Wendy Doniger

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty

| image = Wendy Doniger, May 2015.jpg

| caption = Wendy Doniger in May 2015

| birth_name = Wendy Doniger

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|mf=yes|1940|11|20}}

| birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S.

| death_date =

| death_place =

| field = {{ubl|Sanskrit literature|Hinduism|Mythology|History of Religions}}

| work_institutions = University of Chicago

| alma_mater = {{ubl|Radcliffe College (BA)|Harvard University (PhD)|Oxford University (DPhil)}}

| doctoral_advisor = {{ubl|Daniel H. H. Ingalls, Sr. (Harvard)|R.C.Zaehner (Oxford)}}

| doctoral_students = Jeffrey Kripal, Alexander Argüelles[http://divinity.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/imce/pdfs/CVs/doniger%20VITA.academic%20%284%29.doc Curriculum Vitae], uchicago.edu; accessed June 16, 2016.

}}

Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (born November 20, 1940) is an American Indologist whose professional career has spanned five decades. A scholar of Sanskrit and Indian textual traditions, her major works include The Hindus: An Alternative History; Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva; Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook; The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology; Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts; and The Rig Veda: An Anthology, 108 Hymns Translated from the Sanskrit.{{Sfn|Shrimali|2010|p=67}}

She is the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of History of Religions at the University of Chicago, and has taught there since 1978.{{Sfn|Shrimali|2010|p=67}} In 1998 she served as president of the Association for Asian Studies .{{cite web |url=https://www.asian-studies.org/About/Board#6211 |title=Board of Directors: Past Presidents |author= |website=Association for Asian Studies |publisher=Association for Asian Studies, Inc. |access-date=March 22, 2017}}

Biography

Wendy Doniger was born in New York City to immigrant non-observant Jewish parents, and raised in Great Neck, New York, where her father, Lester L. Doniger (1909–1971), ran a publishing business. While in high school, she studied dance under George Balanchine and Martha Graham.The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought,"[http://socialthought.uchicago.edu/directory/wendy-doniger Wendy Doniger profile], socialthought.uchicago.edu; accessed February 22, 2014.

She graduated summa cum laude in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Radcliffe College in 1962, and received her M.A. from Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in June 1963. She then studied in India in 1963–1964 with a 12-month Junior Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies. She received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in June 1968, with a dissertation on Asceticism and Sexuality in the Mythology of Siva, supervised by Daniel H. H. Ingalls, Sr. She obtained a D. Phil. in Oriental Studies from Oxford University, in February 1973, with a dissertation on The Origins of Heresy in Hindu Mythology, supervised by Robert Charles Zaehner.

Doniger holds the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor Chair in History of Religions at the University of Chicago.[https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2009/11/05/qa-wendy-doniger-mircea-eliade-distinguished-service-professor-and-author-hindus Q&A with Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor and author of The Hindus], news.uchicago.edu, November 5, 2009; accessed February 22, 2014. She is the editor of the scholarly journal History of Religions,[http://www.press.uchicago.edu/journals/hr/board.html?journal=hr History of Religions Editorial Board], press.uchicago.edu; accessed February 22, 2014. having served on its editorial board since 1979, and has edited a dozen other publications in her career. In 1985, she was elected president of the American Academy of Religion,{{cite web |url=https://www.aarweb.org/about/past-presidents |title=Past Presidents: Past Presidents of the AAR |author= |website=aarweb.org |publisher=American Academy of Religion |access-date=February 22, 2014}} and in 1997 President of the Association for Asian Studies. She serves on the International Editorial Board of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

She was invited to give the 2010 Art Institute of Chicago President's Lecture at the Chicago Humanities Festival, which was titled, "The Lingam Made Flesh: Split-Level Symbolism in Hindu Art".[http://www.chicagohumanities.org/en/Genres/Philosophy/2010-Wendy-Doniger-The-Lingam-Made-Flesh.aspx Art Institute of Chicago President's Lecture]{{Dead link|date=February 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, chicagohumanities.org; accessed February 14, 2015.

