Chapter: # 14, 15 & 17 of The Hindus, an Alternative History by Wendy Doniger

Transcription

1 Chapter: # 14, 15 & 17 of The Hindus, an Alternative History by Wendy Doniger Chapter 14 Title: Goddesses and Gods in the Early Puranas Chapter 15 Title: Sects and Sex in the Tantric Puranas and the Tantras 600 to 900 CE. Chapter 17 Title: Avataras and Accidental Grace in the Later Puranas CE. CONTENTS: 1. Introduction The Mithya Puranam of Wendy Doniger Some Errors in Chapter 14, 15 and Introduction: The Mithya Puranam (Fake Purana) of Wendy Doniger Wendy Doniger devotes 3 chapters in the book to the Puranas: 14, 15 and 17. The intervening chapter 16 is idiosyncratically devoted to the Sultanate period as if the Puranas covered in chapter 17 postdate the early decades of the 16 th century. Chapter 15 deals primarily with the Tantras and the Shaakta Puranas. On the other hand, chapters 14 and 17 are thematically linked better to each other. Doniger classifies the Puranas as early and later. In the Early category are included the Harivamsha, Vishnu, Matsya, Markandeya, Vayu, Brahmanda, Kurma, Skanda, Vamana, Varaha, Shiva and Padma Puranas which are dated by her to have been written from CE. In the later category are included the Puranas Agni, Bhagavata, Bhavisya, Brahma, Brahmavaivarta, Devibhagavata, Garuda, Kalika, Mahabhagavata, Saura, Linga these are collectively dated to have been composed between CE. It is unclear why some Upapuranas are included in her lists while other ancient ones (Narasimha, Vishnudharmottara, Vahni etc.) are omitted. The possible reason, as we will show below, is that some of her speculations fall flat when these ignored Puranas are considered! 1 1 Even though the Vahni Purana was published only recently (in 2012), R C Hazra has summarized his comments decades earlier. 1

2 Much like rest of the book, Doniger s treatment of the Puranas and the supposed historical periods in which they lie are riddled with flaws. She presents an oversexed and a colonial attitude while treating these scriptures, and errs on facts as well as interpretations. There is no distinction between the facts and fantasies presented by her because her fantasies (not even interpretations) are often given as facts. It would appear that the Hindus are not capable of developing any tradition on their own without external stimuli. Thus, Doniger, speculates that the form of the Kalki Avatara might be influenced by Christian apocalyptic writings, that the very notion of Avataras might be inspired by Jainism, or that even the Radha Krishna loves story in Gitagovinda have something to do with the influences of Sufi romances! It is sad to note that extremely shoddy writings like Doniger s book passes as scholarship in Hinduism studies. I have deliberately kept this review short although the chapters are long, focusing more on factual errors bearing on history rather than on interpretations of the Hindu scriptures. 2. Some Errors in Chapter 12: Some examples of errors in this chapter are listed below with comments # Page # 2 Para # on the page Statement in the book Comments The Gupta dynasty reigns from Pataliputra Inaccurate statement. The dynasty ruled from various capitals including Pataliputra and Ujjaini The Huns attack North India The Huns kept attaching India well into the 6 th century. A simple google check even will confirm that sqq. It is a general perversity of Indian history that its greatest architectural monuments both the great temple clusters and the great palaces and forts were created not in the centers of power like Pataliputra but in relatively remote provinces, and this is certainly true of the Gupta Age. 14 Keay, India, xx Or perhaps, there is a simpler explanation. The primary centers of Hindu Buddhist India were prominent and repeated targets for destruction by invaders, whereas the remote locations escaped. There is no dearth of medieval Muslim chronicles that gleefully describe the complete destruction of prominent cities, palaces and shrines of India. These cities include Varanasi, Thanesar, Multan, Kurukshetra, Mathura, Kannauj, Ujjain, Anhilwara Patan etc etc. And that is the reason why the surviving few monuments from ancient India are merely remnants of a vast architectural and artistic heritage that was largely destroyed Quoting the Marxist historian Romila Thapar who along with her fellow comrades tend to downgrade the Gupta period in order to fight Hindu This view of Marxist historians has come in for severe criticism. A historian summarizes the archaeological record, which actually refutes the contention of these Marxists.it is hard to believe that the

