The Hindus

An Alternative History

By: Wendy Doniger

Narrated by: Amy Landon

From one of the world's foremost scholars on Hinduism, a vivid reinterpretation of its history.

Hinduism does not lend itself easily to a strictly chronological account. Many of its central texts cannot be reliably dated within a century; its central tenets arise at particular moments in Indian history and often differ according to gender or caste; and the differences between groups of Hindus far outnumber the commonalities. Yet the greatness of Hinduism lies precisely in many of these idiosyncratic qualities that continue to inspire debate today.

Wendy Doniger is one of the foremost scholars of Hinduism in the world. With her inimitable insight and expertise Doniger illuminates those moments within the tradition that resist forces that would standardize or establish a canon. Without reversing or misrepresenting the historical hierarchies, she reveals how Sanskrit and vernacular sources are rich in knowledge of and compassion toward women and lower castes; how they debate tensions surrounding religion, violence, and tolerance; and how animals are the key to important shifts in attitudes toward different social classes.

©2009 Wendy Doniger (P)2021 Tantor

Appreciatively long treatise on an infinite subject

The author does an exhaustive introductory study on the entirety of Indian religious thought in a text that will keep you interested for the days it takes to consume. Extremely well stated at times, wonderful depth and respect without seeming bias by the author. Just high praise for a philosophical / religious text. Well worth a credit.

Great book. Wonderfully researched.

This book is wonderful. So much detail. The author obviously has an enormous understanding of the tradition.So interesting. It is read well by the reader. Wendy’s Doniger is perhaps the heavy hitter in American scholarship of Hinduism. I find it so interesting how people have such a hard time with her calling out aspects of the Hindu tradition which are plainly there in the texts for all to see. I wonder why people have such an investment in only presenting the so called “pure” version of Hinduism. Very silly. No religious tradition is pure. They are all complex and interesting, wonderful and terrible. That’s what makes them studying and practicing.

Marvelous, explainatory.

The author spent the better part of a century the studying the languages, sacred texts, history, practices, beliefs, changes, controversies, sources, mysteries, beauty, diversity and contradictions of Hinduism.

One of the best books on Audible

This is by one of the living masters of the humanities broadly and Sanskrit literature specifically. Her methodology here is so smart.

I’d 100% recommend every yoga teacher listen to this if trying to avoid orientalism, on the one hand, and fundamentalism, on the other.

Perfect for someone who loves ancient Greek and Roman mythology and wants to explore ancient Indian mythology but doesn’t know where to start.

You can listen to it no matter your background of knowledge. But “Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction” and “Religion: The Basics” might be helpful short books before this. I’m now excited to listen to the books from Penguin Classics like Rama and Mahabharata that have recently been added to Audible.

A must read

Masterful history of Hinduism and India. Pronunciation of the Indian names could have been better. Great work in all

Not a great way to approach Hinduism

Picked this up hoping to get a broad history of Hinduism, instead they took out all of the beauty and richness of Hinduism and distilled it into this Western mess.

If you have a purely academic interest in Hinduism, and for some reason need to have your western liberal ideas validated in it, then sure go nuts with this book.

2 hours into the book and I found it extremely lacking. The narration is great but the content leaves much to be desired.