The Emergence of Modern Hinduism

Luminos is the Open Access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framework for preserving and reinvigorating monograph publishing for the future and increases the reach and visibility of important scholarly work. Titles published in the UC Press Luminos model are published with the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as those in our traditional program. www.luminosoa.org The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Fletcher Jones Foundation Imprint in Humanities. The Emergence of Modern Hinduism The Emergence of Modern Hinduism Religion on the Margins of Colonialism Richard S. Weiss UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS University of California Press Oakland, California © 2019 by Richard S. Weiss This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC license. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses. Suggested citation: Weiss, R. S. The Emergence of Modern Hinduism: Religion on the Margins of Colonialism. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.75 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Weiss, Richard (Richard Scott), author. Title: The emergence of modern Hinduism: religion on the margins of colonialism / by Richard S. Weiss. Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons [CC-BY-NC-ND] license. To view a copy of the license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019010309 (print) | LCCN 2019012915 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520973749 (Epub) | ISBN 9780520307056 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Hinduism—History—1765- | Ramalinga, Swami, 1823–1874—Influence. Classification: LCC BL1153.5 (ebook) | LCC BL1153.5 .W45 2017 (print) | DDC 294.509/034—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019010309 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix Note on Diacritics and Italics xi 1. Introduction: Rethinking Religious Change in Nineteenth-Century South Asia 1 2. Giving to the Poor: Ramalinga’s Transformation of Hindu Charity 27 3. The Publication of Tiruvarut.pā: The Authority of Canon and Print 52 4. Ramalinga’s Devotional Poems: Creating a Hagiography 73 5. The Polemics of Conflicting Modernities 97 6. The Modernity of Yoga Powers in Colonial India 122 7. Conclusion 148 Glossary 155 Notes 159 Bibliography 185 Index 199 Illustrations FIGURES 1. Ramalinga Swami 12 2. Title page of Tiruvarut.pā, 63 3. Velayuda Mudaliyar 65 MAP 1. South India and Sri Lanka 3 vii Acknowledgments I would like to thank the Royal Society of New Zealand for their generous financial support in the form of a Marsden Grant (VUW1006), which funded much of the research and writing of this book. The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington supported this research in numerous ways, providing financial support and approving periods of leave in India, Germany, and Singapore. The Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore provided a vibrant scholarly setting as I began the project, and the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University gave me an intellectual home in Germany as I wrote the latter parts of the book. I am very pleased to see the book appear with University of California Press in its Luminos Open Access series. I would like to thank Reed Malcolm for taking it on. Reed was very enthusiastic about the work from the time I brought it to him, and he supported its transformation from manuscript to book form in a variety of ways that have improved it considerably. Archna Patel at UC Press provided expert assistance in preparing the manuscript for publication. My colleagues in Religious Studies at Victoria University, Michael Radich, Geoff Troughton, Paul Morris, Joe Bulbulia, Philip Fountain, Eva Nisa, and Aliki Kalliabetsos, always have been collegial, inquisitive, and challenging, providing a stimulating environment in which I wrote much of the book and subjected them to frequent research seminars about it. G. Sundar at the Roja Muthiah Research Library in Chennai provided support and guidance in locating valuable works that enriched the book. Mr. Sundaramurthy at the Maraimalai Adigal Library directed me to original editions of a number of works central to this study, including the ix x Acknowledgments 1867 edition of Tiruvarut.pā. Ms. Subhulakshmi at the U. V. Swaminatha Iyer Library helped me find relevant secondary literature. V. Rajesh provided crucial help in a number of ways. He oriented me to Tamil scholarship on Ramalinga; we read nineteenth-century Tamil prose works together; and we discussed much of the content and ideas in the book. The work benefited greatly from his interest, collegiality, and