Hinduism : Past and Present

Rating:
Summary: An Orientalist View of Hinduism
Review: Michaels starts with the right questions, but he is unable to shake off the distorting glasses of Orientalist Western scholarship that has dealt with Hinduism either as history of conflict between race and caste or as magic and mysticism. The harder Michaels tries, the more confused his writing becomes. This is typical of writers who know India from books and whose experience with life within the Hindu tradition is very superficial; a year in an Indian city as a student simply does not provide the understanding that is required. As things stand, he simply repeates Orientalist prejudices.

Michaels' analysis of the difference between Vedism and "mainstream Hinduism" is not even correct, showing his lack of insight into both. It is curious that he defines Hinduism as three different religions, insisting that is different from other religions. How about the variety of Christian religions: Catholic, Mormon (with its own book), Charismatic (the ones that get bitten by snakes and speak in tongues), and the many different Protestant Churches? Or Islam with its Sunni, Shi'a, Ismaili, Wahhabi, Sufi, and other sects? If Michaels is trying to show how Hinduism is different sociologically from other religions, he has failed. He should have asked the question: In what sense is obtaining knowledge in Hinduism different from that in other religions? He would have then found the answers to the basic questions posited in the beginning of the book.