Rajiv Malhotra: Western

Rajiv Malhotra is Indian-American entrepreneur and author. Explore interesting quotes on western.
Rajiv Malhotra: 66 quotes0 likes

“This is why the mainstream Western academics does not teach Abhinavagupta, Aryabhata, Bharata, Bhartrihari, Shankara, Kalidasa, Kapila, Kautilya, Nagarjuna, Panini, Patanjali and Ramanuja, among many other Indian greats on par with the great Greek thinkers. This violates the principle that the classical thinkers of all civilizations ought to be incorporated into curricula based solely on their merit and current relevance.”

Rajiv Malhotra book Indra's Net

Indra's Net (2014)

“There is a new awakening in India that is challenging the ongoing westernization of the discourse about India and the intellectual machinery that produces it.”

Rajiv Malhotra book The Battle for Sanskrit

The Battle for Sanskrit (2016)

“Although he sees this process as politically driven, Pollock does acknowledge there were no conquering Sanskrit legions that caused Sanskritization, unlike the coercive Romanization which followed Roman military legions. Nor was there a central church-like religious institution and hence no evangelism that could have Sanskritized through religious conversion. He admits that the notion of the Sanskrit cosmopolis does not fit the Western notion of an empire.”

Rajiv Malhotra book The Battle for Sanskrit

The Battle for Sanskrit (2016)

“If a scholar were to refute the very existence of Allah….. it would be called Islamophobia. …. An analogous situation exists in the way an attiutde gets classified as anti-Semitic. Hindus should be alarmed by the existence of a double standard in Western academics, because the same sensitivity and adhikara to speak for our tradition is not granted to Hindus. ….. We need to define a level playing field for characterizing a work as Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Hinduphobia, etc.”

Rajiv Malhotra book The Battle for Sanskrit

The Battle for Sanskrit (2016)

“India is more than a nation state. It is also a unique civilization with philosophies and cosmologies that are markedly distinct from the dominant culture of our times – the West. India’s spiritual traditions spring from dharma which has no exact equivalent in western frameworks. Unfortunately, in the rush to celebrate the growing popularity of India on the world stage, its civilizational matrix is being digested into western universalism, thereby diluting its distinctiveness and potential.”

Rajiv Malhotra book Being Different

Rajiv Malhotra. Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism, 2011. Synopsis

“He then goes a step further and briefly imposes a Freudian reading on the text, a reading outdated and crude even in the current Western context of cultural criticism. He says the depiction of 'the other' in Ramayana can be understood as a projection of the unfulfilled sexual desires of traditional Indians. …. The motive of applying a totally alien framework, viz., the Freudian one, to a traditional Hindu text is something that is questionable.”

Rajiv Malhotra book The Battle for Sanskrit

The Battle for Sanskrit (2016)

“[Indra's Net is a metaphor for] the profound cosmology and outlook that permeates Hinduism. Indra's Net symbolizes the universe as a web of connections and interdependences […] I seek to revive it as the foundation for Vedic cosmology and show how it went on to become the central principle of Buddhism, and from there spread into mainstream Western discourse across several disciplines.”

Rajiv Malhotra book Indra's Net

Indra's Net (2014)

“The point being that the influence of dharmic philosophy on Western culture runs deep and yet consistently goes unacknowledged.”

Rajiv Malhotra book Being Different

Source: Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism (2011)

“While the inner sciences have a long history in countries such as India, Tibet and China, they have never rejected the outer sciences, and there has never been a conflict between dharma and science as there has been between Western religion and science.”

Rajiv Malhotra book Being Different

Source: Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism (2011)