Religious Traditions in Modern South Asia
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Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:29 24 May 2016 Religious Traditions in Modern South Asia This book offers a fresh approach to the study of religion in modern South Asia. It uses a series of case studies to explore the development of religious ideas and practices, giving students an understanding of the social, politi- cal and historical context. It looks at some familiar themes in the study of religion, such as deity, authoritative texts, myth, worship, teacher traditions and caste, and some of the key ways in which Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism in South Asia have been shaped in the modern period. The book points to the diversity of ways of looking at religious traditions and considers the impact of gender and politics, and the way religion itself is variously understood. Jacqueline Suthren Hirst is Senior Lecturer in South Asian Studies at the University of Manchester, UK. Her publications include Sita’s Story and Śaṃkara’s Advaita Vedānta: A Way of Teaching. John Zavos is Senior Lecturer in South Asian Studies at the University of Manchester, UK. He is the author of The Emergence of Hindu Nationalism in India. Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:29 24 May 2016 Religious Traditions in Modern South Asia Jacqueline Suthren Hirst and John Zavos Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:29 24 May 2016 First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2011 Jacqueline Suthren Hirst and John Zavos The right of Jacqueline Suthren Hirst and John Zavos to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978–0–415–44787–4 (hbk) ISBN: 978–0–415–44788–1 (pbk) ISBN: 978–0–203–80242–7 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Prepress Projects Ltd, Perth, UK Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:29 24 May 2016 Contents List of figures vii List of boxes ix Preface xi A note on orthography (how words are written) xv 1 Introducing South Asia, re-introducing ‘religion’ 1 Part I Exploring landscapes of diversity 25 2 Deity 27 3 Texts and their authority 51 4 Myth 72 5 Ritual and worship 93 6 Teachers and their traditions 115 7A Caste: social relations, cultural formations 139 Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:29 24 May 2016 Part II Shaping modern religious traditions 157 7B The confluence of caste and religion 159 8 Encounters with the West 172 vi Contents 9 The construction of religious boundaries 190 10 Public and private space 210 11 Conflicting paradigms 229 12 Twisting the kaleidoscope: reflections in conclusion 246 Modern South Asia: a timeline 260 Glossary 264 Notes 274 References 283 Index 305 Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:29 24 May 2016 Figures 1.1 Dadyal village across the tank 6 1.2 Inside the gurdwara: Baba Hasan Das (left of our picture) and Guru Gobind Singh (right) with Guru Granth Sahib and Dasam Granth on twin palkhis 7 1.3 South Asia in the eighteenth century 8 1.4 South Asia: modern nation-states (South Asia, UN Map No. 4140 Rev. 3, January 2004) 9 2.1 A statue of Rammohun Roy outside the Council House in Bristol 29 2.2 The goddess Yellamma 35 2.3 Vishnu’s universal form 36 2.4 A gallery of goddesses 42 3.1 Young brahmins learning to chant the Veda at Nasik, Maharashtra 52 3.2 A verse from the Upanishads in Sanskrit, Hindi and English on the wall of the huge Birla temple, New Delhi 52 3.3 Hand writing a copy of the Guru Granth Sahib 61 3.4 Amma writing a prescription for unfaithfulness 63 3.5 The Gayatri Mantra as goddess 66 3.6 Bharat Mata (Mother India) 67 4.1 A poster for Sagar’s Ramayan 72 4.2 A Jain Ramayana manuscript 81 4.3 Rama the Hindu nationalist warrior above the imagined Janmabhoomi temple 86 Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:29 24 May 2016 4.4 ‘Vishnu in the Centre of his Ten Avatars’ 88 5.1 Schoolgirls touch a statue of St Anthony to ask for blessings 102 5.2 Fatehpur Sikri shrine lattice 103 5.3 A Hanuman shrine in Uttar Pradesh 105 5.4 Worshippers in the Hanuman temple, Connaught Place, New Delhi 105 5.5 M.H. Gopalakrishnan doing Deeparadhanai (worship