Read Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity

Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity

Manu Pillai

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Description:When European missionaries first arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering. Hinduism, as they saw it, was a pagan the worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned women alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to crocodiles. But soon it became clear that Hindu ‘idolatry’ was far more complex than white men’s stereotypes allowed, and Hindus had little desire to convert.

But then, European power began to grow in India, and under colonial rule, missionaries assumed a forbidding appearance. During the British Raj, Western frames of thinking gained ascendancy and Hindus felt pressed to reimagine their religion. This was both to fortify it against Christian attacks and to resist foreign rule. It is this encounter which has, in good measure, inspired modern Hinduism’s present shape. Indeed, Hindus subverted some of the missionaries’ own tools and strategies in the process, triggering the birth of Hindu nationalism, now so dominant in the country.

In Gods, Guns and Missionaries, Manu S. Pillai takes us through these remarkable dynamics. With an arresting cast of characters—maharajahs, poets, gun-wielding revolutionaries, politicians, polemicists, philosophers and clergymen—this book is ambitious in its scope and provocative in its position. Lucid and exhaustive, it is, at once, a political history, a review of Hindu culture and a study of the social forces that prepared the ground for Hindu nationalism. Turning away from simplistic ideas on religious evolution and European imperialism, the past as it appears here is more complicated—and infinitely richer—than popular narratives allow.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity. To get started finding Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Pages: 564

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: Allen Lane

Release: 2024

ISBN: 0670093653

Description: When European missionaries first arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering. Hinduism, as they saw it, was a pagan the worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned women alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to crocodiles. But soon it became clear that Hindu ‘idolatry’ was far more complex than white men’s stereotypes allowed, and Hindus had little desire to convert.

But then, European power began to grow in India, and under colonial rule, missionaries assumed a forbidding appearance. During the British Raj, Western frames of thinking gained ascendancy and Hindus felt pressed to reimagine their religion. This was both to fortify it against Christian attacks and to resist foreign rule. It is this encounter which has, in good measure, inspired modern Hinduism’s present shape. Indeed, Hindus subverted some of the missionaries’ own tools and strategies in the process, triggering the birth of Hindu nationalism, now so dominant in the country.

In Gods, Guns and Missionaries, Manu S. Pillai takes us through these remarkable dynamics. With an arresting cast of characters—maharajahs, poets, gun-wielding revolutionaries, politicians, polemicists, philosophers and clergymen—this book is ambitious in its scope and provocative in its position. Lucid and exhaustive, it is, at once, a political history, a review of Hindu culture and a study of the social forces that prepared the ground for Hindu nationalism. Turning away from simplistic ideas on religious evolution and European imperialism, the past as it appears here is more complicated—and infinitely richer—than popular narratives allow.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity. To get started finding Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity

Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity

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