It is fashionable among intellectuals to assert that dharma traditions lacked any semblance of unity before the British, and that the contours of contemporary Hinduism were bequeathed to us by our colonial masters. Such arguments routinely target Swami Vivekananda, a key interlocutor who shattered many deeply rooted prejudices against Indian civilization. They accuse him of having camouflaged various alleged 'contradictions' within traditional Hinduism, and charge him with having appropriated the principles of Western religion to 'manufacture' a coherent and unified worldview and set of practices known today as Hinduism.
Indra's Net: Defending Hinduism's Philosophical Unity provides a foundation for refuting theories that slander contemporary Hinduism as illegitimate, ascribing sinister motives to its existence, and characterizing its fabric as oppressive. Rajiv Malhotra offers a detailed, systematic rejoinder to such views, and articulates the multi-dimensional, holographic understanding of reality that grounds Hindu dharma. He also argues that informed and influenced many Western intellectual moments of the postmodern era. Indeed as he sites with many insightful examples, Appropriations from Hinduism have provided a foundation for cutting-edge discoveries in several fields, including cognitive science and neuroscience.