A Review Essay

By Krishna Kirti Das

On 21^st May 1991, an LTTE suicide bomber assassinated Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. On 23^rd August 2008, 30 – 40 Maoist guerillas assassinated Swami Laxmananda Saraswati, who was renowned throughout the state of Orissa, India, for his social welfare work. Maoist leaders said they decided to kill him because he was spreading “social unrest” and converting tribals to Hinduism. Not long after, on 26^th November 2008, 10 attackers associated with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba killed 166 people in Mumbai. What do these events have in common?

A gurukula is a traditional school that is run by an acharya, a brahmana who teaches young boys both primary educational topics and moral behavior. Gurukula literally means the “house of the guru.” From the age of five, boys who have been accepted as students by the acharya go away from their own families to live in his ashram as members of his own family until they have completed their studies.

This article and accompanying slide presentation is from a presentation delivered at the Hindu Mandir Executives Conference, 2009, held in Linthicum, Maryland, USA. The presentation describes the issue of the Hindu-American community's high out-of-group marriage rate, explores the impact two different conceptions of religion ("universalist" and "multiculturalist") has on marriage, and explores what these different approaches imply for future generations of Hindu-Americans.

by Krishna Kirti Das

Abstract: Using a comparative religious approach, this essay examines four areas related to conversion: the theology of conversion, welfare work as it relates to conversion, the impact of demographics on conversion, and the relationship between politics and conversion. This essay also examines the emerging conditions on both sides of the conflict that could make either Christianity or Hinduism the decisive, long-term victor. As compared with Hindu doctrine and belief, Christian doctrine and belief presently encourages religious, social, and political behavior that is better suited to the survival and propagation of Christianity. Each of the four parts of this essay will attempt to explain from the perspectives of theology, social welfare, demographics, and politics why Christianity has the upper hand in this conflict and what Hindus will most likely have to do to counteract the progression of Christianity.

By Krishna Kirti Das and Gaura Keshava Das.

Abstract: The recent book Invading the Sacred (Ramaswamy, de Nicolas, Banerjee 2007) presents a collection of essays that highlights anti-Hindu bias in the scholarship of Western academics associated with the American Academy of Religions (AAR) and its branch known as RISA (Religions in South Asia). Invading the Sacred documents well the excesses of a number of well-known American Indologists. Willfully mistranslated passages, shoddy scholarship, and anti-Hindu bias are similarly documented. This review itself not only highlights key sections and points in the book, it also critiques some of the ideas presented therein and offers alternative approaches to the problems highlighted by the book's contributors. This review also focuses on the book's significance as a new milestone in how Hindus explain Hinduism to outsiders and the new direction Hindus are taking in understanding themselves as Hindus.

Languages: English, Hindi.

(The original book can be found at http://invadingthesacred.com)