Reception

=Recognition=

Since she began writing in the 1960s, Doniger has gained the reputation of being "one of America's major scholars in the humanities".Martha Craven Nussbaum, The clash within: democracy, religious violence, and India's future, Harvard University Press, 2007 p.249. Assessing Doniger's body of work, K. M. Shrimali, Professor of Ancient Indian History at the University of Delhi, writes:

... it (1973) also happened to be the year when her first major work in early India's religious history, viz., Siva, the Erotic Ascetic was published and had instantly become a talking point for being a path-breaking work. I still prescribe it as the most essential reading to my postgraduate students at the University of Delhi, where I have been teaching a compulsory course on 'Evolution of Indian Religions' for the last nearly four decades. It was the beginning of series of extremely fruitful and provocative encounters with the formidable scholarship of Wendy Doniger.{{Sfn|Shrimali|2010|p=68}}

Doniger is a scholar of Sanskrit and Indian textual traditions.{{Sfn|Shrimali|2010|p=67}} By her self-description,

I myself am by both temperament and training inclined to texts. I am neither an archaeologist nor an art historian; I am a Sanskritist, indeed a recovering Orientalist, of a generation that framed its study of Sanskrit with Latin and Greek rather than Urdu or Tamil. I've never dug anything up out of the ground or established the date of a sculpture. I've labored all my adult life in the paddy fields of Sanskrit, ...{{citation|last=Doniger|first=Wendy|title=The Hindus: An Alternative History|page=35|publisher=Viking-Penguin}}

Her books both in Hinduism and other fields have been positively reviewed by the Indian scholar Vijaya Nagarajan{{cite journal|last1=Nagarajan|first1=Vijaya|title=[Book Review: The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade]|journal=The Journal of Religion|date=April 2004|volume=84|issue=2|pages=332–333|doi=10.1086/421829|jstor=421829}} and the American Hindu scholar Lindsey B. Harlan, who noted as part of a positive review that "Doniger's agenda is her desire to rescue the comparative project from the jaws of certain proponents of postmodernism".{{cite journal|last1=Harlan|first1=Lindsey|title=The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth. By Wendy Doniger. American Lectures on the History of Religions 16. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. xii + 200 pp. $26.95 cloth|journal=Church History|date=28 July 2009|volume=68|issue=2|pages=529|doi=10.2307/3170935|jstor=3170935|s2cid=154582655 }} Of her Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook Translated from the Sanskrit, the Indologist Richard Gombrich wrote: "Intellectually, it is a triumph..."Richard Gombrich, Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook Translated from the Sanskrit by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty Religious Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Jun. 1978), pp. 273–274 Doniger's (then O'Flaherty) 1973 book Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Śiva was a critique of the "Great tradition Śivapurāṇas and the tension that arises between Śiva's ascetic and erotic activities."{{Sfn|Marr|1976|pp=718–719}} Richard Gombrich called it "learned and exciting"; however, John H. Marr was disappointed that the "regionalism" so characteristic of the texts is absent in Doniger's book, and wondered why the discussion took so long.{{Sfn|Marr|1976|pp=718–719}}{{cite journal|last1=Kakar|first1=Sudhir|title=Book Review:Other People's Myths: The Cave of Echoes Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty|journal=The Journal of Religion|date=April 1990|volume=70|issue=2|pages=293|doi=10.1086/488386|jstor=1203930}} Doniger's Rigveda, a translation of 108 hymns selected from the canon, was deemed among the most reliable by historian of religion Ioan P. Culianu.Ioan P. Culianu, "Ask Yourselves in Your Own Hearts..." History of Religions, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Feb. 1983), pp. 284–286

That is why, with the exception of Geldner's German translation, the most reliable modern translations of the Rgveda-W. O'Flaherty's being one of them-are only partial. However, W. O'Flaherty has, in her present translation, a wider scope than other scholars – Louis Renou, for instance, whose Hymnes speculatifs du Veda are a model of accuracy – who prefer to limit their choice to one thematic set of hymns.

