Being Hindu
Understanding a Peaceful Path in a Violent World
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- $28.99
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- $28.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the 2018 Wilbur Award
There are more than one billion Hindus in the world, but for those who don’t practice the faith, very little seems to be understood about it. Followers have not only built and sustained the world’s largest democracy but have also sustained one of the greatest philosophical streams in the world for more than three thousand years.
So, what makes a Hindu? Why is so little heard from the real practitioners of the everyday faith? Why does information never go beyond clichés? Being Hindu is a practitioner’s guide that takes the reader on a journey to very simply understand what the Hindu message is, where it stands in the clash of civilizations between Islam and Christianity, and why the Hindu way could yet be the path for plurality and progress in the twenty-first century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Sengupta (Recasting India) introduces non-Hindu audiences to the world's third largest religion using a practitioner's perspective in this quick but substantive text. To Westerners, Sengupta writes, Hinduism is normally seen as a series of sensational clich s about cow worship or funeral pyres. But the reality is much more complex, as depicted here in a mix of personal memoir, general history, and speculation about where the faith community is headed. Sengupta's summaries are succinct and knowledgeable, and his expertise is evident. He includes scholarly analyses of Indian nationalism and a literature review of Hindu religious works, with some especially interesting discussions of Hindu takes on recent religious debates, such as the tensions between religion and science. This summary approach, however, can mean that certain topics such as the history of India and how Hinduism developed in competition with other religions don't get the detailed attention they deserve. Sengupta's personal experiences particularly his years getting a master's degree in New Delhi and tangents on poets and philosophers who inspired him detract from the more in-depth analysis of cultural practices that he attempts to make the focus of the book. But for readers with little knowledge of Hinduism but a strong interest in it, Sengupta will be a welcome guide.
