Upinder Singh's silence on Sirhindi

Upinder Singh, daughter of former P.M Manmohan, writes 

The absorptive capacity of Hinduism is displayed in the Puranas,

No. The absorptive capacity of Catholicism is illustrated by the fact that two of the Saints it reveres derive from a Buddhist story while the Jesuits wrote a 'Purana' in Sanskrit which fooled Voltaire. By contrast Hindu texts only arose a long time after the Hindu deities and practices they mention were well established. What Upinder means is that migrating Brahmins, while maintaining their own rituals and Scripture, adopted indigenous forms of worship and at a later stage their descendants, together with the priestly lineages of indigenous people, played a role in commemorating their common faith in devotional compositions of various types. 

which created pantheons

No. Pantheons were a feature of all indigenous religions- including that of the ancient Arabs who had Goddesses who were considered the daughters of the supreme deity.  

that brought together numerous gods and goddesses who were initially foci of independent worship.

There is no evidence for this whatsoever. At one time there was a theory that one or two tribes had always been monotheist. But this wasn't true of the Jews or the Arabs or the Nuer or anyone else. It simply isn't the case that an original monotheistic creed without any idols or demigods existed anywhere or at any time.  

The incorporation of the Buddha as an avatara (incarnation) of Vishnu is often cited as an example of the syncretic nature of Hinduism.

But the Buddha is also a Catholic & Orthodox Saint. The difference is that Buddhists also performed Hindu rituals and many Buddhist monks were Brahmins. To this day, Buddhists and Hindus worship in each others' temples. In Singapore, Chinese Buddhists visit Hindu temples. 

The question is: what sort of incorporation was it?

There was no incorporation. Like Sikhism, Buddhism began within Hinduism and some Hindus worshipped as Buddhists or Sikhs without losing their Hindu identity.  

The Puranic description of the Buddha is anything but flattering. He is supposed to delude the wicked in the Kali age and to pave the way for the arrival of the Kalki avatara.

In other words, like every other Avatar, he has a particular task which some may consider repugnant- e.g. having to kill demons etc. 

The early Bengal Upapuranas say many negative things about Buddhists; they describe them as symbols of evil, defiling, and to be avoided.

So what? Some Saivites and Vaisnavites traded insults but then every religion has some sectarian animosity. 

Even dreaming about them is inauspicious. The later Upapuranas offer a more positive image, describing the Buddha as an embodiment of peace and beauty, and connecting him with the compassionate aim of ending animal sacrifices. Nevertheless, in spite of being recognized as an avatara, the Buddha was never worshipped in Vishnu temples.

Which suggests that Hinduism wasn't 'syncretic'. It was merely fraternal to Buddhism. Prior to Muslim invasions it is likely that people went to Buddhist or other Shraman places of worship and instruction on some days and went to Hindu temples on other days. 

Incorporative and subordinating strategies were not only adopted by the Vaishnavas;

Different sects have taken over places of worship from each other in every religion. But Religion is a service industry. Which deities are represented in a Temple is a function of popular piety.  

they were also adopted by the Buddhists, interestingly, more vis-à-vis Shaivism than Vaishnavism.

Vaishnav's did feel Adi Sankara was a crypto-Buddhist. Since Shiva is an ascetic deity, there is a natural affinity with an ascetic sect. 

Buddhist texts narrate the Trailokyavijaya episode, where Heruka, an emanation of the bodhisattva Vajrapani, gets angry with Shiva Maheshvara and destroys him by crushing him under his left foot. He then resurrects Shiva and his consort as Uma Maheshvara and gives them a new name, Bhairava–Bhairavi, and admits them into the Buddhist fold as his followers. This event is also represented visually in many Buddhist images. Religious conflict is also reflected in the many images of wrathful Buddhist Tantric deities trampling on Hindu gods and vice versa.

No. Religious conflict is reflected in people of different religions actually killing each other. There was religious conflict between Muslims and Hindus and Muslims and Christians and Muslims of one sect and Muslims of another sect, but there wasn't any thing similar between Buddhists and Hindus because most Indian Buddhists also participated in Hindu religious ceremonies. Indeed, Buddhist Kings outside India had and some still have Brahmin priests who perform Hindu rituals for them. 

Inter-religious dynamics are relevant to the debate on the decline of Buddhism in India.

