David Frawley

David Frawley

David Frawley (or Vāmadeva Śāstrī वामदेव शास्त्री) is an American Hindu author, publishing on topics such as Hinduism, Yoga and Ayurveda. He is the founder and director of the American Institute for Vedic Studies in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which offers courses on Yoga philosophy, Ayurveda, and Hindu astrology. He is also a professor of Vedic Astrology and Ayurveda at the Hindu University of America at Orlando, Florida. He is a Vaidya (Ayurvedic doctor), and a Jyotishi (astrologer).

In publications such as In Search of the Cradle of Civilization (1995), Frawley has also defended theories of historical revisionism advocating the "Indigenous Aryans" ideology popular in Hindu nationalism.

Contents

Career

In 2000, his book How I Became a Hindu, Frawley details his move from a Catholic upbringing to embracing Hinduism. He learned Sanskrit from a Sanskrit grammar book and a copy of the Vedas in around 1970.[page needed]

Frawley according to vedanet.com received a doctor's degree in Chinese medicine in 1987. He taught Chinese herbal medicine at the International Institute of Chinese Medicine from 1984-1990.[1]

In 1991, under the auspices of the Hindu teacher Avadhuta Shastri, he was named Vamadeva Shastri, and he was the first American to receive the title of "Jyotish Kovid" from the Indian Council of Astrological Sciences (ICAS) in 1993.[2]

Frawley founded[year needed] and is the director of the "American Institute for Vedic Studies" in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Through his institute, he offers courses on Yoga philosophy, Hindu astrology (jyotisha), and Ayurveda.

He works with multiple Ayurvedic institutions including: The Chopra Wellness Center in San Diego; The California College of Ayurveda (which he advised Marc Halpern during its formation; The Kripalu school of Yoga and Ayurveda; The National Ayurvedic Medical Association, which he has sat as advisor on since 2000.;[3] and the California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine (CAAM).[4]

In essays and books such as In Search of the Cradle of Civilization (1995), Frawley endorses the "Indigenous Aryans" scenario propagated in Hindu nationalism during the 1990s.[5]

Reception

Bryant (2001) commented that Frawley's work is more successful in the popular arena, to which it is directed and where its impact "is by no means insignificant", rather than in academic study[6] and that "(Frawley) is committed to channeling a symbolic spiritual paradigm through a critical empirico rational one".[7]

In a series of exchanges published in The Hindu, Michael Witzel rejects Frawley's linking of Vedic literature with the Harappan civilisation and a claimed lost city in the Gulf of Cambay, as misreading Vedic texts, ignoring or misunderstanding other evidence and motivated by antiquity frenzy. Witzel argues that Frawley's proposed "ecological approach" and "innovative theories" of the history of ancient India amount to propagating currently popular indigenist ideas.[8]

Bruce Lincoln attributes autochthonous ideas such as Frawley's to "parochial nationalism", terming them "exercises in scholarship ( = myth + footnotes)", where archaeological data spanning several millennia is selectively invoked, with no textual sources to control the inquiry, in support of the theorists' desired narrative.[9]

Partial bibliography

Notes

  1. ^ American Institute of Vedic Studies. Accessed July 11, 2008
  2. ^ Dr. David Frawley Information infobuddhism.com. "Vamadeva was one of the first Americans to receive Jyotish Kovid title from the Indian Council of Astrological Sciences (ICAS, 1993), the largest Vedic astrology association in the world."American Institute of Vedic Studies. Accessed July 11, 2008
  3. ^ "NAMA (Advisors)". National Ayurvedic Medical Association. http://www.ayurveda-nama.org/advisors.php. 
  4. ^ "About Dr. David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri)". American Institute of Vedic Studies. http://www.vedanet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20. 
  5. ^ Arvidsson 2006:298 Arvidsson, Stefan (2006), Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science, translated by Sonia Wichmann, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
  6. ^ Edwin Bryant (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. Oxford University Press. pp. 291. ISBN 0195137779. 
  7. ^ Edwin Bryant (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. Oxford University Press. pp. 347. ISBN 0195137779. 
  8. ^ David Frawley (June 18, 2002). Vedic literature and the Gulf of Cambay discovery. The Hindu. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/op/2002/06/18/stories/2002061800030200.htm [dead link]; M. Witzel (June 25, 2002). A maritime Rigveda? — How not to read ancient texts. The Hindu. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/op/2002/06/25/stories/2002062500030200.htm [dead link]; David Frawley (July 16, 2002). Witzel's vanishing ocean. The Hindu. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/op/2002/07/16/stories/2002071600070200.htm [dead link]; Michael Witzel (August 6, 2002). Philology vanished: Frawley's Rigveda — I. The Hindu. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/op/2002/08/06/stories/2002080600070200.htm [dead link]; Michael Witzel (August 13, 2002). Philology vanished: Frawley's Rigveda — II. The Hindu. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/op/2002/08/13/stories/2002081300020200.htm [dead link];David Frawley (August 20, 2002). Witzel's philology. The Hindu. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/op/2002/08/20/stories/2002082000120200.htm [dead link].
  9. ^ Bruce Lincoln (1999). Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship. University of Chicago Press. pp. 215. ISBN 0226482014. 

See also

References

  • Arvidsson, Stefan (2006). Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science. translated by Sonia Wichmann. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-02860-6. 
  • Nussbaum, Martha (2007). The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-02482-6. 

External links


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