scholarly acumen. R. Ilakkuvan helped me read Toluvur Velayuda Mudaliyar’s “History of Tiruvarutpa.” Among many others who commented on the work in various ways, I would like to thank Darshan Ambalavanar, Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, Michael Bergunder, Nola Cooke, Wendy Doniger, Prasenjit Duara, Sascha Ebeling, Stephen Epstein, Peter Friedlander, Rafael Klöber, Michael Linderman, Layne Little, Thomas Nagy, Indira Peterson, V. Rajesh, Srilata Raman, Bo Sax, Ben Schonthal, Amiya Sen, David Shulman, Will Sweetman, McComas Taylor, Torsten Tschacher, Ravi Vaitheespara, Peter van der Veer, and A. R. Venkatachalapathy. Finally, Susann Liebich read and commented closely on many of the chapters here, and she helped me develop the sections that focus on print culture. She, and our daughters Clio and Leni, are my most trea- sured companions, and I dedicate the book to them. An earlier version of chapter 2 was published as Richard S. Weiss, “Accounting for Religious Change: Ramalinga Adigal’s Transformation of Hindu Giving in Nineteenth-Century India,” History of Religions 56, no. 1 (2016): 108–38. An earlier version of chapter 3 was published as Richard S. Weiss, “Print, Religion, and Canon in Colonial India: The Publication of Ramalinga Adigal’s Tiruvarutpa,” Modern Asian Studies 49, no. 3 (2015): 650–77. Note on Diacritics and Italics I have not used diacritical marks in rendering Tamil personal names or places. I have used diacritics when referring to titles of texts and also for important South Asian words that I frequently use, such as dāna, Tirumur.ai, et cetera. In cases where South Asian words have a form that is commonly used in scholarly literature in English, I use those conventional renderings (e.g., Veda, Agama, Shaiva, yoga, shastra, bhakti, matha, rather than the Tamil vētam, ākamam, caiva, yōkam, cāstiram, patti, mat.am). I have used italics when referring to South Asian words that are not commonly rendered in English (e.g., dāna, camayam). xi 1 Introduction Rethinking Religious Change in Nineteenth-Century South Asia For millennia, one of the most consistent characteristics of Hindu traditions has been variation. Scholarly work on contemporary Hinduism and its premodern antecedents ably captures this complexity, paying attention to a wide spectrum of ideologies, practices, and positions of authority. Studies of religion in ancient India stress doctrinal variation in the period, when ideas about personhood, liberation, the efficacy of ritual, and deities were all contested in a variety of texts and con- texts. Scholarship on contemporary Hinduism grapples with a vast array of rituals, styles of leadership, institutions, cultural settings, and social formations. However, when one turns to the crucial period of the nineteenth century, this complexity fades, with scholars overwhelmingly focusing their attention on leaders and movements that can be considered under the rubric “reform Hinduism.” The result has been an attenuated nineteenth-century historiography of Hinduism and a unilin- eal account of the emergence of modern Hinduism. Narratives about the emergence of modern Hinduism in the nineteenth century are consistent in their presumptions, form, and content. Important aspects of these narratives are familiar to students who have read introductory texts on Hinduism, and to scholars who write and teach those texts. At the risk of present- ing a caricature of these narratives, here are their most basic characteristics. The historical backdrop includes discussions of colonialism, Christian missions, and long- standing Hindu traditions. The cast of characters is largely the same in every account, beginning with Rammohan Roy and the Brahmo Samaj, moving on to Dayananda Saraswati and the Arya Samaj, and ending with Swami Vivekananda’s “muscular” Hinduism. These narratives focus on expressions of Hindu reform that emerged out of an encounter between Hindu leaders and Western ideas and 1 2 chapter 1 models. They assume a narrative that is dominated by colonial, cosmopolitan settings, that is national in scale, that is concerned with elite leaders and movements, and that posits a radical break between this new, modern Hinduism and prior traditions. At their most successful, these studies contribute insightful accounts of cosmopolitan processes within which Hindu leaders transformed their traditions through engagement with diverse actors, institutions, and sensibilities. However, as I will show, these accounts also reinforce dichotomies between Western modernity and Indian tradition, emphasizing the role of the West in Hindu innovation and consigning expressions of

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