Only if you want to pretend that Islam did not exterminate Buddhism wherever it could. Why did Jainism survive while Buddhism went extinct? The answer is obvious. Buddhism had big Seminaries where the next generation of monks could be trained up. Destroying these Universities and killing the distinctively clad monks eliminated a source of educated opposition with international links. By contrast, the Jains developed a system of lay-man (shravak) instruction and thus was able to survive at the level of the family and the sept. Brahmanism, obviously, could survive because transmission was from father to son. Meanwhile Upinder can debate who killed Guru Arjan Das. It must have been Hindus, right? Sirhindi sounds like a Hindu name.  

Various factors have been suggested for this decline— the failure of Buddhism to maintain a distinct identity in relation to the Hindu sects; an alleged ‘degeneration’ brought in by increasing Tantric influences; an aggressive Brahmanism/Hinduism; and the Turkish invasions.

That's the only one that works. Sri Lanka wasn't invaded by Muslims. Buddhism survived. In the South, Buddhism certainly did decline as Saivism and Vaisnavism rose but Buddhism could always be revived with a little help from a South East Asian monarch. But its moment had passed. The future belonged to religion as an organizing principle for aggressive- or at least militarily capable- Nation States. Muslim domination of the Indian Ocean was terminated by the Portuguese and then the Dutch. However, the Brits reopened the door to a Buddhist revival in India. It attracted Hindu converts but not Sikhs or Christians or Muslims.  

Did Buddhism slowly fade out or was it pushed out? There is a view that it was pushed out and that this involved a great deal of very real violence.

Much of Hindu India was enslaved. Buddhism was a casualty because Buddhism had been attractive to the more intellectually inclined Hindus. Buddhism did flourish in Tibet- which preserved its independence. Then the Chinese took over and the Commies got busy. No doubt, Upinder's chums 'debate' why Buddhism might have declined in Lhasa. 

Upinder is a historian. She should know that violence means killing people. Saying 'Professor X crushed Professor Y' does not mean X actually smashed Y's head in with a rock. Nevertheless, she writes

The Mimamsaka Kumarila Bhatta is described in his hagiographies as defeating the Buddhists and establishing the supremacy of the Veda. Kumarila is said to have spent many years studying (undercover, so to speak) with a Buddhist teacher, and learning the doctrine in order to eventually refute it. He succeeded in defeating the Buddhists (and Jainas) in debate. The accounts of these debates are quite violent:

But unlike Sirhindi who actually got Guru Arjan Das killed, Kumarila didn't instigate any violence.  

“He defeated countless Buddhists and Jainas by means of different types of arguments in the various sciences. Having cut off their heads with axes, he threw them down into numerous wooden mortars and made a powder of them by whirling around a pestle. In this way he was fearlessly carrying out the destruction of those who held evil doctrines.”

This is like saying 'Professor X took down the pants of Professor Y and stuck it to him but good.' No actual buggery occurred. It's just a manner of speaking is all.  

Is this metaphorical violence or is it a reflection of violent religious conflicts on the ground?

It is metaphorical.  

There are also references to political persecution (discussed later) of Buddhism. But Buddhism did not disappear from India. The Buddhist monasteries at Sanchi and Amaravati continued to exist till the twelfth/ thirteenth and fourteenth centuries respectively. The thirteenth century Chachnama refers to Buddhism flourishing in Sindh in the northwest. In Kashmir, the Jayendra monastery at Shrinagara and the Raja vihara at Parihasapura declined by the eleventh century, but the Ratnagupta monastery and Ratnarashmi monastery at Anupamapura flourished in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In Bengal and Bihar, the Palas were patrons of Buddhism. Various monasteries such as Nalanda, Odantapura (near Nalanda), Vikramashila (identified with Antichak in Bhagalpur district, Bihar), and Somapuri (located at Paharpur) flourished in their kingdoms. In Orissa, remains of early medieval Buddhist stupas, monasteries, and sculptures have been found at Lalitagiri and Ratnagiri. Several Buddhist viharas were built during this period in Nepal, as well as in Ladakh, Lahul, and Spiti.

Buddhism was flourishing in Afghanistan. Zorastrianism flourished in Iran. Upinder's chums should debate what happened there. 

It was the Tantric form of Buddhism that flourished at most of the major monastic centres.

This was also true of some Hindu areas. 

It should be noted that some of the monasteries that were established in Tibet and in the western Himalayas during these centuries have a continuous history right down to the present.

Because the Muslims didn't conquer them. The Chinese Communist party, however, has certainly had an impact. 

