I do not believe that any cultural practice (i.e. a practice that has survived and been transmitted through successive generations) should be explained by attributing beliefs to its practitioners in…
Read more1. The first point is the difficulty involved in specifying what the “real meaning of an experience” consists of. Asking an insider would not help us here: the insider may…
Read more1. The general pattern that has come to the fore is that Wendy and her children (including Jeffrey Kripal) systematically portray the Indian traditions in an unfavorable light, even when…
Read more1. To begin with, there is the feeling that scientific explanations, with their emphasis on rationality and objectivity, are reductive in nature. Wherein lies the root of this feeling? Let…
Read moreSomeone, let’s say her name is Wendy Doniger, comes along and sniggers ‘when you worship the lingam, you worship a phallus’. I do not identify Wendy’s statement as an ‘ad…
Read moreBefore addressing this writing to Jeffrey Kripal, I would like to very clearly stipulate some of my basic stances so that the discussion does not get derailed into these issues.…
Read moreQuestion: “In the context of puja, does Shivalinga denote or connote anything other than Shiva, in particular “phallus”? A Wendy says “Yes”, a Balu says “No”. For some person, not…
Read more1. Let us begin with one of the minimal conditions for inter-cultural (verbal) communication. And that is: people should be able to have conversations with each other. It is legitimate…
Read more1.1. The inherent logic of such an enterprise forces one, as it were, to build alternate theories to the existing, ‘western’ theories. Instead of explaining this statement in the abstract,…
Read moreI would like you to consider the following four kinds of answers, each pitched at a different level of generality and at a different level of description. One could provide…
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