Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Volume 20 Article 20

January 2007

Book Review: "Was Hinduism Invented? : Britons, Indians, and Colonial Construction of Religion"

Andrew O. Fort

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs

Part of the Religion Commons

Recommended Citation Fort, Andrew O. (2007) "Book Review: "Was Hinduism Invented? : Britons, Indians, and Colonial Construction of Religion"," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 20, Article 20. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1395

The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Fort: Book Review: "Was Hinduism Invented? : Britons, Indians, and Colonial Construction of Religion"

Book Reviews 65

Was Hinduism Invented? : Britons, Indians, and Colonial Construction of Religion. Brian K. Pennington. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 260 pp.

BRIAN Pennington makes an excellent case that perceptions of British factory laborers and the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century "heathen pagans." In both cases, the elite was a key moment in the development of understood their concern to be for civilizing and modem "Hinduism" as a "world religion," both assisting the poor and benighted. He focuses as concept and actuality. His book is also part of here on the self~understood moral crusaders a welcome moderation from earlier scholarly Hannah More, William Wilberforce and Charles arguments that "Hinduism" was largely a British Grant, and the success of the evangelical Church invention to a more balanced view that it rose Missionary Society and writings in (and income through a colonial encounter which fully generated from) its Missionary Papers. recogmzes Indian resistance and agency. The next chapter looks at the British Pennington states that he wants. to avoid Protestant evangelicals understanding (and in privileging either academic deconstruction of fact partial creation) of Hinduism after first hand Hinduism or Hindu nationalist theologizing. He experience in India, and their hostility to Hindu effectively demonstrates that many voices ritual and horror at "idol worship." He contested over a long period of time in ever effectively points out their inability to changing sociopolitical conditions. He makes it understand a murti as God's image rather than a his particular task to trace the development of mere idol, and the linkage of Hindu and Catholic British views, including those of Christian 'idolatry" by such figures as Charles Buchanan. missionaries, and Hindu responses to the Perhaps most interesting is his description of colonial Hindu-Christian encounter (particularly William Ward as a proto-ethnographer of Hindu in Bengal), which makes this book relevant for life, which included a portrayal containing review here. typically strong British views against caste, sati, From the introduction on, it is evident that and ling a worship. This chapter illuminates Pennington is familiar with postmodern and some of the least attractive aspects of zealous postcolonial theory (particularity and plurality British moral imperialism. over essentializing and master narratives), yet he Chapter four focuses on the journal of the is not subsumed in it. He acknowledges the British Asiatick Society called Asiatick problematic nature of categories like Researches, which well represented nineteenth "Hinduism" and "the West," without century British Orientalist perspectives, and how abandoning them. In particular, he wants to these views moved gradually from Indophilia to (appropriately, I believe) continue to utilize the Indophobia over this period. In the late category "religion" and a "history of religions" . eighteenth century, begimling with William approach despite their highly contested nature Jones, we find a focus on the exotic and by vario~s theorists. As a student of Wilhelm "ellchanting" nature of Indian plants and Halbfass, I was particularly glad to see animals. There was also some investigation of Pennington's balanced appreciation of that late non-Hindu religious groups and the adivasis, scholar, and agree that while today we might who are seen as noble but childlike savages. find a bit Halbfass too focused on elite Hindu Over time, journal authors developed the idea of thought and not enough on popular practice or an India with a glorious past which had issues of power, he has not been superseded in devolved to a corrupted present, and lamenting his synoptic and richly humanistic vision. ongoing Hindu "mythological" thinking with its Chapter two considers upper class British fables and poetry over against modem British missionaries'. strategies for Christian training "rationalism," with its concern for reality-based and conversion. Pennington points out the history and science. Pennington here briefly interesting parallels between upper class discusses H. T. Colebrooke's groundbreaking

- Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 2007 1 Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 20 [2007], Art. 20

66 Book Reviews

textual studies and H. H. Wilson's consideration construct and seeming insufficient concern with of "living Hinduism." the self-understanding of religious communities. Pennington then turns to the elite Bengali In closing, Pennington acknowledges that the Hindu response in the biweekly newspaper past is not merely past as far as Christian-Hindu Samacar Candrika beginning in the 1830s. The tensions go. He refers to the 1999 murder of the paper was anti-reformist and against modernists medical missionary Graham Staines by Hindu like Ram Mohan Roy and the rationalist nationalists and the Southern Baptist monotheism of the Brahmo Samaj. It opposed Convention's pamphlet lamenting the millions the proposed ban on sati, and defended "lost in the hopeless darkness of Hinduism." He traditional Hindu ritual and popular .religion decries the excesses of Hindutva and points out (like Kalipuja), and made some appreciative that Christianity has in fact been indigenous to remarks about the British (the justice system and India for many centuries. He ends with a infrastructure building), though it remained laudable call for ongoing scholarly inquiry strongly anti-missionary. Samacar Candrika which acknowledges past flaws and includes was thus a good example of the complexity of both engagement with and more accurate British-Indian interaction and power relations as understanding of Hindu groups yet also "Hinduism" is constructed. continues to offer deeper analysis not Finally, chapter six offers an expanded constrained by insiders' self-understandings. I argument for retaining categories like share his concern that some of the more "Hinduism" and "religion," despite their deconstructive scholars in academe can relatively recent and still contested construction. contribute to the frustration and indignation felt I found this the most interesting and valuable by living religious communities, who then can part of the book, with his call for a balanced lash out unproductively in word and act. Thus, recognition of their utility while simultaneously this book has real value in saying something resisting any essentialism clear and persuasive. both about the past and the present. He rejects Timothy Fitzgerald's view that the category "religion" is fundamentally empty and Andrew o. Fort theological, and offers a good critique of Russell Texas Christian University McCutcheon's focus on religion as social

The Asian Jesus. Michael Amaladoss, S.l, Maryknoll, NY: ·Orbis Books, 2006, 180 + xi pages.

MICHAEL Amaladoss stands out as one of the speaks from this breadth of experience with a most prolific and influential Catholic special self-consciousness of his identity as an theologians in contemporary India. Currently "Indian" and, more broadly, as an "Asian director of the Institute for Dialogue with Christian." "As an Indian and an Asian Cultures and Religions in Chennai, Amaladoss Christian," he writes, "I feel that Asian cultures has held teaching posts in India and Europe, and religions are not foreign to me. They are my served such international bodies as the Pontifical heritage" (6). And so he writes this slim Council for Interreligious Dialogue of the volume, not primarily for scholars, but for "the Roman Catholic Church and the Commission on ordinary believing Asian Christian" who wants . World Mission and Evangelism of the World to reclaim that heritage and allow it more deeply Council of Churches, and published very widely to inform her Christian faith (8). I over the course of some thirty-five years. His Given the intended audience, it comes as no work-and reviews of his work-have appeared surprise that The Asian Jesus does not engage in regularly in this journal, most recently in 2002 detailed enquiry or comparison on the topic of and 2004. In The Asian Jesus, Amaladoss Christology. Instead, Amaladoss offers brief,

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol20/iss1/20 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1395 J2