However, in an email message, Michael Witzel called it "idiosyncratic and unreliable just like her Jaiminiya Brahmana or Manu (re-)translations."{{Sfn|Taylor|2011|p=160}}

=Criticism=

Beginning in the early 2000s, some conservative diaspora Hindus started to question whether Doniger accurately described Hindu traditions.[http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0412/features/ The interpretation of gods] Together with some of her colleagues, she was the subject of a critique by Hindu right-wing activist speaker Rajiv Malhotra,Shoaib Daniyal (2015), [https://scroll.in/article/740814/plagiarism-row-how-rajiv-malhotra-became-the-ayn-rand-of-internet-hindutva Plagiarism row: How Rajiv Malhotra became the Ayn Rand of Internet Hindutva], Scroll.in for using psychoanalytic concepts to interpret non-Western subjects. Aditi Banerjee, a co-author of Malhotra, criticised Wendy Doniger as grossly misquoting the text of Valmiki Ramayana.{{cite web|url=http://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/oh-but-you-do-get-it-wrong/262511|title=Wendy Doniger Falsehood}}

Christian Lee Novetzke, associate professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Washington, summarizes this controversy as follows:

{{blockquote|Wendy Doniger, a premier scholar of Indian religious thought and history expressed through Sanskritic sources, has faced regular criticism from those who consider her work to be disrespectful of Hinduism in general.}}

Novetzke cites Doniger's use of "psychoanalytical theory" as

{{blockquote|... a kind of lightning rod for the censure that these scholars receive from freelance critics and 'watch-dog' organizations that claim to represent the sentiments of Hindus.Christian Lee Novetzke, "The Study of Indian Religions in the US Academy", India Review 5.1 (May 2006), 113–114 doi:10.1080/14736480600742668}}

Philosopher Martha Nussbaum, concurring with Novetzke, adds that while the agenda of those in the American Hindu community who criticize Doniger appears similar to that of the Hindu right-wing in India, it is not quite the same since it has "no overt connection to national identity", and that it has created feelings of guilt among American scholars, given the prevailing ethos of ethnic respect, that they might have offended people from another culture.Martha C. Nussbaum, The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), p. 248

While Doniger has agreed that Indians have ample grounds to reject postcolonial domination, she claims that her works are only a single perspective which does not subordinate Indian self-identity."I don't feel I diminish Indian texts by writing about or interpreting them. My books have a right to exist alongside other books." Amy M. Braverman. [http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0412/features/index.shtml "The interpretation of gods"], magazine.uchicago.edu (University of Chicago Magazine, 97.2), December 2004; accessed February 14, 2015.

Her authorship of the section describing Hindu Religion in Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia was criticized for being politically motivated and distorted. Following a review, the article was withdrawn.{{cite web|url=http://sankrant.org/2002/09/hinduism-encarta-critique/|year=2002|author=Sankrant Sanu|title=Are Hinduism studies prejudiced?}} Patak Kumar notes that Doniger has given a "dispassionate secular critique" of Hinduism, which is met with defensive responses by Indian scholars such as Varadaraja V. Raman, who acknowledged the "sound scholarship" of Doniger, but urged "appreciation and sensitivity" when "analyzing works regarded as sacred by vast numbers of people."Pratap Kumar, "A Survey of New Approaches to the Study of Religion in India," New Approaches to the Study of Religion: Regional, critical, and historical approaches, 2004, p. 132.

