Dr. Wendy Doniger’s On Hinduism is a sort of captstone on an epic career exploring Hindu literature, religion, and history.

In this conversation we discuss a number of themes from the book, including her own religious background, common misconceptions about Hinduism, the caste system, orientalism, the so-called “Hindu Trinity,” Hindu nationalism, a controversy in India over the charge that she committed blasphemy, goddess worship and its relationship to the status of women, non-violence, how Western cultures have influenced recent Hindu thought, and reincarnation.

To get new episodes subscribe to Thinking About Religion wherever you get your podcasts or by email.

• • Dr. Wendy Doniger @ The University of Chicago
  • On Hinduism
  • The Hindus: An Alternative History
  • To The Point: The controversy with Wendy Doniger’s book ‘The Hindus’
  • The Doniger Affair: Censorship, Self-Censorship, and the Role of the Academy in the Public Understanding of Religion
  • The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology
    
  • Other Peoples’ Myths: The Cave of Echoes
  • Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions
  • “Glossing Anti-Dharma with Dharma”
  • the problem of evil

• Hindu Philosophy
• pantheism
• the Hindu pantheon
• “Hinduism vs Hindutva”
• Maqbool Fida Husain
• Orientalism
• Ramayana televisions series
• a Ramayana plot summary
• Babri Masjid
• “On Counting Gods” (on defining the categories: atheism, polytheism, monotheism)
• This episode’s Thinking Music is “Xi” by Andy G. Cohen.