So Buddhism did not completely disappear from the subcontinent, but it did decline and was relegated to the geographical, political, and cultural margins. There is much about the history of Buddhism in early medieval India, especially the reasons for dwindling lay support and patronage, that remains obscure.

But the reason for its extinction, which is also the reason for the extinction of Zoroastrianism, can't be gainsaid.

But although the texts may present a dramatized, exaggerated version of events, there is no doubt that religious competition and conflict are part of the story.

No. Competition is good for the vitality of sect. Being killed is not. It is the latter sort of conflict that Islam brought to India.  

It is worth noting that apart from the especially fierce Tantric deities, the iconography of many Indian deities includes weapons,

because those weapons refer to techniques to destroy obstacles to progress in spiritual meditation. 

and their mythology involves killing, even if those being killed are evil beings.

Whereas Islamic historians have gloried in the killing of kaffirs by their heroic Sultans.  

Why is there so much violence in representations of Indian gods and goddesses and in stories of their exploits?

Because there was no violence in real life. It was displaced into the realm of mythos. Nowadays, a lot of us watch movies and TV shows featuring a lot of violence precisely because there is very little violence in our own daily life. 

Even if these images are interpreted metaphorically—the defeat of evil, the passions, or the ego—the stark violence in them cannot be ignored.

Yes it can because no actual blood was shed. By contrast Sirhindi really did bay for the blood of Guru Arjan Dev. Upinder is silent about that real violence preferring to look at imaginary violence where it doesn't at all exist. Why? She and her profession are anti-Hindu and, in so far as Sikhs are on the same side as Hindus- i.e. are being killed because of their religion- then she is also anti-Sikh. But this was the ideology her father espoused. Upinder herself must have seen her father consorting with some of the 'Youth' Congress leaders who slaughtered Sikhs in 1984.  But she is silent about that. Interestingly, genuine Leftists like Irfan Habib weren't afraid to condemn Sirhindi. But Habib belonged to a more scholarly generation. Upinder's book demonstrates the imbecility and ignorance of the 'darbari' intellectual of a dynasty dying nasty. 

Upinder Singh's 'Ancient India'

Upinder Singh, daughter of Manmohan, has published a book titled 'Ancient India: Culture of Contradictions'.

It is shit. 

Consider the following-
How a diversity of ethical paths, rather than a singular dharma, runs through The Mahabharata

Dharma was translated by the ancient Greeks as Eusebia which term was translated by the Romans as pietas. In English, Dharma means piety. Since people of diverse occupation, age, gender, geographical location etc. can be pious it is obvious that many 'ethical paths'- e.g being a pious housewife, a pious soldier, a pious ascetic etc- are included under the rubric of Dharma.

Since there is no text in the world which says otherwise, Upinder has not highlighted anything significant about the Mahabharata. She may as well have said 'a diversity of characters, rather than just one person, are depicted in the Mahabharata'. 

Scroll.In has published this

 excerpt from ‘Ancient India: Culture of Contradictions’, Upinder Singh.

Which culture doesn't contain contradictions? None at all. The title is meaningless. 

While most debates end with a winner and a loser,

This may be so in School. It isn't true in the real world.

 those in the Mahabharata often end inconclusively or on a note of doubt.

This is false. Every episode of the Mahabharata presents a 'siddhanta'- an accepted view or 'eudoxa'.

 The Mahabharata abounds in debates, the most important of which are about the subtlety and mysteriousness of dharma. 

The Mahabharata is a highly symmetric, non-dissipative, system which by Noether's theorem conserves karma and dharma. The former shows how actions are related over time from the perspective of the doer. The latter shows how actions are related over space from the perspective of society. 

The overall emphasis of the narrative is that one must understand one’s dharma – essentially that of the varna one is born into – and strive to follow it, no matter how unpleasant it may be and how much unhappiness it may bring.

Nonsense! One may chose another path for oneself. What is important is to understand the consequences.

Nevertheless, characters in the epic are frequently tormented about what exactly their dharma is, none more so than Yudhishthira, the eldest Pandava brother, who (ironically) has the epithet Dharmaraja (king of dharma).

But that torment or 'vishada' comes to an end when he hears the Vyadha Gita- which shows that a principal (as opposed to an agent) can ignore the strictures of pundits or politicians and just pursue rational self-interest while gaining the honeyed wisdom of the Chandogya- and the Nalophkyanam- which shows that a King should apply statistical game theory to overcome delusion or akrasia. This is perfectly sensible. It is the same conclusion that modern decision theory comes to.