=''The Hindus''=

Doniger's trade book, The Hindus: An Alternative History was published in 2009 by Viking/Penguin. According to the Hindustan Times, The Hindus was a No. 1 bestseller in its non-fiction category in the week of October 15, 2009."[https://web.archive.org/web/20100812045924/http://www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle-news/books/Top-authors-this-week/Article1-465565.aspx Top authors this week]" Hindustan Times Indo-Asian News Service New Delhi, October 15, 2009 Two scholarly reviews in the Social Scientist and the Journal of the American Oriental Society, though praising Doniger for her textual scholarship, criticized both Doniger's poor historiography and her lack of focus.{{Sfn|Shrimali|2010|p=80|ps=: "There are several issues that need more detailed and nuanced analysis rather than straight-jacketed formulations that we read in The Hindus. These concern terminologies and chronologies invoked, perfunctory manner in which class-caste struggles have been referred to — almost casually, complex inter-religious dialogue seen only in the context of Visnu's avataras, and looking at the tantras merely in terms of sex and political power. The work rarely rises above the level of tale telling. On the whole, this is neither a serious work for students of Indian history, nor for those with a critical eye on 'religious history' of India, nor indeed it is the real Alternative History of the 'Hindus'.}}{{Sfn|Rocher|2012|p=303|ps=: "She especially loves to illustrate ancient stories by interjecting comparisons with situations with which the audience is familiar: Doniger commands an unbelievably vast array of comparable material, often, though not always, from American popular culture. Doniger acknowledges that the book was not meant to be as long as it turned out to be, "but it got the bit between its teeth, and ran away from me" (p. 1). Several pages are indeed filled with "good stories" that are only loosely, some very loosely, related to the history of the Hindu religion. Going into detail on the drinking and other vices of the Mughal emperors, even though carefully documented, is a case in point (pp. 539–541). ...When it comes to legal history in the colonial period in particular, there are passages that are bound to raise ... eyebrows. ... the history of Hindu law was more complex than is represented in this volume. Anglo-Hindu law was far more than "the British interpretation of Jones's translation of Manu."}} In the popular press, the book has received many positive reviews, for example from the Library Journal,James F. DeRoche, Library Journal, 2009-02-15 the Times Literary Supplement,David Arnold. "Beheading Hindus And other alternative aspects of Wendy Doniger's history of a mythology", Times Literary Supplement, July 29, 2009 the New York Review of Books,David Dean Shulman, [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/nov/19/a-passion-for-hindu-myths/ 'A Passion for Hindu Myths,'] in New York Review of Books, Nov 19, 2009, pp. 51–53. The New York Times,Pankaj Mishra, "[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/books/review/Mishra-t.html 'Another Incarnation']", nytimes.com, April 24, 2009. and The Hindu.A R Venkatachalapathy, "[http://www.thehindu.com/books/article323791.ece Understanding Hinduism]" The Hindu March 30, 2010

In January 2010, the National Book Critics Circle named The Hindus as a finalist for its 2009 book awards.[http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/national-book-critics-circle-finalists-are-announced/?scp=1&sq=book%20critics%20circle&st=cse "National Book Critics Circle Finalists Are Announced"], blogs.nytimes.com, January 23, 2010. The Hindu American Foundation protested this decision, alleging inaccuracies and bias in the book.[http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org/media/pr/nbccletter HAF Urges NBCC Not Honor Doniger's Latest Book] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140223012446/http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org/media/pr/nbccletter |date=February 23, 2014 }}, as reprinted in the [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/03/donigerprotest.html Los Angeles Times], [http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/03/in-the-news-76.html The New Yorker] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20100429032233/http://sify.com/news/ny-hindus-denounce-book-news-national-kdrnV1jihgj.html Sify]

