Volume 56, Number 18 · November 19, 2009
A Passion for Hindu Myths
By David Shulman
The Hindus: An Alternative History
by Wendy Doniger
Penguin, 779 pp., $35.00
Sometime in the second or third decade of the eleventh century, the astronomer, geographer, and historian Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni went to India. He was not a casual visitor. He came along with the army of his patron, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni (in present-day Afghanistan), who seems to have kept close watch over his learned protégé, the greatest luminary of his court. Sultan Mahmud raided northern India nearly every year during those decades and, following the standard practice of his times, left much devastation in his wake. Among other things, he is remembered for having, in 1026, plundered (but not destroyed) the great Hindu temple of Somanatha, on the Gujarat coast. As Wendy Doniger points out in The Hindus, the story of this violent act was endlessly recycled and embellished, from contrary perspectives, in medieval Muslim and Hindu sources and lives on in communal polemics between Hindus and Muslims in Indian politics today.
Review, 3822 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |