Download or read book Rethinking Religion in India written by Esther Bloch and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-24 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critically assesses recent debates about the colonial construction of Hinduism. Written by experts in their field, the chapters present historical and empirical arguments as well as theoretical reflections on the topic, offering new insights into the nature of the construction of religion in India.
Download or read book The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad written by Alexander Rocklin and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can religious freedom be granted to people who do not have a religion? While Indian indentured workers in colonial Trinidad practiced cherished rituals, "Hinduism" was not a widespread category in India at the time. On this Caribbean island, people of South Asian descent and African descent came together--under the watchful eyes of the British rulers--to walk on hot coals for fierce goddesses, summon spirits of the dead, or honor Muslim martyrs, practices that challenged colonial norms for religion and race. Drawing deeply on colonial archives, Alexander Rocklin examines the role of the category of religion in the regulation of the lives of Indian laborers struggling for autonomy. Gradually, Indians learned to narrate the origins, similarities, and differences among their fellows' cosmological views, and to define Hindus, Muslims, and Christians as distinct groups. Their goal in doing this work of subaltern comparative religion, as Rocklin puts it, was to avoid criminalization and to have their rituals authorized as legitimate religion--they wanted nothing less than to gain access to the British promise of religious freedom. With the indenture system's end, the culmination of this politics of recognition was the gradual transformation of Hindus' rituals and the reorganization of their lives--they fabricated a "world religion" called Hinduism.
Download or read book Was Hinduism Invented written by Brian K. Pennington and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-04-28 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a large body of previously untapped literature, including documents from the Church Missionary Society and Bengali newspapers, Brian Pennington offers a fascinating portrait of the process by which "Hinduism" came into being. He argues against the common idea that the modern construction of religion in colonial India was simply a fabrication of Western Orientalists and missionaries. Rather, he says, it involved the active agency and engagement of Indian authors as well, who interacted, argued, and responded to British authors over key religious issues such as image-worship, sati, tolerance, and conversion.
Download or read book The Emergence of Modern Hinduism written by Richard S. Weiss and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. The Emergence of Modern Hinduism argues for the importance of regional, vernacular innovation in processes of Hindu modernization. Scholars usually trace the emergence of modern Hinduism to cosmopolitan reform movements, producing accounts that overemphasize the centrality of elite religion and the influence of Western ideas and models. In this study, the author considers religious change on the margins of colonialism by looking at an important local figure, the Tamil Shaiva poet and mystic Ramalinga Swami (1823–1874). Weiss narrates a history of Hindu modernization that demonstrates the transformative role of Hindu ideas, models, and institutions, making this text essential for scholarly audiences of South Asian history, religious studies, Hindu studies, and South Asian studies.
Download or read book Colonial Hinduism written by Amiya P. Sen and published by Mandala Publishing. This book was released on 2024-02-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a tightly woven narrative, historian of modern India Amiya P. Sen traces the shifting self-understanding of Hindus in the light of the many challenges posed by the British colonial encounter, offering an accessible yet analytically rich book on the birth and development of modern Hinduism, which will be of interest to students and the interested general reader alike. Change has been endemic to Hindu cultural life from its inception. It was nevertheless in the modern era, with the advent of British colonial rule in India, that this change had its most far-reaching consequences, profoundly shaping the landscape of Hinduism as we encounter it today. In Colonial Hinduism: An Introduction, Amiya P. Sen charts this many-layered historical process in a refreshingly accessible narrative. Over seven chapters, this book traces the shifting self-understanding of the Hindus in the light of new challenges posed by the West. This encounter brought forth a new Hindu consciousness that was prepared to critique India’s perceived past irrationalities and superstitions but also reject what it took to be the excesses of the materialistic West. Over the years, a surging Hindu nationalism and anti-colonial sentiment sought to counter the material advances of the West with the self-acclaimed spiritual excellence of India in order to to secure for India a rightful place within global civilisation. In time, however, Hindu nationalism produced its own excesses, the ramifications of which India is still contending. Colonial Hinduism: An Introduction fulfils the long standing need for an accessible yet analytically rich book on the birth and development of modern Hinduism, which will be of interest to students and the interested general reader alike. OXFORD CENTRE SERIES: Colonial Hinduism: An Introduction is part of The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies Mandala Publishing Series. This book joins other accessible texts on Hindu Studies authored by expert scholars, including The Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation and Study Guide; The Hindu Temple and Its Sacred Landscape; and Women in the Hindu World. EXPERT AUTHOR: Amiya P. Sen, PhD, is a historian with an interest in the intellectual and cultural history of modern India. Sen has been Agatha Harrison Fellow at the University of Oxford, Shivdasani Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Heinrich Zimmer Chair at the University of Heidelberg, and Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi, He has served the Universities of Delhi, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan, and Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. EDUCATION AID: With the integration of discussion questions, suggested further reading, glossary of terms, and images throughout, this book serves as a comprehensive resource for both classwork and independent study of modern Hinduism.
Download or read book Was Hinduism Invented written by Brian K. Pennington and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-04-28 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pennington retells the story of Christian's and Hindu's reception of each other in early 19th century Bengal, giving prominence to the power of the respective worldviews to shape the encounter and to help produce the very religions that colonialism thought it 'discovered'.
Download or read book The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad written by Alexander Rocklin and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2019-02-07 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can religious freedom be granted to people who do not have a religion? While Indian indentured workers in colonial Trinidad practiced cherished rituals, "Hinduism" was not a widespread category in India at the time. On this Caribbean island, people of South Asian descent and African descent came together—under the watchful eyes of the British rulers—to walk on hot coals for fierce goddesses, summon spirits of the dead, or honor Muslim martyrs, practices that challenged colonial norms for religion and race. Drawing deeply on colonial archives, Alexander Rocklin examines the role of the category of religion in the regulation of the lives of Indian laborers struggling for autonomy. Gradually, Indians learned to narrate the origins, similarities, and differences among their fellows' cosmological views, and to define Hindus, Muslims, and Christians as distinct groups. Their goal in doing this work of subaltern comparative religion, as Rocklin puts it, was to avoid criminalization and to have their rituals authorized as legitimate religion—they wanted nothing less than to gain access to the British promise of religious freedom. With the indenture system's end, the culmination of this politics of recognition was the gradual transformation of Hindus' rituals and the reorganization of their lives—they fabricated a "world religion" called Hinduism.
Download or read book The Emergence of Modern Hinduism written by Richard S. Weiss and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Emergence of Modern Hinduism argues for the importance of regional, vernacular innovation in processes of Hindu modernization. Scholars usually trace the emergence of modern Hinduism to cosmopolitan reform movements, producing accounts that overemphasize the centrality of elite religion and the influence of Western ideas and models. In this study, the author considers religious change on the margins of colonialism by looking at an important local figure, the Tamil Shaiva poet and mystic Ramalinga Swami (1823–1874). Weiss narrates a history of Hindu modernization that demonstrates the transformative role of Hindu ideas, models, and institutions, making this text essential for scholarly audiences of South Asian history, religious studies, Hindu studies, and South Asian studies. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.
Download or read book Ritual Caste and Religion in Colonial South India written by Michael Bergunder and published by Primus Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Imagining Hinduism written by Sharada Sugirtharajah and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-02-24 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagining Hinduism is an indispensable guide to an immensely significant new understanding of the Hindu faith - that it exists largely as a construct of the Western imagination.
Download or read book Hindu Mahasabha in Colonial North India 1915 1930 written by Prabhu Bapu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hindu nationalism has emerged as a political ideology represented by the Hindu Mahasabha. This book explores the campaign for Hindu unity and organisation in the context of the Hindu-Muslim conflict in colonial north India in the early twentieth century. It argues that India's partition in 1947 was a result of the campaign and politics of the Hindu rightwing rather than the Islamist politics of the Muslim League alone. The book explains that the Mahasabha articulated Hindu nationalist ideology as a means of constructing a distinct Hindu political identity and unity among the Hindus in conflict with the Muslims in the country. It looks at the Mahasabha’s ambivalence with the Indian National Congress due to an extreme ideological opposition, and goes on to argue that the Mahasabha had its ideological focus on an anti-Muslim antagonism rather than the anti-British struggle for India’s independence, adding to the difficulties in the negotiations on Hindu-Muslim representation in the country. The book suggests that the Mahasabha had a limited class and regional base and was unable to generate much in the way of a mass movement of its own, but developed a quasi-military wing, besides its involvement in a number of popular campaigns. Bridging the gap in Indian historiography by focusing on the development and evolution of Hindu nationalism in its formative period, this book is a useful study for students and scholars of Asian Studies and Political History.
Download or read book Orientalism and Religion written by Richard King and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-03 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Orientalism and Religion offers us a timely discussion of the implications of contemporary post-colonial theory for the study of religion. Richard King examines the way in which notions such as mysticism, religion, Hinduism and Buddhism are taken for granted. He shows us how religion needs to be reinterpreted along the lines of cultural studies. Drawing on a variety of post-structuralist and post-colonial thinkers, such as Foucault, Gadamer, Said, and Spivak, King provides us with a challenging series of reflections on the nature of Religious Studies and Indology.
