[INDOLOGY] Tagore, Aurobindo, and Malhotra

[Howard Resnick]

Ironically, when Malhotra argues that a non-believer, or non-practitioner, is unqualified to analyze a religious or spiritual tradition, many on this list respond with an almost vicious attack on him. Yet when someone on the List claims that a spiritual practioner, and advocate, cannot be a good academic scholar, apriori, this apparently is acceptable.

If this is indeed the case, I will respectfully withdraw from the List.

Best,
Howard

> On Jul 28, 2015, at 12:51 AM, Robert Zydenbos <zydenbos at uni-muenchen.de> wrote:
> 
> Howard Resnick wrote:
> 
>> [...]
>> Unfortunately, you got the Indianzing backward. Here is my quote from
>> the article you sent us:
>> 
>> “We were trying to do something which could not be done, and that is
>> trying to Indian-ize the world in the name of Krishna,” Resnick said. 
> 
> My impression is that you are still trying to Indianize, but partially;
> not so much in externalities, but in thought, Weltanschauung. Otherwise
> there would be no point in your Krishna West.
> 
> And here I want to point out what can be read in one of the comments to
> that online article:
> 
> "This kind of "Hindu evangelism" is what scholar-practitioner Rajiv
> Malhotra refers to as a "U-Turn." These people benefit enormously from
> Hinduism and basically proceed to turn their backs on it while they go
> mainstream. They should be exposed for the frauds that they are."
> 
> I only know this from this online comment by a person I do not know, and
> I have no idea just where and how Malhotra has stated that people like
> you are 'frauds'. (But I think we recognize the style.) If this is
> correct, then it looks like he wants to 'take back' Hare Krishna too.
> (So better take care.)
> 
>> [...] My concern with
>> meta-epistemological issues as they manifest in insider and outsider
>> perspectives, and subsequently impact Indology, and the general study of
>> sacred traditions, is not really ‘nit-picking.’
> 
> Sorry, I think we have a little misunderstanding here. My remark about
> 'nit-picking' referred to your reaction to Dominik in the thread, which
> I left quoted at the bottom of my post. But I see that Dominik himself
> already responded in the same spirit.
> 
>> All the best,
> 
> RZ
> 
> 
> -- 
> Prof. Dr. Robert J. Zydenbos
> Institut für Indologie und Tibetologie
> Department für Asienstudien
> Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU)
>