Book folder

[ramana]

Very interesting book
from telegraph, 24 Feb.,2006
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->AN ANCIENT FAITH REVISITED 
<b>The nation-building agenda of Indian nationalists in the nineteenth century included the idea of reforming Hinduism. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s ethical revalidation and Swami Vivekananda’s ‘Islamized’ brand of Hinduism clearly demonstrate this point. Mahatma Gandhi’s defence of some of the practices in Hindu ism against Ambedkar’s virulent attacks on the religion is yet another proof of this nationalist agenda. Indian nationalists knew perfectly well that Indianness and Hinduism, though derived from the same origin, were not synonymous. But they considered these two notions as supplementary, and, to a large extent, overlapping.</b>

This may be the reason why some eminent scholars like Heinrich Steitencron considered both Indian nationalism and Hinduism as coeval, and did not recognize the existence of Hinduism as a codified religion before the nineteenth century. Orientalists as well as the Nehru of Discovery of India held more or less the same views. Thomas Trautmann and Romila Thapar, in their own ways, too subscribed to the notion of a colonial construction of the Hindu religion.

<b>In this book, the author, David N. Lorenzen, takes his stance against this deeply entrenched, and near-axiomatic, view of Hinduism. With the help of some solid, unambiguous research, he traces the inception of Hinduism as a near-crystallized religion to around 300-600 AD. </b>But, strangely enough, Lorenzen does not mention the contribution of Nirad C. Chaudhuri who forwarded similar arguments and drew the same inference in his book, Hinduism, A Religion To Live By way back in 1979.

Apart from the eponymous opening essay, the volume includes nine other articles, two of which are devoted to Kabir, the poet saint of the bhakti cult, who, unlike the more trenchant Tukaram, posed serious challenges to both Hindu and Muslim orthodoxy.

<b>Quite significantly, Lorenzen dismisses all the three markers of Aryan and non-Aryan identity and puts a decisive emphasis on “material and political aspects” of differentiation. But, unfortunately, the author stops short of developing his theory. The chapter on the ideology of Gupta kingship, which is premised upon Burtonstein’s observation of three traditions of kingship in ancient India, is illuminating. </b>

Lorenzen is not a staunch methodist as a scholar. His style, infact, is quite engaging and, at times, a little too adventurous. His manner of rendition would surely keep the reader interested in this book.

ARNAB BHATTACHARYA
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