In 2011, a lawsuit was filed against Doniger and Penguin books by Dinanath Batra on the grounds that the book intentionally offended or outraged the religious sentiments of Hindus, an action punishable by criminal prosecution under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code.{{cite news|last=Kapur|first=Ratna|title=Totalising history, silencing dissent|url=http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/totalising-history-silencing-dissent/article5690041.ece|access-date=15 February 2014|newspaper=The Hindu|date=15 February 2014}} In 2014, as part of a settlement agreement reached with plaintiff, The Hindus was recalled by Penguin India.[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Penguin-to-destroy-copies-of-Wendy-Donigers-book-The-Hindus/articleshow/30225387.cms "Penguin to destroy copies of Wendy Doniger's book 'The Hindus'"] The Times of India[http://www.thehindu.com/books/books-authors/penguin-to-recall-donigers-book-on-hindus/article5677451.ece "Penguin to recall Doniger's book on Hindus"] The Hindu[http://www.firstpost.com/living/how-donigers-now-recalled-the-hindus-ruffled-hindutva-feathers-1383867.html "How Doniger's now-recalled 'The Hindus' ruffled Hindutva feathers"] firstpost.com Indian authors such as Arundhati Roy, Partha Chatterjee, Jeet Thayil, and Namwar Singh inveighed against the publisher's decision.[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Academics-writers-decry-Penguins-withdrawal-of-Donigers-book-The-Hindus/articleshow/30235244.cms? "Academics, writers decry Penguin's withdrawal of Doniger's book, The Hindus"], timesofindia.indiatimes.com; accessed February 14, 2015.{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/arundhati-roy-criticises-penguin-for-pulping-the-hindus-an-alternative-history-9126247.html|title=Arundhati Roy criticises Penguin for pulping The Hindus: An Alternative History|last=Buncombe|first=Andrew|work=The Independent|access-date=February 14, 2015|location=Delhi}} The book has since been published in India by Speaking Tiger Books.{{cite web|author=B Mahesh |url=http://www.punemirror.in/news/india/Donigers-Hindus-returns-20-months-after-its-withdrawal/articleshow/50080603.cms |title=Doniger's Hindus returns, 20 months after its withdrawal |work=Pune Mirror |date=8 December 2010 |access-date=16 December 2015}}

Recognition

1989 elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences{{Cite web|title=Wendy Doniger|url=https://www.amacad.org/person/wendy-doniger|access-date=2021-12-16|website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences|language=en}}
1996 elected to the American Philosophical Society{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Wendy+Doniger&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-12-16|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}
2000 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for excellence in multi-cultural literature, non-fiction, for Splitting the Difference[http://www.penoakland.com/PEN-Oakland-Awards.html PEN Oakland Award Winners: Josephine Miles Award] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20130104092227/http://www.penoakland.com/PEN-Oakland-Awards.html |date=January 4, 2013 }}. Accessed February 22, 2014.
2002 Rose Mary Crawshay prize from the British Academy, for the best book about English literature written by a woman, for The BedtrickBritish Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences. [https://www.britac.ac.uk/about/medals/Rose_Mary_Crawshay_Prize_2002.cfm "The Rose Mary Crawshay Prize 2002 Awarded to Professor Wendy Doniger"], britac.ac.uk; accessed February 22, 2014.
2008 Martin E. Marty Public Understanding of Religion Award from the American Academy of ReligionAmerican Academy of Religion [https://www.aarweb.org/programs-services/martin-e-marty-public-understanding-religion-award-current-and-past-winners Martin E. Marty Public Understanding of Religion Award - Current and Past Winners], aarweb.org; retrieved February 22, 2014.
2015 Charles Homer Haskins Prize of the American Council of Learned Societies"Wendy Doniger Named 2015 Haskins Prize Lecture", ACLS News, October 22, 2013; accessed February 22, 2013. [https://www.acls.org/media/haskins/ "A Life of Learning" by Wendy Doniger (with video]; May 8, 2015 lecture at Philadelphia, PA) acls.com. Retrieved 2015-08-19.