Although at one level, dharma is spoken of as eternal and universal, the Mahabharata in fact suggests the existence of several dharmas.

Rubbish! Piety is piety. Different people may express piety in different ways. You and I may share the same pizza. It is not the case that there are two pizzas.

The dharmas of the four ages (Krita, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali) vary.

No. The expression of piety will be different at different times. Essentially the Mahabharata is about the transition from an Iron Age 'Thymotic' culture to one more favorable to market forces and an impersonal rule of law. 

 Dharma is frequently associated with the varnas and the ashramas, but there is also a dharma of sages, of forest people, even of mlechchhas.

Because different people display piety in different ways. Upinder confuses customary morality with Piety. 

 In times of acute distress or emergency, apad-dharma (dharma in time of emergency) kicks in, and certain departures from the norm are justified. We have noted the Mahabharata example of the Brahmana sage Vishvamitra,

Who started off as a Kshatriya but then decided to become a Brahman. 

 starving in a time of famine, stealing some forbidden meat from the house of a Chandala and defending his action as being in accordance with apad-dharma.

Justifying your actions is itself apad-dharma- don't do it unless you have to. 

Reference has been made in earlier chapters to the dharma that applies to all, known as samanya dharma or sadharana dharma, which consists of various virtues such as truthfulness, generosity, and non-violence, but this is not as important as the dharma of the varnas.

This is misleading. Everybody understands that one must restrain oneself (yama) in various ways- e.g. not shitting all over the place or constantly telling stupid lies or beating everybody you meet- before one can start following 'niyamas'- positive injunctions which in turn depend on your duties and mode of life. 

 On several occasions, the Mahabharata asserts non-violence or non-cruelty to be the highest dharma.

Why? Because we are talking about warriors and Kings. If they became wantonly cruel and maniacally violent, the prosperity of the country would crumble. 

Towards the end of the Shanti Parva, the unchha vow is described as the highest dharma. This consists of a frugal life based on food acquired through gleaning, that is, gathering leftover grain from fields.

This was descriptive, not prescriptive. Such people existed at that time and were known for being the most pious. 

 The Mahabharata accepts a life of engagement with the world and also talks about the dharma of liberation from the cycle of rebirth (moksha-dharma) which requires true knowledge, control of the senses, and complete detachment.

The Mahabharata reflects the Society of its day. 

The epic composers often included contradictory statements about dharma within a dialogic frame and did not always try to reconcile the many different points of view.

This again reflected the actual thinking of the time. However, apparent contradictions were resolvable in the Sutra literature accompanying the Upanishads.

One of the many exciting debates in the Mahabharata is between the philosopher king Janaka and the wandering female ascetic Sulabha, who had attained moksha. Sulabha hears that Janaka had attained moksha while remaining king. Using her yogic powers, she assumes the body of a beautiful woman and appears in his court to check for herself whether this is true.

She challenges Janaka to a debate

No. Her shtick is that intellectual sparring is itself a sign of nescience. Janaka, foolishly, initiates the conversation- dwelling on his own merits (which Krishna says is equal to committing suicide) and upbraiding the lady for entering his mind. She shows her mastery of Samkhya and logical semantics and then says that as an ascetic, she will tenant his body for a night before leaving it because, from the point of view of gnosis, it is but an empty shell. Theists consider this a victory over an atheistic interpretation of Samkhya and Nyaya-Vaisesika. The problem is that we have no personal experience of ravishing female ascetics performing such Yogic feats. Still, Theism is a matter of Faith- which will always have its mysteries- not empirical evidence.

 and uses her yogic powers to enter into the king’s being. Janaka questions her credentials to debate with him, especially on the grounds that she is a beautiful woman, and mocks and insults her. But debate they do, and their topic is whether it is possible to attain moksha while leading a worldly life or whether renunciation is an essential prerequisite.

It is an extremely unusual debate as the beings of both debaters inhabit one body during its entire duration. At some point of time, Janaka falls silent, a sign that he has lost.

This is the conventional interpretation. However, by not answering back, Janaka may be showing evidence of having become a jivanmukta. In other words, the flaw of egotism has been removed from him. 

A powerful philosophical response to a whole range of issues related to dharma, violence, war, and renunciation in the Mahabharata occurs in the Bhagavad Gita, which has already been mentioned in earlier chapters. 

Upinder does not notice that the Mahbharata is highly symmetric. The Bhagvad Gita deals with the vishada of the agent just as its dual- the Vyadha Gita- deals with the akrasia of the principal. 

