A detailed miniature painting depicting the Battle at Lanka from the Hindu epic Ramayana. The left side of the image shows Rama, his brother Lakshmana, and their allies including Hanuman. They are fighting the demon king Ravana, who is shown with ten heads and twenty arms, positioned centrally with his forces of rakshasas (demons) and war elephants. Figures are engaged in combat, wielding swords, bows and shields, while fallen warriors and animals lie at the bottom. The scene is bordered by a red and yellow frame.

A miniature painting depicting the Battle of Lanka from the Hindu epic Ramayana. Udaipur, circa 1653. Hindu nationalists have become increasingly invested in rewriting Indian history and mythology to serve a majoritarian political agenda. In 2014, a retired schoolteacher succeeded in pressuring Penguin India to withdraw Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History on the grounds that it offended religious sensibilities under India’s blasphemy law. Doniger has spent over five decades studying Hinduism, and yet her work has long been a target of vilification by vocal groups of Hindu fundamentalists.Photo: The British Library / Wikimedia Commons

Wendy Doniger on the many lives of myths: Southasia Review of Books podcast #29

A conversation with the Indologist Wendy Doniger on her wide-ranging study ‘The Cave of Echoes’, and the importance of understanding other peoples’ myths and rituals

Published on:

28 Jul 2025, 3:05 am

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books podcast, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan speaks to the distinguished Indologist and scholar of Sanskrit and Indian textual traditions Wendy Doniger about her book, The Cave of Echoes: Stories About Gods, Animals and Other Strangers (Speaking Tiger, July 2025).

In The Cave of Echoes, Wendy Doniger writes that, “it is impossible to define myth, but it is cowardly not to try.” For her, the best way to approach myth is not by defining it, but to look at it in action, which is precisely what she has set out to do throughout this book: to explore what myth does, rather than what myth is.

This book is a celebration of the universal art of storytelling and the diverse narratives that shape how people understand their world and their pasts. Drawing on Hindu epics, Biblical parables, Greek myths and modern mythologies, Doniger examines the enduring force of myth and tradition, and how they shape societies.

She shows how myth not only allows cultures to define themselves, but also how the myths of others can reflect back truths often overlooked in our own. Along the way, Doniger raises critical questions about how we interpret mythic stories, and how different communities across Southasia and beyond engage with these foundational texts and traditions.

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Episode notes:

The Cave of Echoes: Stories About Gods, Animals and Other Strangers by Wendy Doniger (Speaking Tiger, July 2025)

The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger (Speaking Tiger, December 2015)

Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture by Claude Levi-Strauss (Schocken, March 1995)

‘Banned in Bangalore’ by Wendy Doniger (The New York Times, March 2014)

‘If censorship happens in Bharat, what about India?’ (Himal Southasian, February 2014)

‘Aside the chariot: A review of The Hindus: An alternative history by Wendy Doniger’ - Diwas Kc (Himal Southasian, March 2010)

‘Nepal’s Ramayanas: The study of myths and histories in Southasia needs to transcend modern political boundaries’ - Amish Raj Mulmi (Himal Southasian, August 2010)

‘The pursuit of the Southasian past’ - Romila Thapar (Himal Southasian, July 2008)

“Ramayana, Ramayana, Ramayana” - Dor Bahadur Bista (Himal Southasian, September 1989)

‘The Ram Mandir is the tombstone for India as Southasia’s great secular exception’ - Vaibhav Vats (Himal Southasian, February 2024)

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