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.

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.

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.

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.

Frawley founded 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.; and the California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine (CAAM).

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.

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 and that "(Frawley) is committed to channeling a symbolic spiritual paradigm through a critical empirico rational one".

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.

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.

Partial bibliography

• Gods, Sages, and Kings, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-910261-37-7
• From the River of Heaven, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-910261-38-5
• Hinduism: The Eternal Tradition (Sanatana Dharma), Voice of India, New Delhi ISBN 81-85990-29-8
• The Myth of the Aryan Invasion Theory online book, update, article
• In Search of the Cradle of Civilization, with Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak, 1995; Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1999. ISBN 8120816269.
• How I Became a Hindu
• The Rig Veda and the History of India ISBN 81-7742-039-9
• Hinduism and the Clash of Civilizations.
• Yoga and Ayurveda, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-81-0
• Tantric Yoga, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-910261-39-3
• Wisdom of the Ancient Seers, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-910261-36-9
• Oracle of Rama, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-910261-35-0
• Yoga and the Sacred Fire, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-940985-75-6
• Ayurvedic Healing, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-97-7
• Ayurveda and Marma Therapy, (with Ranade and Lele), Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-940985-59-4
• Yoga for Your Type: Ayurvedic Guide to Your Asana Practice, (with Summerfield-Kozak), Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-910261-30-X
• Ayurveda: Nature's Medicine, (with Ranade), Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-95-0
• Yoga of Herbs: Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine, (with Lad), Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-941524-24-8
• Ayurveda and the Mind, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-36-5
• Astrology of the Seers, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-89-6
• Ayurvedic Astrology, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-940985-88-8

See also

• Voice of India
• Koenraad Elst
• Francois Gautier
• Michel Danino
• Girilal Jain
• Archaeoastronomy and Vedic chronology

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

• David Frawley's homepage
• Online books by David Frawley
• US Publisher of books by David Frawley
• Online version of Hinduism and the Clash of Civilizations