Assessments
MT
Bronkhorst while situated in the Germanic strain of white indology actually distills the deep and pernicious evil that is typical of the American school of white indology…. Essentially, he has written a whole book cloaked in indologese as bhAShya of their mUlasUtra-s “Hindu as idiots”; “Evil v1s are the cause” … While many conveniently flog the German school, few dare to take on the American school for its roots pose an existential threat to the H by mobilizing the forces that have now coalesced as the new प्रच्छन्नम् एकराक्षसमतम् in the occident. The german school is a dead horse the American one is a living killer.
…it is not that certain indologists of the A’sphere like Goldman or Pollock do not understand or do not get the sophistication of medieval H. This is unlike some like Bronkhorst who mostly work along the “Hindoos as idiots” model.
Excerpts
Recording here some excerpts from Johannes Bronkhorst for future reference, gathered from Twitter posts by others.
How Brahmins won?
From his tome of over 400 pages: “How the Brahmins Won: From Alexander to the Guptas” he attempts to answer the key question of his book: How did the Brāhmaṇas manage to (allegedly) convince people of their superiority and that of their rites? (Answer turns out to be comical from our perspective)
Pg 408: Why should a ruler wish to obtain the kind of merit that Brahmanism promises? They may have hoped for a good afterlife, to be sure. But clearly they had to believe first that gifts to Brahmins were the way to attain this. As usual with claims about the afterlife, there was no way to verify them. We may assume that rulers also expected more visible results from their largesse, such as magical protection for their kingdom and kingship. But even such practical expectations were built, and had to be built, on a reputation that preceded the Brahmins. Somehow it should be known that the presence and support of Brahmins was good for a kingdom before a ruler would get involved with them.
How did Brahmins succeed in building such a reputation for themselves? The details of this process will probably forever remain hidden from us. We may surmise that pure chance played a role, followed, after initial successes, by a snowball effect.
Nazi Brahmins
Note footnotes for the below:
It is not possible, nor indeed necessary, to discuss at present this interesting position, which emphasizes once again the Brahmanical distaste for city life and the identification of Vedic life with the village and its surroundings.10 A consequence of this distaste might be that the Vedic texts would largely ignore cities and towns, even if, and when, they were there.11 This, if true, makes it very difficult to conclude anything certain from the silence of these texts. Some may have been composed when there were no cities and towns, but others may not. In any case we would see no difference, for both kinds of texts would not mention cities and towns.
- 10 Virkus (2004: 27, 30), referring to further literature, points out that the urban decay under the Guptas may have been confined to the higher and middle reaches of the Ganges valley.
- 11 It is hard to resist the temptation of a comparison with the Third Reich. Among the hundreds of paintings brought together in the House of German Art in Munich, opened by Hitler in 1937, not a single canvas depicted urban and industrial life (Watson, 2004: 311-312).
Indologist mission
Indologist self image as missionaries out to shove some “Enlightenment” ideals down peoples’ throats (the mission requires its savages):
We are not, or not primarily, entertainers. We have a far more important role to play, viz., to defend the Enlightenment values that we consider vital for the society we live in. This does not mean that we, or all of us, should become politically active, we do not all have to play the hero, like Witzel. (I think this word is not misplaced here; Witzel writes to me that his troubles have been numerous and continue: court cases, slander in the press, etc.)
“…and the world’s universities, both in general terms and, more specifically, their failure to teach humanity about the historical origins and true character of the ‘modern’ideas of democracy, equality, individual freedom, full toleration, liberty of expression, anticolonialism, and our universalist secular morality based on equity.”
Here lies our task, and here lies the future of indology.
Us vs Them view
They’re very clear about “us vs them”, their vision of the ideal future vs ours.
And it is not hard to imagine what these ideologically coloured visions of the past would sooner or later lead to: conflict and a form of society which is the very opposite of the society we wish to live in.
H don’t own their texts
Finders keepers - once you grab the text, you can do lots with it!
This attitude is a betrayal of those to whom we owe it that toleration and mutual respect play a role in the modern world at all. Our Enlightenment predecessors did not hesitate one second to criticize tradition, any tradition. Indeed, this is precisely what they were primarily known, criticized and admired for. There are no ancient texts that belong” in any essential sense to the tradition that identifies with it. The Mahabharata “belongs” as little to modern Hindus as the Bible “belongs” to modern Christians. Historical scholarship cannot be steered by modern groups that have appropriated the texts they are studying
Against tradition
Ok, v1-s, know what such people think of your tradition (behind your backs)? That you’re incapable of historical scholarship, stupid people that you are.
Religions and nationalisms of all kind come with a vision of their past. Indeed, the very word tradition implies that its adherents believe they know something about their shared past, for traditions claim to keep an earlier state of affairs alive. Traditions whether religious corporate or national, including in the Indian context, traditions relating to castes are by their very nature the enemies of historical scholarship. All is fine as long as historians reveal a past that corresponds to the claims of the traditionalists. Sooner or later they will come up with features that do not fit. At that point the romance will be over
H as Violent historical revisionists
What comparison! Very revealing. These people are the arbiters of truth. And the CA textbook fight was “less violent” - psst - not non-violent or civil.
It is hardly necessary to give examples. We all know that the most extreme opponents in Europe of the values we cherish give themselves an identity through their historical claim that the Nazi holocaust never took place: they are the holocaust-deniers, well known to all of us. An example closer to our professional field of interest is the historical claim about a Muslim mosque in Ayodhya, presumably built on the place of a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Rama, in 1528 CE. This historical claim has so far led to hundreds of deaths, and has had profound political consequences. Less violent, but potentially equally dangerous, is the recent attempt by certain fundamentalist Hindus in the United States to have textbooks in California changed so as to agree with their vision of India’s past. This last example is particularly interesting because the attempt failed in part because of the efforts to block it by the Harvard professor of indology, Michael Witzel.
Beggar brAhmaNas
Here Bronkhorst goes absolutely Bonkers -
Brahmanism: Its place in ancient Indian society
Johannes BronkhorstThis article shows how Brahmanism was a regional tradition, confined to the northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent, that passed through a difficult period—which it barely survived—roughly between the time of Alexander and the beginning of the Common Era. It then reinvented itself, in a different shape. No longer primarily a sacrificial tradition, it became a mainly socio-political ideology that borrowed much (including the belief in rebirth and karmic retribution) from the eastern region in which Buddhism and Jainism had arisen. Its revival went hand in hand with the elaboration of behavioural and theoretical innovations, one of whose purposes was to justify the claimed superiority of Brahmins.