272. identity
some RISA-L members also attended. Others, like Devendra Potnis, a graduate stu-
dent at Louisiana State University, have successfully generated petitions protesting
misrepresentation of Hindu deities like Ganesha, which were signed by thousands.
CREDO, QUIA OCCIDENTALE
Professor Albrecht Welzer is one of the few Western academics to acknowledge that
scholars of Europe and North America have frequently been guilty of misinter-
preting many key Hindu concepts.^2 By way of illustration, he discusses the prevail-
ing notion ofvarnain Indology and in academic literature dealing with India in gen-
eral. Traditionally, varnameans “sounds of speech or language.” In the nineteenth
century, however, scholars like H. H. Wilson wrongly identified varna with “a let-
ter of the alphabet.” This misrepresentation was continued in the works of T. Ben-
fey, H. T. Colebrooke, Franz Bopp, and others. Though grammatically varnais de-
rived from the social term denoting “class” (as attested in Panini 2:1.69, 5:2.132,
6:3.85), it nevertheless acquired the now commonly accepted (though incorrect)
meaning of “color.”^3 Following Western scholars, most modern Indic scholars (in-
cluding K. V. Abhyankar, Balakrishna Ghosh, and Ganganath Jha) rendered varna
as “letter in the Sanskrit alphabet,” rather than as “sound.”
Welzer raises the question, Why did Indic scholars acquiesce to and even imitate
such mistakes committed by European Indologists, in spite of the fact that they
could and should know better? The answer, according to Welzer, lies in part in
India’s colonization. He alludes to the answer in the Latin expression that forms part
of the title of his contribution to the volume Studies in Mimamsa: “Credo, Quia Oc-
cidentale,”which points to the widespread overestimation of Western culture and
the blind belief that anything of Western or European origin must be superior to the
corresponding element of Indic culture.^4 The resulting “inferiority complex” has
had a shattering and traumatic effect upon Indic scholarship and academic output.
Unfortunately, this trend continues even in postindependent India and among In-
dians living in the diaspora today.
EXTANT SCHOLARSHIP ON
HINDUISM IN NORTH AMERICA
Research was one dominant category and way in which the underlying code of im-
perialism and colonialism was both regulated and realized. It was regulated through
the formal rules of individual scholarly disciplines and scientific paradigms, and