The origins of evil in Hindu mythology

by Wendy Doniger

In this pertinent and valuable study O'Flaherty answers the crucial questions such as, what solutions did the Hindus offer to the problems of evil? How did these arise and develop historically? And, how if at all can these various solutions be subsumed under a unified world view? The problem of evil, in particular the question of theodicy, has long been overlooked or misunderstood by Indologists, who have maintained that there is no problem of evil in Indian thought, or that it was "solved" by the doctrine of transmigration and karma. Writers on Indian philosophy have touched upon the problem but no one has treated the extensive mythology of evil in Vedic and Puranic texts, which offer the full range of Indian approaches to the problem. The intense emotional weight of the question of evil drove Hindus to generate literally hundreds of diverse and often contradictory alternative answers, presupposing but quickly transcending the logical yet unsatisfying "answer" offered by the doctrine