3 communalism, Doniger says, The description of the Gupta period as one of classicism is relatively correct regarding the upper classes, who lived well according to descriptions in their literature and representations in their art. The more accurate, literal evidence that comes from archaeology suggests a less glowing lifestyle for the majority. Materially, excavated sites reveal that the average standard of living was higher in the preceding period Thapar, Early India, 281 period in which a great empire was built, imposing temples were erected, exquisite sculptures were carved, magnificent murals were painted, sophisticated literature was produced and notable scientific progress was made, and hence was called the Golden Age, was an age of decline and degeneration if the archaeological evidence is any indication. The age which can be compared with the Periclean in Greece has been branded as an era of decay [by the Marxist historians]. To answer the natural question how could this happen?, Dhavalikar suggests that we should distinguish between the early Gupta ( AD) and the late Gupta ( AD) phases; the latter is doubtless marked by degeneration but not the former. Fa Hien ( AD) who travelled mostly in north India, found the people numerous and happy. The gold coins of the Guptas indicate that the country was at the pinnacle of prosperity under Chandragupta II ( AD), and Kumaragupta maintained the empire intact but towards the end of Skandagupta s reign ( AD), decline set in. His gold coins, weighing grains, betray debasement as the gold content is reduced to 70 grains and later still to 54 gains in the coins of Narasimhagupta and Kumaragupta II. This was in all probability due to the Huna invasion which devastated many parts of the empire. A large scale destruction of the cities and religious edifices was caused by the Hunas as recorded by Hieun Tsang. The decline begins in the latter half of the fifth century. Could it be that what we call Kushana levels in archaeology also cover the early Gupta and can be extended upto 450 AD? At most of the sites, the dating has been done on the basis of Kushana coins, some pottery forms and terracottas. So far as coins are concerned, they were current even later for a couple of centuries. The same is the case of that graceful pottery known as Red Polished ware which was in use from the 1 st to the 6 th century AD. As regards the evidence of Kushana bricks, Dhavalikar points out that all the buildings, religious and secular, which stood in the Kushana and the early Gupta 3

4 towns, were razed to ground by the Hunas, and when rehabilitation began in the late Gupta times, which was marked by economic misery, there was no alternative but to build structures from the debris of the earlier ones. This happened everywhere in the Indo Gangetic plains and in Central India which was Gupta territory. Beyond that in the lower Ganga basin, the Gupta and post Gupta habitations were in a somewhat better state One goddess who has played an important role in the lives of real women is Sati, the wife of Shiva, who is occasionally implicated in justifications for the custom of widows themselves on their husbands pyres, called suttee. It is wrong to claim the episode of Daksha and Sati is used as the basis of the later custom of women immolating on their husband s pyre. Doniger does not provide any basis for her claim except that Sati sounds the same as suttee (a colonial spelling, the two words being spelled and pronounced identically in Indian languages contrary to what Doniger seems to indicate) sqq. Sati is not a sati (a woman who commits suttee). Her husband is not dead; indeed, by definition, he can never die. But she dies, usually by fire, and those two textual facts are sometimes taken up as the basis for suttee in later Hindu practice Several early Puranas too tell the story of Daksha and Rudra/Shiva without mentioning any wife of Shiva s, or mention her just in passing. Again, an inaccurate statement. Several early Puranas do narrate the story in detail and do not mention Sati just cursorily. For example, see: Vayu Purana, chapter 30 Matsya Purana, chapter 5 Shiva Purana, Vayaviya Samhita chapter 18 Shiva Purana, Rudra Samhita chapters The Kurma Purana too gives some details but its plot is different from that of other Puranas. The inaccuracy of Doniger s claim can be verified by reading the relevant scholarly literature on this topic. 3 2 Shankar Goyal (2000), Marxist Interpretation of Ancient Indian History, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (Pune), pp Annemarie Mertens (1998), Der Daksamythus in der episch puranischen Literatur Beobachtungen zur religionsgeschichtlichen Entwicklung des Gottes Rudra Siva im Hinduismus, Bietrage zur Indologie 29, Harrassowitz Verlag: Weisbaden 4

