Wendy Doniger

American Indologist · United States · On the map · Writers · Born 1940 · age 85

Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty is an American Indologist whose professional career has spanned five decades.

Wendy Doniger is read about 83 times a day, in 14 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 12 June 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 60 days, one point a day.

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A life in dates

2010“I myself am by both temperament and training inclined to texts.”In their words30 September 2010In: The Hindus: An Alternative History, Oxford University Press, 30 September 2010, p. 35.Read the whole statement

2009“The two sets of sources, textual and nontextual, reveal bits of history to us in different ways, like the lame man riding on the shoulders of the blind man.”In their wordsIn: The Hindus: An Alternative History, p. 34.Read the whole statement

Honorary Doctor of Harvard UniversityAward2007“There is generally, therefore, an inverse ratio between the worship of goddesses and the granting of rights to human women.”In their wordsWendy Doniger, Quoted in The Washington Post. Quoted in Antonio de Nicolas, Krishnan Ramaswamy, and Aditi Banerjee (eds.) (2007), InvadingRead the whole statement

2002Rose Mary Crawshay PrizeAward2000PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary AwardAward1980Guggenheim FellowshipAward1940Born20 November 1940

Also in Deutsch

Media & music

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In their own words 7

Wendy Doniger

7 statements, newest first

Aldous Huxley once said that an intellectual was someone who had found something more interesting than sex; in Indology, an intellectual need not make that choice at all.
Wendy Doniger, “When a lingam is Just a Good Cigar: Psychoanalysis and Hindu Sexual Fantasies,” in The Psychoanalytic Study of Society,, Own words
There was an Indian edition of most of my books, but it didn't make much of a splash.
On the impact of her books in India. But her publication of The Hindus: An Alternative History, a sweeping history of Hinduism from its, Own words
I've always felt like I haven't given anything back to India after all that she had given me, just soaked up all the wonderful stories and told them to Americans.
About her contributions to India., Own words

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Awards

Honorary Doctor of Harvard University2009

Rose Mary Crawshay Prize2002

PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award2000

Guggenheim Fellowship1980

About this person

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.

Country

United States

Writers from the United States 6

Dennis O'Keefe50.7 of 100 Kate Quinn50.7 of 100

David Allen50.7 of 100

Marti Noxon50.7 of 100

John Jakes50.7 of 100

Jonah Goldberg50.7 of 100