Works

Doniger has written 16 books, translated (primarily from Sanskrit to English) with commentary nine other volumes, has contributed to many edited texts and has written hundreds of articles in journals, magazines and newspapers. These include New York Times Book Review, London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, The Times, The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, International Herald Tribune, Parabola, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Daedalus, The Nation, and the Journal of Asian Studies.{{citation needed|date=February 2013}}

=Interpretive works=

Published under the name of Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty:

Served as Vedic consultant and co-author, and contributed a chapter ("Part II: The Post-Vedic History of the Soma Plant," pp. 95–147) in Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality, by R. Gordon Wasson (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1968).
Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva (Oxford University Press, 1973).
The Ganges (London: Macdonald Educational, 1975).
[https://books.google.com/books?id=Ug_9cVR4lW8C The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology] (Berkeley: University of California, 1976).
[https://books.google.com/books?id=EBvHzornoMwC Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts] (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
[https://books.google.com/books?id=vhNNrX3bmo4C Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities] (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984 ).
Tales of Sex and Violence: Folklore, Sacrifice, and Danger in the Jaiminiya Brahmana (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
[https://books.google.com/books?id=N7mBwsmp-g0C Other Peoples' Myths: The Cave of Echoes]. (New York: Macmillan, 1988).

Published under the name of Wendy Doniger:

[https://books.google.com/books?id=76Oh3p2vpe4C The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth]. The 1996–1997 ACLS/AAR Lectures. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
[https://books.google.com/books?id=G4pgM3birUwC Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India]. The 1996 Jordan Lectures. Chicago and London: University of London Press and University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Der Mann, der mit seiner eigenen Frau Ehebruch beging. Mit einem Kommentar von Lorraine Daston. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 1999.
The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
La Trappola della Giumenta. Trans. Vincenzo Vergiani. Milan: Adelphi Edizione, 2003.
The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
The Hindus: An Alternative History. New York: Penguin Press, 2009.
The Donigers of Great Neck: A Mythologized Memoir. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2019.

=Translations=

Published under the name of Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty:

Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook, translated from the Sanskrit. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1975.
The Rig Veda: An Anthology, 108 Hymns Translated from the Sanskrit (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1981).
(with David Grene) Antigone (Sophocles). A new translation for the Court Theatre, Chicago, production of February 1983.
[https://books.google.com/books?id=6hwNAQAAIAAJ Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism], in the series Textual Sources for the Study of Religion, edited by John R. Hinnells (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
(with David Grene). Oresteia. A New Translation for the Court Theatre Production of 1986. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).

Published under the name of Wendy Doniger:

Mythologies. A restructured translation of Yves Bonnefoy's Dictionnaire des Mythologies, prepared under the direction of Wendy Doniger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1991). 2 vols.
The Laws of Manu. A new translation, with Brian K. Smith, of the Manavadharmasastra (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1991).
[https://books.google.com/books?id=wAAiY4J5-ekC Vātsyāyana Kāmasūtra]. A new translation by Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
The Lady of the Jewel Necklace and The Lady Who Shows Her Love. Harsha's Priyadarsika and Ratnavali. Clay Sanskrit Series. New York: New York University Press, JJC Foundation, 2006.

=Edited volumes=

Published under the name of Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty:

The Concept of Duty in South Asia. (with J. D. M. Derrett). (London: School of Oriental and African Studies).
The Critical Study of Sacred Texts. (Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union, Religious Studies Series, 1979).
Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions. (Berkeley: University of California Press; 1980).
Elephanta: The Cave of Siva. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Carmel Berkson, and George Michell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). {{ISBN|978-0-691-04009-7}}
Religion and Change. Edited by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty. History of Religions 25:4 (May 1986).