5 In contrast with the Vedic gods who rode on animals you could ride on (Surya driving his fiery chariots, Indira on his elephant Airavata or driving his bay horses), the sectarian Hindu gods sit cross legged on their animals or ride sidesaddle One scene [in the Elephanta caves] represents the myth, told in the Ramayana (7.16) and elsewhere, in which Ravana, objecting to the lovemaking of Shiva and Parvati on Kailasa, lifted the mountain Doniger speculates on why some temples were not plundered and destroyed by the Muslims, The Orissan temples, as well as the temple of Jagannatha at Puri (built during Muhammad bin Tughlaq s reign, in the late 10 th to the late eleventh centuries), 126 may have escaped because they were too remote to attract Muslim attention. 126 Keay, India, 278 This is not entirely true. Many Vedic devatas too have vāhanas of animals that one would not normally ride. E.g. Agni has a ram, Varuna has a crocodile, Vayu has an antelope, Yama has a water buffalo, Pushan has a chariot pulled by goats and Kubera uses a man! This is another example of how Doniger sexualizes the entire episode. First, the sculpture in the Elephanta Caves does not show any sexual scene between Parvati and Shiva, as I who has actually visited the caves, can confirm. Secondly, Ravana s objection was not to the fact that Shiva and Parvati were making love, but that his airplane stopped before the mountain, which was then out of bounds for everyone because Shiva was spending time in solitude with Parvati (the verb used is kreedati in verse which includes lovemaking but is not restricted to it). The episode projects Ravana as an egotist who has no respect for Shiva and wants his chariot to be allowed to pass over the mountain. The main plot of the story is very well known to ordinary Hindus and I refrain from repeating it here. Suffice it to see, Doniger s attention, as usual, goes only towards lovemaking in the text even though the cave sculpture does not depict it. Muhammad bin Tughlaq ruled in the 14 th century CE from CE, not in the 10 th or the 11 th centuries when Islamic rule had not yet penetrated northern India outside of the Punjab (let alone in Orissa, which is in eastern India). It appears that Doniger has confused the Jagannatha temple with the Konarka temple, which was built by the Ganga dynasty kings when Tughlaq ruled the Delhi Sultanate (as her reference Keay also says, which she paraphrases incorrectly). The reason why many Hindu temples in Orissa survived iconoclasm was that except for brief intervals, Hindu rulers continued their rule, warding off Islamic invasions in the area. And to say that the Jagannatha Puri temple was not attacked is historically wrong. Later in her book, Doniger herself says on pages : Firoz Shah Tughluq ( ), desecrated the shrine of Jagannath at Puri, was said to Klaus Klostermaier (1991), The Original Daksa Saga, pp in Arvind Sharma, ed., Essays on the Mahabharata, E. J. Brill: Leiden 5

