"Bagger Vance" & Doniger on the Gita

[Prasad Velusamy]

A friend forwarded this. Has Wendy O'Flaherty written
a paper on the myths of Gita and "Bagger Vance"?

Appreciations for giving the URL for the Phil. Inquirer piece.

Thanks.

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One of my students brought me a newspaper article from the
Philadelphia Inquirer (11/19/00) entitled "Big-screen Caddy is a
Hindu Hero in Disguise." It contends, among other things, that the
current movie "The Legend of Bagger Vance" is based on the Bhagavad
Gita. The character "Bagger Vance," whose name is a pun
on "Bhagavan," is based on Krishna and the character Rannulph Junuh
(played by Matt Damon) is Arjuna. The movie is set in the post-WWI
American south and centers on an epic golf match.

The article discusses the Gita at length and relates that Drexel
University in Philadelphia recently sponsored an interdisciplinary
course on the Gita. Wendy Doniger of the U. of Chicago was among
the "high-profile" lecturers. Here is the newpaper's report of her
lecture:

"The Bhagavad Gita is not as nice a book as some Americans think,"
she said, in a lecture titled "The Complicity of God in the
Destruction of the Human Race."
Throughout the Mahabharata, the enormous epic of which the Gita is a
small part, Krishna goads human beings into all sorts of murderous
and self-destructive behaviors such as war in order to
relieve "mother Earth" of its burdensome human population and the
many demons disguised as humans.

"The Gita is a dishonest book; it justifies war," Doniger told the
audience of 150, and later acknowledged: "I'm a pacifist. I don't
believe in 'good' wars."
Several in the sudience objected to her reading of the Gita, but she
tendered no apologies and "begged" her listeners to plunge deeper into
the Upanishads and other great literature of Hinduism.
"Reading the Bhagavad Gita without reading the Mahabharata is like
reading the Sermon on the Mount," she said, "without knowing about
the Crucifixion."

Personally, I find Doniger's reading of the Gita appalling, insulting
and blatantly anti-Hindu. I'm saddened that Drexel Univ. chose her
to speak on the Gita, apparently without rebuttal except from a few
audience members. I'm also distressed that her views are reported
without a counter-opinion in a major US newspaper. Imagine what
Americans think of the Gita after reading this. What can be done
about this injustice?

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