Published under the name of Wendy Doniger:

[https://books.google.com/books?id=Jb1Wa_SRNewC Animals in Four Worlds: Sculptures from India]. Photographs by Stella Snead; text by Wendy Doniger and George Michell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
[https://books.google.com/books?id=-kZFzHCuiFAC Purana Perennis: Reciprocity and Transformation in Hindu and Jaina Texts]. Essays by David Shulman, V. Narayana Rao, A. K. Ramanujan, Friedhelm Hardy, John Cort, Padmanabh Jaini, Laurie Patton, and Wendy Doniger. Edited by Wendy Doniger. (SUNY Press, 1993).
[https://books.google.com/books?id=Nkac7lveToEC Off with Her Head! The Denial of Women's Identity in Myth, Religion, and Culture]. Ed., with Howard Eilberg-Schwartz. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
[https://books.google.com/books?id=OgsTmeRHpeUC Myth and Method]. Ed., with Laurie Patton. Virginia: University of Virginia Press, 1996.
[https://books.google.com/books?isbn=978-0-393-91257-9 The Norton Anthology of World Religions: Hinduism]. Ed., with Jack Miles. New York: Norton, 2015.

=Articles=

Doniger, Wendy, "The Rise and Fall of Warhorses" (review of David Chaffetz, Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires, Norton, 2024, 424 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXXII, no. 6 (10 April 2025), pp. 17–19. "Unlike cows, horses, whose teeth are quite dull, pull up grass by the roots rather than biting off the blades, or they nibble it right down to the ground, thus quickly destroying the land, which may require some years to recover.... [H]orses in the wild... range constantly to find new territory... [T]he horse came to symbolize conquest through its own natural imperialism. The steppes bred nomadic horses and nomadic hordes.... Men waged war to get other people's horses so that they could wage war. Horsepower... remained the basic unit of power for centuries.... But the horse-breeding people of the steppes never succeeded in conquering the part of the world west of the Carpathians and the Alps, nor civilizations.... where sea power... was decisive." (p. 17.)

Notes

References

{{cite journal|last=Marr|first=John H.|year=1976|title=Review of Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty: Asceticism and eroticism in the mythology of Śiva. (School of Oriental and African Studies.) Oxford University Press, 1973|journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London|volume=39|issue=3|pages=718–719|doi=10.1017/s0041977x00051892|jstor=614803|s2cid=163033725 }}
{{cite journal|last=Rocher|first=Ludo|title=Review: The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger|journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society|volume=132|issue=2|date=April–June 2012|pages=302–304|doi=10.7817/jameroriesoci.132.2.0302|jstor=10.7817/jameroriesoci.132.2.0302}}
{{cite journal|last=Shrimali|first=K. M.|title=Review of The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger|journal=Social Scientist|volume=38|issue=7/8|date=July–August 2010|pages=66–81|jstor=27866725}}
{{cite journal|last=Taylor|first=McComas|date=June 2011|title=Mythology Wars: The Indian Diaspora, "Wendy's Children" and the Struggle for the Hindu Past|journal=Asian Studies Review|volume=35|issue=2|pages=149–168|doi=10.1080/10357823.2011.575206|s2cid=145317607}}
Agarwal, V. (2014). New stereotypes of Hindus in Western Indology. {{ISBN|978-1-5058-8559-0}}
Rajiv Malhotra (2016), Academic Hinduphobia: A Critique of Wendy Doniger's Erotic School of Indology. {{ISBN|978-93-85485-01-5}}
Antonio de Nicolas, Krishnan Ramaswamy, and Aditi Banerjee (eds.) (2007), Invading the Sacred: An Analysis Of Hinduism Studies In America. Rupa & Co.

External links

[https://divinity.uchicago.edu/directory/wendy-doniger Doniger's homepage] at the University of Chicago Divinity School website
[http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/doniger/ Wendy Doniger] from Stanford University Presidential Lectures in the Humanities and Arts

{{Succession box

| before = Annette Peach
Lucy Newlyn

| title = Rose Mary Crawshay Prize

| years = 2002
and
Kate Flint

| after = Jane Stabler
Claire Tomalin

}}

Category:1940 births

Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford

Category:American Indologists

Category:20th-century American Jews

Category:Hindu studies scholars

Category:American historians of religion