6 have massacred infidels, and extended the jaziya to Brahmins. It is quite an understatement that he was said to have massacred infidels. In his campaign against Orissa itself, after he had desecrated the Jagannath Temple, his armies marched towards an island in the Lake Chilika region, where (according to the contemporary chronicle Sirat i Firuz Shahi) about 100,000 terrified Hindus had taken refuge after escaping from Jajnagar. Then,.the auspicious stirrups [of horses in Tughlaq s army] were turned in that direction, and troops were so distributed on all sides that they might converge at a point and convert the island into a basin of blood by the massacred of the unbelievers with the sharp sword.. Captive and married, women bearing only female ones, women with a few and many children, widows, bashful women, chaste ladies, women endowed with natural beauty were pressed as slaves, slave maiden, maid servants, female singers, nurses and midwives, into service in the house of every soldier. The rest of the women were taken captives along with the elephants; women with babies and pregnant women were haltered, manacled, fettered and enchained and no vestige of the infidels was left except their blood. so goes this chronicle. 4 And in fact, this was not the only temple in Orissa that was plundered or damaged by Muslim invaders. A visit to the Lingaraj temple in Bhuvaneshvar will reveal the vandalism caused to the main Murti. Likewise, during the time of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Bengal Sulta Ala ud din Husain destroyed a number of temples in Orissa, as Doniger has said herself on page 459 of the book c Kabir lives Wrong date. Kabir is traditionally held to have died around 1518 CE, and therefore modern scholarship holds that he was born around 1450 CE. Tradition says that he lived for 120 years, which would still make his life span CE. 5 In fact, the story of Kabir s persecution by 4 Harekrushna Mahtab, Invasion of Orissa in 1360 A.D. in Orissa Historical Research Journal. Vol 1, no. 1 (1952), pp David Lorenzen (1991), Kabir Legends and Ananta Das s Kabir Parachai, SUNY (New York), p. 18 6

7 The Jaina concept of Universal History, which claims nine appearances of a savior in each world epoch, may have played a role in the development of the Hindu schema 4 Kirfel, Kosmologie Writing about Gitagovinda of Jayadeva in the 12 th century CE, Doniger speculates, The romance of two adulterous lovers [Radha and Krishna] may owe something to the Persian romances that were becoming known in India through the Muslim presence at this time, in some Sufi sects Behl and Weightman, Madhumalati in general, there is little evidence of Rama worship in temples at that time (the Gupta period) nor, in dramatic contrast with Krishna, is Rama s story elaborated upon to any significant degree in the earlier Puranas. Sikandar Lodi (reigned ) is so well known that this error by Doniger is easily caught by anyone with even a cursory knowledge of medieval Indian history. Doniger s dates make it appear that Kabir died even before Sultan Sikandar Lodi was born! There was a lot of give and take between sister Dharmic traditions in India, and Doniger never misses an opportunity to claim that Hindus have borrowed many of their core traditions and beliefs from others. The reference cited by Doniger is wrong. It should be Die Kosmographie der Inder. This ridiculous remark is just another attempt to deprive the Hindus or any originality. The Gitagovinda was written in late 12 th cent. in Orissa which remained outside of Sufi or Persian influence for several decades after the Jayadeva completed his work and had passed away. It is unclear why Doniger gives the reference of the translation of Madhumalati other than the fact that she wanted to promote her protégés because this particular romance post dates Gitagovinda by 4 centuries. Nowhere in the book do Behl et al say anything about Jayadeva borrowing from Sufi romances. Doniger s claims are politically motivated. Recently in India, there was an attempt by the Marxist historians like Romila Thapar et al who argued that Rambhakti does not go beyond the 10 th cent. C.E. or so. Doniger s remarks are meant to support them and this becomes clear when we read of her propaganda in chapter 24 of the book. Doniger is off the mark in saying that the Rama story is not elaborated in any of the earlier Puranas. First, why restrict oneself to the Puranas? Kalidasa in the 5 th century wrote Raghuvamsham on the lineage of Rama (from his ancestor Raghu onwards) 6 and there is even a 6 Of the plays of Bhasa, who lived at least 200 years before Kalidasa, two (namely Pratima Nataka and Abhisheka Nataka) are based on the Ramayana although many doubt the authenticity of all the plays of Bhasa. For arguments in favor of the authenticity of Bhasa s plays, see: Manjula Gupta (2012), Mahakavi Bhasa, pp in Advaitamanih, ed. by Pravesh Saxena and Priti Kaushik, Vidyanidhi Prakashan (Delhi). [In Hindi] 7

