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Re: ISKCON : help define these terms
In article <4iaas8$muc@babbage.ece.uc.edu>, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> writes:
[...]
|> >> Pray, who are these scholars?
|> >A.L. Basham was one of the most respected Indologists of all
|> >time; he had the highest respect for Srila Prabhupada and his
|> >books. Stillson Judah is another. So is Diana Eck from Harvard. These
|> >are a few I can recall off the top of my head. You'll find many more.
|> >Their favorable reviews are often quoted in the jackets of Prabhupada's
|> >books.
|>
|> In this country anyone can whip up a few followers. The same way Radhakrishnan
|> has received lots of kudos for his translations. I don't see you supporting
|> him.
Let's see if I follow this conversation:
R says that Prabhupada's translation is bunk.
M replies that if that were the case, real scholars wouldn't praise it.
R asks "oh yeah, who are these scholars"
M replies with the names of some scholars
R says that anyone can get scholars to support them, and that
it's inconsistent that this other version isn't supported by
M, even though it has some scholars behind it.
My comments on this exchange:
a) the presence of scholarly support was raised not as support
for the translation, but as opposition to the critique of
of the translation. There is a difference.
b) since M's support of the translation is _not_ based on the
presence or absence of the scholarly support, bringing in
the question of Radhakrishnan's translation is totally
spurious.
c) if "anyone can whip up a few followers [among the scholars]",
then this should've been the logical reply to "if that were
the case, then..." In other words, why wait until the scholars
are named before issuing this statement?
d) if we assume that the scholars are valid, then it seems to
me that the logical step for R would be to show why the
support of the scholars is not relevant. After all, it would
be logical to show why we should ignore the praise of the
scholars.
e) if we do not wish to give the scholars some basic credit,
then we at least need to establish why R's critique is
somehow superior to the other critique, or why the other
critique is inherently wrong.
Granted, I will make no claim to being a logician, but the way
this exchange has run, it's a wonder to me why these issues
haven't been addressed already.
-Vivek
