“Hindu” Bioethics?

See Cromwell Crawford S. , Dilemmas of Life and Death: Hindu Ethics in a North American Context (New York: Sate University of New York Press, 1995) and Cromwell Crawford S. , Hindu Ethics for the Twenty-first Century (New York: State University of New York Press, 2003).

Mysorekar U. , “Eye on Religion: Clinicians and Hinduism,” Southern Medical Journal 99 no. 4, Special Section (2006): 441. For PBS interviews, see “Hindus in America,” available at <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week451/feature.html> (last visited December 4, 2007).

Trivedi H. L. , “Hindu Religious View in Context of Transplantation of Organs from Cadavers,” Transplant Proceedings 22, no. 3 (1990): 942. For Web information see: <http://www.organ-transplants.org/understanding/religion/> (last visited December 4, 2007); <http://www.giftofhope.org/understanding-donation/religious-viewpoints.htm> (last visited December 4, 2007); and <http://www.donors1.org/index.php?option=com_simplefaq&task=answer&Itemid=107&catid=66&aid=20> (last visited December 6, 2007).

The term “religion” can also be problematized. I will not do so here for want of space.

This section is from my own article, Sarma D. , “Hindu Leaders in North America?” Teaching Theology and Religion 9, no. 2 (2006): 115–120. I am grateful to the editors for allowing me to reproduce it here.

Stietencron H. , “Hinduism: On the Proper Use of a Deceptive Term,” in Sontheimer G. Kulke H. , eds., Hinduism Reconsidered (Delhi: Manohar Publications, 2001): 32–53, at 33.

I will use the term “Hindu” and “Hinduism” hereafter without the quotation marks. This should not be taken to mean that I endorse the term. Rather, I do so in full acknowledgment of its inherently problematic nature.

Stietencron H. , “Hinduism: On the Proper Use of a Deceptive Term,” in Sontheimer G. Kulke H. , eds., Hinduism Reconsidered (Delhi: Manohar Publications, 2001): 32–53; Pennington B. K. , Was Hinduism Invented? Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

Kancha Ilaiah, for example, has argued that Dalits, who are often characterized as Hindu by upper classes, are not Hindus at all. Moreover, the very act of being characterized as such is offensive and oppressive. See Ilaiah K. , Why I am not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Economic Policy, 2nd ed. (Calcutta: Samya, 2005).

Though Mormons, for example, centralize other texts, they still include the Bible in their canon.

See Sarma , supra note 5.

Trivedi H. L. , “Hindu Religious View in Context of Transplantation of Organs from Cadavers,” Transplant Proceedings 22, no. 3 (1990): 942.

Velji Shah H. , “Hindu Dharma and Organ Transplantation,” available at <http://www.uktransplant.org.uk/ukt/newsroom/fact_sheets/religious_leaflets/hindu_dharma_and_organ_donation/hindu_dharrma_and_organ_donation.pdf#search=%22Hindu%20organ%20transplants%22> (last visited December 4, 2007).

See Sarma , supra note 5.

Mysorekar U. , “Gratitude As Viewed in Hinduism,” Yale Journal for the Humanities in Medicine, February 25, 2002, available at <http://yjhm.yale.edu/archives/spirit2003/gratitude/umy-sorekar.htm> (last visited December 6, 2007). Information about Dr. Mysorekar's visits to the White House was mentioned in this site.

Zysk K. , “Mythologization and the Brahmanization of Indian Medicine: Transforming Heterodoxy into Orthodoxy,” in Josephson F. , ed., Categorisation and Interpretation (Göteborg: Göteborgs Universitet, 1999): 125–145, at 130.

See, for example, Young K. , “Hindu Bioethics,” in Camenisch P. , ed., Religious Methods and Resources in Bioethics (Dodrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994): 3–30.

Personal communication from Patrick Olivelle to author, August 29, 2006. On file with author.

See supra note 16.

Acharya V. N. , “Status of Renal Transplant in India — May 1994,” Journal of Postgraduate Medicine 40, no. 3 (1994): 158–61.

Courtright places the origins of myths about Ganesha in the “early Puranas: The Brahmanda, Matsya, the Srstikhanda of the Padma, and the Harivamsa (c. A.D. 300–500).” Courtright P. , Ganesa: Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985): at 18.

There are many accounts about the origins of Ganesha. My brief version here derives largely from Dimmit and van Buitenen's retelling, which is found in Dimmit C. van Buitenen J. A. B. , eds. and trans., Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978): at 179–185.

Id., at 171–179; Dowson J. , A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion (Calcutta: Rupa, 1995): at 76–79.

I am indebted to Professor Wendy Doniger for this insight. Personal communication from Wendy Doniger to author, August 11, 2006. On file with author.

See Doniger W. , “Transplanting Myths of Organ Transplants,” in Youngner S. Fox R. O'Connell L. , eds., Organ Transplantation: Meanings and Realities (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996): 194–220, at 210 for more on this issue of karma.

Other than, of course, this one.

These dates differ among scholars. I am using the category as characterized in Michaels A. , Hinduism Past and Present (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004): at 38.

See Sarma D. , Epistemologies and the Limitations of Philosophical Inquiry (New York: RoutledgeCurzon Press, 2004): At 24–30 for more on the Madhva canon.

A version of this section was first published in Sarma D. , Introduction to Madhva Vedanta (Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishers Ltd., 2003): at 1–3.

See Dumont L. , Home Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Madan T. N. , “Concerning the Categories subha and suddha in Hindu Culture: An Exploratory Essay,” in Carman J. Marglin F. , eds., Purity and Auspiciousness in Indian Society (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985): At 11–29; Srinivas M. N. , “Varna and Caste” in Srinivas M. N. , ed., Collected Essays (Oxford: Delhi, 2002): 166–172; Marriott M. , “Hindu Transactions: Diversity Without Dualism,” in Kapferer B. , ed., Transaction and Meaning: Directions in the Anthropology of Exchange and Symbolic Behavior (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1976): 109–142.

Olivelle P. , trans., The Law Code of Manu (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004): Chapter 3, verse 183–3,185, at 57.

Id., at chapter 5, verse 135, at 95.

Id., at chapter 4, verse 207–212, at 80.

Id., at chapter 5, verse 107, at 93.

Id., at chapter 4, verse 222, at 81.

There is literature about contact with another person's bodily fluids. This is not be confused with exchange of bodily fluids such as blood transfusions and the like.

See The Law Code of Manu, supra note 31, at chapter 10, verses 1–73, at 180–185.

Mysorekar U. , “Mother Theresa and the Poor,” available at <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week102/perspectives.html> (last visited December 4, 2007).

Articles 15 and 17 of the Indian Constitution.

Doniger W. , “Transplanting Myths of Organ Transplants,” in Youngner S. Fox R. O'Connell L. , eds., Organ Transplantation: Meanings and Realities (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996): 194–220, at 201.