8 The Buddha avatar is mentioned in of the Mahabharata: 26 At the beginning of the Kali Age, Vishnu will become the Buddha, son of Shuddhodana, and he will preach in the Magadha dialect. All men will become bald, like him, and wear the ocher robe, and priests will cease to offer oblations or recite commentary by the Kashmirian author Vallabhadeva written on it in the 10 th cent. CE. In the 8 th cent. C.E., Bhavabhuti wrote the Uttararamacharita on the life of Rama after his coronation. And the Mahabharata itself has the several hundred verse long summary Ramopakhyana in the Aranyaka Parva. Coming to the Puranas, the Ramayana is in fact well summarized in fairly early Upapuranas from around 500 AD (which is also the date of early Puranas as well) like the Narasimha Upapurana. 7 This Upapurana narrates the story of Rama many times longer than that of Krishna. The Vahni Purana 8 was given a Vaishnava recast to incorporate a retelling of the Ramayana. This retelling of the Ramayana is 50% of the text of 12,000 verses. The editor of the Vahni Purana demonstrates that the Vaishnava recast was done around 500 CE, which is earlier than most of the early Puranas. 9 Coming to early temples and sculptural representations from the Ramayana, considerable evidence going back to 200 BCE (terracotta from Kaushambi depicting the abduction of Sita by Ravana) onwards has been marshalled in a recent excellent work. 10 In other words, Doniger s claim is outdated, or perhaps she has not looked at the available archaeological evidence carefully. It is surprising (or perhaps not) that Doniger uses an interpolated version in the highly conflated Kumbhakona edition to prove that Buddha is mentioned in the Mahabharata. The reference given itself is wrong. Nowhere in any version of the Mahabharata, is there mention of the major dynasties such as the Nanda, Maurya, Shunga, Kanva of the 7 See the works of R C Hazra for the dating of Upapuranas. 8 This was the original Agni Purana. The current vulgate Agni Purana is a later work which pushed the original text into the background. 9 Anasuya Bhowmik (2012), Vahni Puranam, The Asiatic Society (Kolkata), Page. xci 10 Meenakshi Jain (2013), Rama and Ayodhya, Aryan Books International (New Delhi) 8

9 the Veda Kumbhakona ed. Of Mahabharata ; 12, appendix I, no. 32, lines 1 17; Doniger O Flaherty, Origins of Evil, 188. period in which it was supposedly composed, nor for that matter a single monarch from that time. If we are to believe that these epics were composed 300 years after the lifetimes of Siddhartha Gautama Buddha and Mahavira, how does one explain the complete absence of any reference 11 either to these great individuals or the faiths they founded? Also consider the evidence from the Spitzer document, which indicates that the Buddha had studied the Mahabharata. 12 Some Hindu texts even allege that Buddha stole some of his doctrines from the Mahabharata. 13 The latter allegation is recorded in a Buddhist text (Madhyamaka Hridaya) from around 550 AD without refutation. There are no corresponding Buddhist ripostes claiming that the Mahabharata was written after the time of Buddha, or that it was the Mahabharata or the Ramayana that stole their teachings from the Buddha. In fact, some scholars see the influence of the Ramayana on the Buddhacharita of Ashvaghosha who lived around 100 AD Doniger claims that Buddhism was assimilated into Hinduism in three stages: Doniger s First Stage is non existent because the Buddha or the 11 Buddha is referred to as a future avatara in one interpolated verse quoted by Doniger and found only in the grossly conflated Dakshinatya (Southern) version of the Mahabharata and is not mentioned in other versions (Northern and Kashmiri). The mention of Buddha in future tense clearly indicates that the interpolator (whenever he lived, say around 500 AD) considered the Buddha later than the Mahabharata. In the Ramayana, the situation is not different. Buddha is mentioned (and even that verse has an unclear meaning) again in a solitary verse found only in Southern manuscripts, and is not mentioned in Northwestern or Northern manuscripts. 12 The Spitzer manuscript dated on paleographic grounds to around 250 AD even lists the Parvans of the Mahabharata that the Buddha had studied. See Eli Franco, The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit, Journal of Indian Philosophy 31: 21 31, The same work also gives a summary of Ramayana. Note that the manuscript is obviously later than the author who wrote it! The point is that even as early as 250 AD, the Mahabharata was considered older to Buddha. 13 E.g., the Mattavilasa of King Mahendravarman (c. 600 AD) quotes a Kapalika as saying that the Buddha of stealing his doctrinal ideas from the Mahabharata and the Vedanta while the Brahmins blinked. See p. 82 in Michael Lockwood & A. Vishnu Bhat; King Mahendravarman s Plays; Tambaram Research Associates; Madras; C W Gurner, Asvaghosa and the Ramayana, in Journal of the Asiatic Society (Bengal), NS XXIII (1927), pp