with the lamp) 106 5.6 Worshippers at Chaumukha Adinath Jain temple, Ranakpur 108 viii Figures 6.1 SeatGuru Trip Advisor 116 6.2 Shree Shree Ma Anandamayee, sitting in samadhi 118 6.3 Anandamayi Ma, as an older woman, holds the murti of Padmanabha 119 6.4 Bhai Mardana and Guru Nanak, from a Janamsakhi manuscript 127 6.5 The Chishtis of Bijapur, from Sufis of Bijapur (Eaton 1996: 304–5) 130 7A.1 Map of Bisru village (by Sophie Archambault de Beaune) 140 7A.2 Casta-type photographs under the Raj 143 7A.3 The church at Kodimunai 150 7A.4 Kattumarram used for fishing 150 7A.5 Fisherwomen on beach, Marina, Chennai 151 7B.1 A statue of B.R. Ambedkar at a road junction in Pune 167 8.1 A photo of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan Bahadur 174 9.1 The Cow with 84 Deities 201 9.2 Nineteen Eighty Four, a painting by London-born artists, The Singh Twins 205 10.1 Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880–1932) 214 10.2 Cartoon by Peter Brookes (from The Times, 17 October 2006) 223 10.3 Stadium construction 227 11.1 Ayodhya, 6 December 1992: kar sevaks on top of the Babri Masjid 231 11.2 The Dargah of Sayyed Mohammed Ibrahim Shah 232 11.3 Bricks imprinted with the name of Ram, to be used in the building of the temple 236 Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:29 24 May 2016 Boxes 1.1 Enumerating religion in South Asia? 2 2.1 Caring for the deity 41 3.1 Ahadith 54 4.1 The Ram-katha 73 4.2 Puranas 76 4.3 Dharma 89 5.1 Sufisilsila s in South Asia 99 6.1 Different stages of life 121 7A.1 The three gunas 145 7A.2 The five hierarchically-ranked categories of the Muluki Ain, the Legal Code of 1854, Nepal 151 10.1 What is purdah? 213 12.1 Different ways of looking at the Meos of Bisru 247 Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:29 24 May 2016 Preface This book began life in a series of conversations amongst colleagues at the University of Manchester in the early and mid-2000s. At that time, we were fortunate to have the input of a range of scholars whose research work focused on religious traditions in South Asia. Along with ourselves, Roger Ballard, Jeanne Openshaw, Mary Searle-Chatterjee, Alan Williams and, later, Nile Green and Atreyee Sen were all engaged in research work that explored elements of the dynamic, developing histories and contemporary practices associated with these traditions. As we have all at various times been part of the Department of Religions and Theology (with colleagues in South Asian Studies in other departments across the university), we have all also been engaged in teaching about these traditions, confronting the challenges thrown up by the postcolonial twins that are ‘South Asian Studies’ and ‘Religious Studies’. Our book is an attempt to come to terms with these challenges, bringing together our own research interests and our joint inter- est in opening up new ways of teaching and learning about the field of study that we love. Being able to identify these two ‘postcolonial twins’ is very much the result of stimulating research work in these two areas of study over the past thirty years or so. Both ‘South Asia’ and ‘Religion’ have been subjected to some rigorous and vigorous critique by scholars such as Dipesh Chakrabarty, Sudipto Kaviraj, Gayatri Spivak, Peter van der Veer, Richard King and Timothy Fitzgerald. In particular, such scholars as these have challenged established structures of knowledge, by considering how the encounters and entanglements of colonialism have contributed to the development of Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 01:29 24 May 2016 modern social and political relations, and modern cultural practices. In the light of such work, research on religious traditions in and of South Asia has taken a critical and reflexive turn, exploring the categories through which we understand everyday life in an attempt to get closer to understandings of just how such life has been and is experienced. This is challenging enough in a research context. In a teaching context, we have found that the challenge is often amplified. This is partly because many students in our experience have entered university with quite fixed ideas of what religion is.