The Bhagavad Gita weaves together strands from the philosophies of Samkhya, Yoga, and Vedanta with the ideas of duty and religious devotion.

It is Theistic and Occassionalist- ie. God is the sole efficient cause. 

It absorbs certain Buddhist ideas such as impermanence and suffering,

Such ideas are universal. Which Sage ever said youth and happiness will endure forever?

 and rejects certain others (for instance, the denial of the soul). 

Which is considered strategic by some Buddhist traditions.

It reconciles dharma and moksha. Its idea of karma-yoga emphasises the eternal nature of the atman and the importance of following one’s varna-dharma;

only if one freely chooses to do so.

 it is the fruits of actions and not actions themselves that are to be renounced.

Including 'Moksha' or Liberation. 

The text contains different ideas of god – an impersonal cosmic god who is the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the world, as well as a god who is immediate and worthy of devotion.

No. This is the univocal idea of the God of Theism wherever Theism prevails. 

The latter idea is best described as monolatry – the worship of a god as a supreme god without denying the existence of other gods.

Rubbish! We don't say an Evangelical Christian who accepts Lord Jesus Christ as her personal God and Savior is a 'monolatrist' who concedes that Jupiter and Mars too are gods. 

 Such a unique synthesis could only have emerged from a creative engagement with a variety of philosophical ideas.

There is nothing unique about a univocal conception of Theistic piety. The Mahabharata does depict some of the prevailing philosophical/soteriological schools of the period. Some characters who appear in the Upanishads reappear within this text. 

Along with the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata also contains the Anugita. After the end of the great battle at Kurukshetra, Arjuna tells Krishna that he has forgotten everything that the latter had told him earlier and asks him to repeat it. Krishna tells him that this is not possible as he had delivered his Bhagavad Gita teaching while in a deep meditative state and cannot redo the act.

But he tells Arjuna that he can give him another teaching that is essentially the same as the previous one. He proceeds to deliver the Anugita, which emphasises knowledge and renunciation as the paths to liberation – a teaching that is rather different from the Bhagavad Gita’s thrust on desireless action and bhakti!

The Gita is about Arjuna desiring the gratuitous gift of theophany. The 'teaching' is irrelevant. There is no contradiction between saying 'do your duty now the time of reckoning has come' and saying 'now that there is no occasion for you to discharge any customary obligation, pursue Knowledge and Ascesis like others pursuing the same goal.'

The inconclusive nature of the dialogues and debates in the Mahabharata 

are a figment of Upinder's imagination. She may believe that the 'dialogue and debate' about whether the Ram Janmabhoomi site was originally a place of Hindu worship was 'inconclusive'. This is not the case. Lefty Historians lost all down the line. They were shown to be stupid, ignorant and deeply bigoted. 

and the presence of diverse, contradictory ideas within the text have a great deal to do with its compositional history, which may have stretched over as many as eight centuries and involved numerous composers and redactors. It also indicates the pragmatic approach adopted by the composers, who juxtaposed many different views without trying to make them all fall in a single line.

What is important about the Mahabharata is that every episode and character has a dual such that symmetry is maintained. Since the system is non-dissipative, there are no 'contradictions'. Karma and Dharma are conserved and gain a game theoretic representation. 


Compared to other texts, the Mahabharata dialogues actually explore different facets of complex issues and do not shirk from admitting confusion, dilemmas, and grey areas.

No. This is a non-dissipative system so only 'organized complexity' can be depicted. However, these are not real-world issues of the type discussed in manuals on economic statecraft. 

 At the same time, there are limits to the flexibility, and this is indicated in the text’s hostile attitude towards the nastikas.

Obviously, a book where God plays a big role is going to be hostile to atheists who say no such being exists. On the other hand, the Vyadha- butcher- of the Vyadha Gita, chooses to worship and serve his own parents as his Gods. He lives an affluent life with his beloved family. Yet he has attained gnosis.

Indian Historians refuse to accept rational self-interest and 'oikeiosis' as motivating factors. They prefer to babble bigoted, paranoid, nonsense. Upinder Singh was much less guilty of this than some of her peers. But she didn't speak out against them. This book of hers is not egregiously wrong or deliberately insulting to Hindus. But it is bland and empty of ideas. History may judge Manmohan more kindly than his contemporaries. But historians like Upinder have no faculty for sound judgment. They have wasted their lives.