10 First Stage: First, Buddhism was assimilated into Hinduism in the Upanishads, Ramayana, and Mahabharata. This was a period of harmony.among Hindus and Buddhists and Jains, in actual history. Second Stage:.around the turn of the millennium and after, the Buddhists (in history) became more powerful and were sometimes seen as a threat. The first set of Puranic myths about the Buddha were composed at this time (the Gupta period), when Hinduism was still fighting a pitched battle against Buddhism, Jainism, and other heresies; the scars of the battle may be seen in these Puranic stories that contemptuously denounce the shastras of delusion (i.e., the Buddhist and Jaina scriptures) and the people who use them, 49 assimilating this conflict into the pattern of second alliance myths of the corruption of the virtuous antigods. 50 Third Stage: But then, in the third stage, when Buddhism, though still a force to reckon with in India, was waning, the texts have a more conciliatory attitude, and the Hindus once again acknowledged their admiration of Buddhism. In mythology, the texts revise the myth of Vishnu as the Buddha to make it generous and tolerant Huntington, A Study of Puranic Myth, 33 Buddhists or even their doctrines are not at all mentioned in the Upanishads, the Ramayana 15 or the Mahabharata (see more on this point above). In the Early category are included the Harivamsha, Vishnu, Matsya, Markandeya, Vayu, Brahmanda, Kurma, Skanda, Vamana, Varaha, Shiva and Padma Puranas which are dated by her to have been written from CE. In the later category are included the Puranas Agni, Bhagavata, Bhavisya, Brahma, Brahmavaivarta, Devibhagavata, Garuda, Kalika, Mahabhagavata, Saura, Linga these are collectively dated to have been composed between CE. Given this classification, Doniger s claim that Buddha is reviled in the early Puranas and is treated with conciliation in the later Puranas really does not stand to scrutiny. For instance, Buddha s teachings are said to delude even in later Puranas like the Bhagavata ; Garuda or even in the really late Brihad Dharma Purana The fact of the Buddhist doctrine being unacceptable is different from the fact of him being regarded as an Avatara of Vishnu. Even though Buddha is regarded as an Avatara (and therefore worthy of worship), is doctrine is still considered unacceptable by Hindus (because it was intended to delude). 15 An interpolated passage in the Balakanda has the word Buddhas Tathagatam but scholars believe that it does not refer to Buddha. See Ram Shankar Bhattacharya (1982), Buddha as Depicted in the Puranas, pages in Purana, vol. 24, issue No Refer to ibid. for several references. 10

