Hindu pluralism : religion and the public sphere in early modern South India

by: Fisher, Elaine M., 1984- author

Publication date: 2017

Usage: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode

Publisher: Oakland, California : University of California Press

Collection: IndiaHistory; JaiGyan

Language: English

Abstract

In Hindu Pluralism, Elaine M. Fisher complicates the traditional scholarly narrative of the unification of Hinduism. By calling into question the colonial categories implicit in the term “sectarianism,” Fisher’s work excavates the pluralistic textures of precolonial Hinduism in the centuries prior to British intervention. Drawing on previously unpublished --metadata="mediatype:texts" --metadata="collection:IndiaHistory" --metadata="source: Directory of Open Access Books (doabooks.org)" --retries=100s in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu, Fisher argues that the performance of plural religious identities in public space in Indian early modernity paved the way for the emergence of a distinctively non-Western form of religious pluralism. This work provides a critical re for understanding how Hinduism developed in the early modern period, a crucial era that set the tenor for religion’s role in public life in India through the present day.

1 online resource (xi, 285 pages) :

"Much has been written about the historical origins of the unity of Hinduism. Hindu difference has been read through the lens of the term "sectarianism," a concept that translates devotion as dissent, and community as a potential precursor to communalism. In Hindu Pluralism, Elaine. M. Fisher argues that it is the plurality of Hindu religious identities, and their embodiment and contestation in public space, that first reveals the emergence of Hinduism as a unified religion in south India and an integral feature of a distinctively Indic early modernity prior to British Colonialism."--Provided by publisher

Includes bibliographical references and index

Hindu sectarianism: difference in unity -- "Just like Kālidāsa": the making of the Smārta-Śaiva community of South India -- Public philology: constructing sectarian identities in early modern South India -- The language games of Śaiva: mapping text and space in public religious culture -- Conclusion: a prehistory of Hindu pluralism

Print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed

Notes

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