Originally Posted by
Sudas Paijavana
Pranam-s,
I don't remember the full quote, but a Swedish fella [or I think he was Danish or German, I don't remember....and no...it wasn't Elst] a few years ago poked fun at Western Indologists through satire, stating that a majority of them, deep down, believe that they are descendants of those mystical "marauding, puritanical invaders". That, wherever you look, there is bound to be a deeply rooted context of either subconscious racism or eugenics. And, they are striving to either return to the days of old through appropriating those texts through a European-centric racial paradigm or honestly feel as if they are the sole, rightful authorities on translating those scriptures, especially the Rig Veda. Even Kazanas, who called them "comparativists", points to the fact that many modern Western Indologists, be it from either America or Europe, almost completely [barring a relatively few]disregard native, Indian historians and Sanskritists, seeing them as either "quacks" or "Hindutvadins". Unfortunately, Indologists are prone to attacking each other through ad hominem all the time (e.g., George Thomson called Elst a Hindutvadin and Elst called George Thomson a racist; Kazanas calls out Witzel all the freakin' time; Witzel literally insults David Frawley as if it's his mission from God [whose God? I don't know..]). So, credibility is one of their biggest worries, I'm guessing, especially when one of them, Doniger, is obsessed with using a sex-related perspective when it comes to analyzing anything and everything that is Indic. <---- Don't forget, it's later published as unquestionable fact. To question them would mean to be labelled as a Hindutvadin.
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