11 50 Doniger O Flaherty, The Origins of Evil, ibid, A Kashmiri king of the tenth century had a magnificent frame made for an image of the Buddha Avatara, and the image that he used was a Buddha figure that had probably been under worship by Buddhists; this frame may have been made for the Buddhist figure in order to Hinduize it, 52 just as the doctrine of Buddha was placed in the frame of Puranic mythology to Hinduize it and as the Hindu temples were built on Buddhist stupas and later, Muslim mosques on Hindu temples. 52 Goetz, Studies in the History and Art, 77 80, discussing a frame in Srinagar Museum, of Shankaravarman (r ) The idea of the final avatar may have entered India at this time, when millennial ideas were rampant in Europe and Christians were proselytizing in India; the Hindu rider on the white horse may have influenced, or been influenced by, the rider on the white horse in Christian apocalyptic literature, 55 his cloak soaked in blood, sent to put the pagans to the sword. Revelation In her hatred for Hinduism, Doniger characterizes the straightforward expression of Hindu tolerance by the Kashmiri ruler as an act of appropriation! Doniger s attempts to equate Islamic iconoclasm with Hindu iconoclasm are derived from the writings of apologists of Islam (e.g., Richard Eaton) and Indian Marxists. A historian, criticizing these views, puts the historical record in its correct perspective Apologists for Islam, as well as some Marxist scholars in India, have sometimes attempted to reduce Islamic iconoclasm in India to a gratuitous lust for plunder on the part of the Muslims, unrelated in any direct way to the religion itself, while depicting Hindu temples as centers of political resistance which had to be suppressed. Concomitantly, instances have been described in the popular press of Hindu destruction of Buddhist and Jain places of worship, and the idea was promoted that archaeological evidence shows this to have happened on a large scale, and hence that Hindu kings could be placed on a par with the Muslim invaders. The fact is that evidence for such Hindu iconoclasm is incidental, relating to mere destruction, and too vague to be convincing. 17 It is strange that Doniger does not relate the Kalki to the Indian rulers who drove out the Huns. So once again, we see Doniger depriving the Hindus of the ability to conceive the Kalki Avatara by speculating that proselytizing Christians might have brought the idea into India. But where exactly where these Christians because we do not have any historical evidence of their existence in northern India (where Kalki will incarnate) for another 1000 years! At best, there were communities in Kerala and unless Doniger can demonstrate that the idea of Kalki moved north from Kerala, her claim is insulting to the Hindus. 17 Andre Wink (1997), Al Hind, vol. II, Brill (London). pp

12 What is most puzzling is why this out ofcontrol boy of mixed birth [Parashurama].is regarded as an appropriate addition to the list of Vishnu s avataras Kalki is modeled on barbarian invaders and kills barbarian invaders, Parashurama is a Kshatriya who kills Kshatriyas Prahlada in the Brahmanas and in parts of the Mahabharata is a typical, demonic demon angry, lustful, opposing the gods Taittiriya Brahmana , Mahabharata (Robbing temples, you will recall, was a very real problem at this time: South Indian kings, Muslim conquerors, everyone was doing it.) Comment: Parshurama was a Bhargava, or a descendant of Rishi Bhrigu through his father Rishi Jamadagni. Perhaps Doniger should re read a book that has referred to herself in the bibliography: Goldman, Robert (1977), Gods Priests and Warriors The Bhrgus of the Mahabharata, Columbia University Press (New York). Parashurama is considered a Brahmana, not a Kshatriya. And Doniger fails to demonstrate how Kalki is modelled on barbarian invaders. Doniger has misinterpreted the passage of Taittiriya Brahmana. For a correct explanation of this passage, refer to the relevant article by Anantakrishna Shastri. 18 As for the Mahabharata verses cited, they only describe the demons as angry and greedy. As usual, Doniger had to imagine lust even though the verses do not say anything to that effect. There are at least 8 occasions in the book where without any context, Doniger justifies Islamic iconoclasm in India directly or indirectly. Refer to our comments on a similar statement given in page 485 of the book above. Although a Jew herself, Doniger seems have taken more after the Nazi Goebbels, who believed in repeating a lie a 100 times so that the listener start considering it as the truth. 18 Anantakrishna Shastri (1961), Prahladacharitasya Shrutimulakatvam, pages in Purana, Volume 3, issue 2 [In Sanskrit]. 12