of understanding one of the world’s oldest religions - Hinduism. The book elucidates the relationship between recorded history and imaginary worlds.
Published by Penguin, ‘The Hindus’ is a vivid re-interpretation of Hinduism! Hinduism does not lend itself easily to a strictly chronological account: many of its central texts cannot be reliably dated even within a century; its central tenets karma, dharma, to name just two – arise at a particular moments in Indian history and differ in each era, between genders, and caste to caste; and what is shared among Hindus is overwhelmingly outnumbered by the things that are unique to one group or another.

Yet in the greatness of Hinduism- its vitality, its earthiness, its vividness-lies precisely in many of those idiosyncratic qualities that continue to inspire debate today.

Wendy Doniger is one of the foremost scholars of Hinduism in the world. With her inimitable insight and expertise Doniger illuminates those moments within the tradition that resist forces that would standardize or establish a cannon. Without reversing or misinterpreting the historical hierarchies, she reveals how Sanskrit and vernacular sources are rich in knowledge of and compassion towards women and lower castes; how they debate tensions surrounding religion, violence and tolerance; and how animals are the key to important shifts in attitudes toward different social classes.