Defining Hinduism

'Defining Hinduism' focuses on what Hinduism is, what it has been, and what some have argued it should be. The oldest of the world religions, Hinduism presents a complex pantheon and system of beliefs. Far from being unchanging, Hinduism has, like any faith of duration, evolved in response to changing cultural, political and ideological demands. The book brings together some of the leading scholars working on South Asian religions today.

Hindus will be valuable on more than one level: as a source of instruction, as a basis for discussion, seminars and further study, even as a challenge for further research. It provides a new perspective on what it means to live as a Hindu and enables readers to appreciate this great and marvellous religious phenomenon, its extraordinary richness, and the way it encompasses the diversity of human experience.

Who Invented Hinduism? presents ten masterly essays on the history of religious movements and ideologies in India by the eminent scholar of religious studies, David N. Lorenzen. Stretching from a discussion on the role of religion, skin colour and language in distinguishing between the Aryas and the Dasas, to a study of the ways in which contact between Hindus, on the one hand, and Muslims and Christians, on the other, changed the nature of the Hindu religion, the volume asks two principal questions: how did the religion of the Hindus affect the course of Indian history and what sort of an impact did the events of Indian history have on the Hindu religion. The essays cast a critical eye on scholarly Arguments which are based as much on current fashion or on conventional wisdom as on evidence available in historical documents. Taking issue with renowned scholars such as Louis Dumont, Romila Thapar, Thomas Trautmann and Dipesh Chakrabarty on some central conceptions of the religious history of India, Lorenzen establishes alternative positions on the same through a thorough and compelling look at a vast array of literary sources. Touching upon some controversial arguments, this well-timed and insightful volume draws attention to the unavoidably influential role of religion in the history of India, and in doing so, it creates a wider space for further discussion focusing on this central issue.

In this text, leading scholars from around the world take stock of two centuries of international intellectual investment in Hinduism. Since the early 19th century, when the scholarly investigation of Hinduism began to take shape as a modern academic discipline, Hindu studies has evolved from its concentration on description and analysis to an emphasis on understanding Hindu traditions in the context of the religion's own values, concepts and history. Offering an assessment of the current state of Hindu studies, the contributors to this volume identify past achievements and chart the course for what remains to be accomplished in the field.

Hinduism is practised by eighty per cent of India's population, and by thirty million people outside India. In this Very Short Introduction, Kim Knott combines a succinct and authoritative overview of a major religion with an analysis of the challenges facing it in the twentieth century. She discusses key preoccupations of Hinduism such as the centrality of the Veda as religious texts, the role of brahmins, gurus, and storytellers in the transmission of divine truths, and the importance of epics such as the Ramayana. Issues such as the place of women and dalits (untouchables) in contemporary society are also addressed, making this book stimulating reading for Hindus and non-Hindus alike. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The way people encounter ideas of Hinduism online is often shaped by global discourses of religion, pervasive Orientalism and (post)colonial scholarship. This book addresses a gap in the scholarly debate around defining Hinduism by demonstrating the role of online discourses in generating and projecting images of Hindu religion and culture. This study surveys a wide range of propaganda, websites and social media in which definitions of Hinduism are debated. In particular, it focuses on the role of Hindu nationalism in the presentation and management of Hinduism in the electronic public sphere. Hindu nationalist parties and individuals are highly invested in discussions and presentations of Hinduism online, and actively shape discourses through a variety of strategies. Analysing Hindu nationalist propaganda, cyber activist movements and social media presence, as well as exploring methodological strategies that are useful to the field of religion and media in general, the book concludes by showing how these discourses function in the wider Hindu diaspora. Building on religion and media research by highlighting mechanical and hermeneutic issues of the Internet and how it affects how we encounter Hinduism online, this book will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, Hindu studies and digital media.

A selection of Gandhiji s articles drawn mainly from his contributions to young india, the Harijan and the Navjivan on Hinduism. Written on different occassions, these articles present a picture of hindu dharma I all its richness, comprehensiveness and sensitivity to the existential delimmas of human existence.

First Published in 1959, Hinduism written specifically for the modern readers describes and interprets one of the world’s chief religions. For thousands of years Indian sages have speculated on man, creation, and the universe. One result has been an astonishing amount of myth and ritual, of art, asceticism, and philosophy. Swami Nikhilananda provides a brief account of Hinduism in both its theoretical and its practical aspects. It is written mainly from the point of view of non-dualism which the author argues is the highest achievement of India’s mystical insights and philosophical speculation, and her real contribution to world culture. The volume deals with themes like Hindu Ethics; Karma-Yoga; Bhakti-Yoga; Jnana- Yoga; Raja-Yoga; and Tantra. This complete survey of Hindu beliefs and customs is indispensable for scholars and researchers of Hinduism, religion, Indian philosophy, Indian culture, and heritage.

This edited volume seeks to build a scholarly discourse about how Hinduism is being defined, reformed, and rearticulated in the digital era and how these changes are impacting the way Hindus view their own religious identities. It seeks to interrogate how digital Hinduism has been shaped in response to the dominant framing of the religion, which has often relied on postcolonial narratives devoid of context and an overemphasis on the geopolitics of the Indian subcontinent post-partition. From this perspective, this volume challenges previous frameworks of how Hinduism has been studied, particularly in the West, where Marxist and Orientalist approaches are often ill-fitting paradigms to understanding Hinduism. This volume engages with and critiques some of these approaches while also enriching existing models of research within media studies, ethnography, cultural studies, and religion.

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.