Download or read book Bourgeois Hinduism or Faith of the Modern Vedantists written by Brian Hatcher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-11-26 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1839 a diverse group of Hindu leaders began gathering in Calcutta to share and propagate their faith in a non-idolatrous form of worship. The group, known as the Tattvabodhini Sabha, met weekly to worship and hear discourses from members on the virtues of a rational and morally responsible mode of worship. They called upon ancient sources of Hindu spirituality to guide them in developing a form of modern theism they referred to as "Vedanta." In this book, Brian Hatcher translates these hitherto unknown discourses and situates them against the backdrop of religious and social change in early colonial Calcutta. Apart from bringing to light the theology and moral vision of an association that was to have a profound influence on religious and intellectual life in nineteenth-century Bengal, Hatcher's analysis promotes reflection on a variety of topics central to understanding the development of modern forms of Hindu belief and practice.
Download or read book Vedantic Hinduism in Colonial Bengal written by Victor A. van Bijlert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-08-31 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the ways in which modern Hindu identities were constructed in the early nineteenth century. It draws parallels between sixteenth and eventeenth Cecntury Protestantism and the rise of modernity in the West, and the Hindu reformation in the nineteenth century which contributed to the rise of Vedantic Hindu modernity discourse in India. The nineteenth century Hindu modernity, it is argued, sought both individual flourishing and collective emancipation from Western domination. For the first time Hinduism began to be constructed as a religion of sacred texts. In particular, texts belonging to what could be loosely called Vedanta: Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. In this way, the main protagonists of this Vedantist modernity were imitating Western Protestantism, but at the same time also inventing totally novel interpretations of what it meant to be Hindu. The book traces the major ideological paths taken in this cultural-religious reformation from its originator Rammohun Roy up to its last major influence, Rabindranath Tagore. Bringing these two versions of modernity into conversation brings a unique view on the formation of modern Hindu identities. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of religious, Hindu and South Asian studies, as well as religious istory and interreligious dialogue.
Download or read book The Legacy of Vai avism in Colonial Bengal written by Ferdinando Sardella and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-25 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a focused examination of the Bengali Vaiṣṇava tradition in its manifold forms in the pivotal context of British colonialism in South Asia. Bringing together scholars from across the disciplines of social and intellectual history, philology, theology, and anthropology to systematically investigate Vaiṣṇavism in colonial Bengal, this book highlights the significant roles—religious, social, and cultural—that a prominent Hindu devotional current played in the lives of wide and diverse sections of colonial Bengali society. Not only does the book thereby enrich our understanding of the history and development of Bengali Vaiṣṇavism, but it also sheds valuable new light on the texture and dynamics of colonial Hinduism beyond the discursive and social-historical parameters of an entrenched Hindu "Renaissance" paradigm. A landmark in the burgeoning field of Bengali Vaiṣṇava studies, this book will be of interest to scholars of modern Hinduism, religion, and colonial South Asian social and intellectual history.
Download or read book Hindu Nationalism and the Language of Politics in Late Colonial India written by William Gould and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-04-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book William Gould explores what is arguably one of the most important and controversial themes in twentieth-century Indian history and politics: the nature of Hindu nationalism as an ideology and political language. Rather than concentrating on the main institutions of the Hindu Right in India as other studies have done, the author uses a variety of historical sources to analyse how Hindu nationalism affected the supposedly secularist Congress in the key state of Uttar Pradesh. In this way, the author offers an alternative assessment of how these languages and ideologies transformed the relationship between Congress and north Indian Muslims. The book makes a major contribution to historical analyses of the critical last two decades before Partition and Independence in 1947, which will be of value to scholars interested in historical and contemporary Hindu nationalism, and to students researching the final stages of colonial power in India.
Download or read book Hinduism Before Reform written by Brian A. Hatcher and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold retelling of the origins of contemporary Hinduism, and an argument against the long-established notion of religious reform. By the early eighteenth century, the Mughal Empire was in decline, and the East India Company was making inroads into the subcontinent. A century later Christian missionaries, Hindu teachers, Muslim saints, and Sikh rebels formed the colorful religious fabric of colonial India. Focusing on two early nineteenth-century Hindu communities, the Brahmo Samaj and the Swaminarayan Sampraday, and their charismatic figureheads—the “cosmopolitan” Rammohun Roy and the “parochial” Swami Narayan—Brian Hatcher explores how urban and rural people thought about faith, ritual, and gods. Along the way he sketches a radical new view of the origins of contemporary Hinduism and overturns the idea of religious reform. Hinduism Before Reform challenges the rigid structure of revelation-schism-reform-sect prevalent in much history of religion. Reform, in particular, plays an important role in how we think about influential Hindu movements and religious history at large. Through the lens of reform, one doctrine is inevitably backward-looking while another represents modernity. From this comparison flows a host of simplistic conclusions. Instead of presuming a clear dichotomy between backward and modern, Hatcher is interested in how religious authority is acquired and projected. Hinduism Before Reform asks how religious history would look if we eschewed the obfuscating binary of progress and tradition. There is another way to conceptualize the origins and significance of these two Hindu movements, one that does not trap them within the teleology of a predetermined modernity.
