Book Review
The Battle for Sanskrit
Dt: 6/6/16
Book Review
The Battle for Sanskrit
By
Rajiv Malhotra
of Infinity Foundation
Publisher: Harper Collins
Year of publication: 2016 March
380 pages of text; 24 pages of appendices; 51 pages of notes;
9 pages bibliography; 4 pages of index, a total of 468 pages in addition to 6 pages of appreciation from 15 eminent scholars from across the globe
Price: Rs. 699
Dr T.H.Chowdary*
Sanatana Dharma, popularly known as Hinduism is under intense attack from within India and more pointedly and poisonously from ostensibly well known Sanskrit scholars based in certain prestigious American Universities, farming an American Indology group as distinct from the European indology scholarship. It is spearheaded by the American orientalist Prof. Sheldon Pollock of Columbia University. There is an unspoken but very well discernible link between evangelical Christian missionaries and their foot soldiers and sappers and miners in the form of numerous NGOs in India, all exerting to show that Hinduism is inherently non-respective of who are called Dalits (SCs, STs) and BCs in India. Their effort is to show that Vedas and every classical Sanskrit literature aim at providing the intellectual ammunition for the hegemony of Brahmins in Hindu society. The American Indology holds that oppression of Shudras and Dalits and the STs is all justified in every Sanskrit literature . To many unsuspecting Indians who are unfamiliar with our Sanskrit literature and the fundamentals of our dharma; American scholars appear to be Sanskrit lovers . In reality, American Indology of Sheldon variety is to show Sanskrit as the real villain for every evil in the Hindu society. When Sri Rajiv Malhotra was expressing this view in his conversation with Pollock, the latter stated, “I am an Indo-file”. Rajiv Malhotra’s repartee was, Americans who are Islam-phobes are scholars in Arabic, more scholarly than any Arab intellectual . The Pollock type of American indology experts are Hindu-phobes, asserts Sri Rajiv Malhotra.
2. Sri Rajiv Malhotra is a great scholar and more than that, he is a great polemicist and a spirited exponent of the correct and profound content of dharma as the only one which conduces to loka sangraha that is, the preservation of harmony among people and between peoples and entire nature. Sri Rajiv Malhotra was appalled by the extent of internationally connecting onslaught of Christian missionaries on Hinduism . Huge amounts of money and scholarly effort are involved in this war. A number of Indians of the Marxist faith and the rising militant dalits who are converts to Christianity ( but hide that fact for government records to avail of the privileges and benefits and special rights that the Indian constitution provides for them as part of the proactive measures to wipe out the centuries old discrimination against them) are stanchions to this flock of Pollackian Indologists.
3. Prof. Pollock and a few others go to the absurd extent of asserting that Ramayana was not at all popular in India among the masses until the Islamic invasions. The Brahmin class in India brought up Ramayana into popular knowledge to arouse Hindu resistance to Islamic invasion. They go to the further absurd extent of saying that Muslim rulers promoted Sanskrit and it was the rise of local languages that has led to what they assert, as the decline and death of Sanskrit.
4. Innocent Indians who have made pots of money in the recent decades are fascinated without due diligence, by the apparently positive love of Pollockian American Indologists like Sheldon, are giving millions of dollars as endowments to support further scholarship of Sanskrit in some American universities. Rajiv Malhotra is appalled at the lack of awareness in India in regard to this conspiratorial activity against Hinduism. The conspirators think that if Sanskrit is presented as the vehicle for enslavement of Indian people by Brahmins, then its revival will not take place. In fact, they hold that the Government of India is wasting its money to revive Sanskrit.
5. Sri Rajiv Malhotra came to know that endorsement for the work of American Indologists has come from no less an institution than Sringeri Mutt . Sri Rajiv Malhotra was shocked to find that some admin staff in Srigenri Mutt were also taken in by Pollockians. Sri Rajiv Malhotra, through the good offices of a good Indian lady in Chicago, was able to meet the Sringeri Shankaracharya without the knowledge of his admin staff and put him wise as to how so great an institution established by Aadi Shankara is endorsing Indians’ creation of or support to endowments for Hinduisms’ scholarly enemies in America. He went to Sringeri and met with the Acharya and put him wise but he was sad that he did not get any assertive and decisive response for stopping this Sringeri Mutt’s reported endorsement of Indians creating endowments for their enemies.
6. This book, “The Battle for Sanskrit” is a passionate call to Hindu intellectuals to take note of this international conspiracy on behalf of proselytising Christianity for the destruction of Hindu dharma. It is unfortunate that many Hindu scholars do not do the Poorvapaksha that is, study of the literature of its mortal enemies. That is why some of them innocently but totally foolishly say that all religions teach the same thing, not realising that if it were so, why there should be any enterprise to harvest Hindus for Christianity or for Islam.
7. Sri Sitaram Goel and Ram Swaroop (both ex-Communists like me) had done some excellent Poorva Paksha; their works are brought out by the Voice of India, Darya Ganj, Delhi. So did Sri Arun Shourie in regard to Christianity and Islam. But these are prior to the emergence of Pollockian American Indology with its sinister aim of profaning the very sources of Sanatan Dharma – the vast Sanskrit literature.
8. It is necessary that Hindu intellectuals read this book, “The Battle for Sanskrit” as well as the works of Sitaram Goel and Ram Swaroop, to begin with, for joining the battle against the mendacious American Indology represented by its most talented Sanskrit scholars Sheldon Pollock. Sri Rajiv Malhotra has been trying to awaken Hindus to the peril that hey are subjected to by an international gang of Sanskrit scholar abetted by the harvesters of Hindus for Christ in the third millennium . Malhotra’s other books, “Indra’s Chariot”, “Breaking India “ and “Being Different” are all works of great intellectual stimulation and all these are calls for the slothful Indian “scholars” to do Poorva Paksha and Uttara Paksha. (1,012 words)
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