• This is a very short overview of the contributions of Dr. Sharada Bettina Bäumer. 

Often we forget those who do meticulous work within and for our Dharma --- their academic output lacks the reductionist jazz that we crave. We focus on Wendy Doniger and Sheldon Pollock since they generate controversy, at least to the popular mind. Yet as I had mentioned earlier in this website, scholars like Georg Feuerstein go unnoticed both by Indologists and by online savants.

Bäumer had been quietly transforming the topology of Indian Studies without ado. She does not write popular polemical diatribes but has always been immaculate in her scholarship. Let me illustrate: through her works with Raimundo Panikkar and later on Panikkar, she has shown an inter-religiosity which many Indian Studies’ scholars lack the domain expertise to enact. 

Here, I need to pause and explain that Indology is a very old-fashioned term and to be honest, claustrophobic. Further, as a domain Indology is now understood to be constructed by Europeans and Americans to further their Orientalist objectives. On the other hand, though not free from problems, the field of Indian Studies is accommodating of wider interdisciplinary academic work not centered around the American Academy of Religion. 

It is telling that Bäumer has preferred Indian publishing houses for publication, often neglected by her peers including colonially informed Indian scholars. It is also telling that while in academic religious studies’ circles we keep hearing about Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade and Mary Douglas, Bäumer does not forget to remember her tutelage under Sri Gopinath Kaviraj. 

Sharda Bettina Bäumer is an untiring propagator of Kashmir Shaivism and she still lectures on the subject; her YouTube talks on the Vijñāna Bhairava are for everyone to hear. To know about her books click here

I will now quote her versatility as a scholar. In A Lexicon of Fundamental Concepts of the Indian Arts; in the series of books published as Kalātattvakośa whose second volume on Space and Time: Deśa-Kāla was edited by her, Bäumer brilliantly maps the entire genealogy, archaeology and nosology of ‘Krama’, beginning from its etymology and ending with Sri Abhinavagupta’s understanding of ‘karama’ as “progressive identification with the object of one’s imagination” (272). The edition of the Lexicon used here was published by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in conjunction with Motlal Banarsidass Publishers in 2003. This is the revised edition of the 1992 multi-volume dictionary. 

While Bäumer is no Abhinavagupta, she is no less than a Renaissance figure within Indian Studies; a polyglot, and as far as I can tell, from her writings and video lectures, she is a mystic. Through her intellectual apostolate she has encountered what Rudolf Otto called the ‘mysterium tremendum et fascinans’. Bäumer’s academic acumen is not confined to her own works, but in her capacity also as an editor. 

In Prakrti. The Agamic Tradition and the Arts (1995 edition), Bäumer comments in the Introduction that the Agamas and Tantras “play a crucial role of mediation, with their integration of the senses and of matter into spirituality” (3). She has succinctly presented what most scholars never understand --- the Agamas and the Tantras are not transgressive; they are transformative.

Bäumer’s theo-cultural work lies in the fluidity of her scholarship. Her focus is the Anuttara Trika, but her scholarship is vast, encompassing virtually the entirety of Sanatana Dharma. And to a large extent Catholicism too.

One wonders why she is not mentioned as a path-breaking, or rather, more aptly, path-forging interlocutor between Hinduism and Catholicism? To be taken seriously by the Catholic priest, Panikkar, is itself a testimony to her scholarship and commitment to both dialogue and Sanatana Dharma. Few can claim the familiarity that Panikkar had with the Vedas. 

Unless we acknowledge the scholarship of  Bäumer and incorporate some of her works in our higher-academic syllabi, especially in literary theory and Indian Studies, we would do injustice to this true daughter of India and of course, to the last great Kashmiri Shaivite Master --- Swami  Lakshman Joo. Bäumer is the last of the living heirs of Sri Abinavagupta and Swami Lakshman Joo.    

The author is a recluse and a theologian. He delivered the de Nobili Endowment Lecture in 2022 on Edith Stein’s phenomenology and Samkhya.

To read all articles by author

To visit Bettina Sharada Baumer site

Also read 

1. Articles on Sister Nivedita

2. Which Women contributed to Knowledge Systems in India

3.  Lal Deed, the Kashmiri Yogini

4.  Tantra and teachings of Kashmir’s Abhinavgupta

5. Light on Abhinavagupta's Contribution to the Advaita Shaiva Spiritual Philosophy of Kashmir