Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Use of the English term “Hinduism” (and its equivalents in various European languages) to designate certain aspects of the cultural traditions of Hindus anywhere is commonplace, but it is relatively recent and not wholly unproblematic. The idea that the Hindus must have a “religion” comparable to Christianity and worthy of study originated with British administrators and scholars in India in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. These scholars, known as the Orientalists, devoted themselves to the study and translation of textual materials, mainly in Sanskrit, some of which they identified as religious and others as secular texts. By the time the British parliament allowed proselytization among the “natives” of India in 1813, the word Hinduism had come into use. Christian missionaries also devoted themselves to the study of religious texts and the observation of religious practices, but unlike the admiring Orientalists their primary aim was to expose the “wickedness” of polytheistic and idolatrous religions and to highlight the “perfection” of Christianity. The problematic aspect of these studies, often laudable for their reliability and detail, was the basic assumption that the Hindus had a religion which, however, was curiously deficient in significant ways given the absence of most notably, a founder, a single revealed text, and a church-like organization. But that the Hindus ... log in or subscribe to read full text