Nationalisms

[George Thompson]

In a message dated 8/8/00 6:42:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
raja at IFA.HAWAII.EDU writes [among other things]:

>  BTW,
>  "naive" Indians are hard to find.

Well, I think that Indians who buy horses from Rajaram are naive, at best.
And it appears that there are a number of them on this list [and, to be sure,
not just Indians].

BTW, again, how many Indians and non-Indians have read the review article by
Frits Staal of the two most recent volumes of the Harvard Oriental Opera
Minora Series [the first "Inside the Texts/Beyond the Texts: New Approaches
to the Study of the Vedas", Proceedings of the Intl Vedic Workshop, edited by
M. Witzel; the second "Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence,
Interpretation and Ideology", Proceedings of the Intl Seminar on Aryan and
Non-Aryan in South Asia, edited by J. Bronkhorst and M. Deshpande]?

which review is entitled "A Breakthrough in Vedic Studies" and published in
"The Book Review", published in New Delhi [vol 24, nos. 1-2, Jan.--Feb.
2000]?

So it appears that it is not impossible for the contemporary Indian to become
well-informed about recent scholarship in Vedic, if he or she is so inclined.
 But the 'millions' who read Rajaram will perhaps take more pleasure in
Rajaram's horses than in genuine scholarship?

Well, whose fault is it if they do?

George Thompson