Colonial History of India

[acharya]

Imagined Hinduism : British Protestant Missionary Constructions of Hinduism, 1793 -- 1900/Geoffrey A. Oddie.Imagined Hinduism : British Protestant Missionary Constructions of Hinduism, 1793 -- 1900/Geoffrey A. Oddie. New Delhi, Sage, 2006, 376 p., ills., $43. ISBN 81-7829-591-1.

Contents: Acknowledgements. Introduction. I. Winds of influence: Hinduism in the British imagination, 1600-1800: 1. Hinduism in travel and missionary accounts, 1600-1800. 2. Hinduism as represented by protestant friends of mission in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. 3. Orientalist models and missionary scholarship. II. The construction of missionary models: 4. Hinduism in missionary education and training. 5. The emergence of a dominant paradigm (a) William Carey: a pioneer's journey of exploration. (b) William Ward's history. 6. The guardians--consolidating the paradigm: duff, mundy and others. 7. Hinduism in missionary society periodical literature. 8. A changing context: some general developments affecting missionary perceptions of Hinduism, 1850-1900. 9. Critics and commentators on the dominant view, 1850-1900. 10. Empathy or otherness? Changing evaluations of Hinduism in the nineteenth century. 11. Gender issues in the construction of Hinduism with special reference to the church of England Zenana Missionary Society, 1880-1900. Conclusion. Select bibliography. Index.

"This important book explores the emergence and subsequent refinement of the idea of Hinduism as it developed among British protestant missionaries in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.<span style='color:red'> The author demonstrates how the missionaries' construction of Hinduism grew out of their own roots in post-enlightenment Europe, their Christian conception of religion, the colonial reality of India, and their need to 'know the enemy' in order to spread Christianity more effectively.</span>

Drawing upon missionary writings, Geoffrey Oddie shows how the early view of Hinduism as pagan or heathen settled into the dominant paradigm of Hinduism as a unitary, Brahman-controlled 'system', ridden with idolatry, ritualism, superstition and sexual licence. This 'other' was compared with evangelical Christianity, in which inward devotion counted for more than outward ritual, and where the individual was free from oppression and 'priestcraft'.

Finally, this book looks at the impact of these representations of Hinduism in India and the west. By the late nineteenth century, as the author demonstrates, the missionaries' increasing acquaintance with Hinduism not only prompted a more sympathetic approach, but also a revision of the unitary model. Some even spoke of 'the many Hindu religions'. Among Hindu leaders, in contrast, the notion of being Hindu and of Hinduism as one system had taken hold.

Issues of topical interest discussed in this book include the nature of knowledge, notions of religion, concepts of Hinduism, the orientalism debate, and the relationship between missionaries and empire. This fascinating and thorough work of scholarship will appeal to all those interested in South Asian history, religion and society, as well as to students and scholars of anthropology, theology, philosophy, intellectual history and political science."

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