A wholly different political element in Prof. Hock's contributions concerns his characterization of the non-invasionist school. He repeatedly identif… - Koenraad Elst

The remarkable thing about Arthur Schopenhauer is that he built such a large part of his philosophy on the Upanishads and Buddhism when these were as yet so little-known (around 1820). Only towards the end of his life did he master Sanskrit, so he had to make do with just a few translations. For the Upanishads, he used Anquetil Duperron’s French translation from a Persian translation of the original Sanskrit. Yet, his understanding of them was better than that of many later thinkers. (In the same period, Georg Hegel wrote a undoubtedly biased but fairly insightful commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita.)

The book reports correctly that there has been a shift from the study of the classics ("Indology") to the sociological approach ("South Asian Studies") within the Orientalist departments.

Indians may recall that such death sentences against people who have insulted the Prophet, have been carried out earlier this century: against Arya Samaj propagandists Swami Shraddhananda and Pandit Lekh Ram, and against Rajpal, the writer of the Rangila Rasool (more or less Playboy Mohammed). This was a book on the sex life of the Prophet and his wives, certainly insulting, and as a criticism of Islam rather beside the point, but understandable as a reaction against a similar vilifying Muslim pamphlet about Sita. These murders had the desired effect, for the Arya Samaj became less straightforward in its criticism of the Prophet.