Religion in India: A Historical Introduction

Bene Israel Those Jews who call themselves the Bene Israel have an even more obscure past.^5 Their myth of origin claims their a ...

millennium is testimony to the hospitality of their neighbors and their capacity to adapt and respond in the Indian environment. ...

Streams from the “West” and their Aftermath 167 Figure 7Roman Catholic Church near Na ̄ga ̄ rjunakonda, Andhra Pradesh, showing ...

groups. A fourth branch emerged in the eighteenth century as an offshoot of the “Jacobite Syrians.” This “new” group followed th ...

demiurge of evil. Zoroastrianism was apparently the first religious tradition to posit an eschatology (doctrine of end times) at ...

of pure monotheism, free of rituals. On the other hand, E. W. Wiest, an English engineer studying Pahlavı ̄ literature, and Henr ...

The “colonial impact” Starting in the sixteenth century, the Indian subcontinent became the venue for an acting out of European ...

the ultimate results of this kind of language study was the stimulation of pride and renaissance amongst the speakers of such la ...

lifestyle of an ascetic, engaged in conversations with brahmans, and sought to present the Bible as a “fifth Veda.” A small miss ...

Ziegenbalg, who with his colleague, Plutschau, became the first Protestant missionaries in India. Settling in Tranquebar, Ziegen ...

construction of schools and colleges, intended to educate an Indian elite in British “ideas.” By 1835, English was established a ...

political fragmentation of the subcontinent. At Aurangzeb’s death, his own sons had battled for power at the center; within two ...

Perhaps more common was the approach that sought reform. Ram Mohun Roy(1772–1833) became a leader in seeking change in the indig ...

time, he sought to restate “Vedic” ideas in contemporary dress: for example, that God was one, but took on many forms and had ma ...

judge who succeeded in politicizing religion and linking it to the common people. He evoked the Bhagavadgı ̄ta ̄; the role of S ...

and the model of religion at its most positive.^33 One of his best-known disciples was Vivekananda (1863–1902), who combined his ...

vernacular forms of mythology, theology, and cultus; and using the idiom and technology of the times to restate a sense of herit ...

a center of philosophy, science, the arts, and a place where the Qu‘ra ̄n and philosophy were apparently reconciled under H.anaf ...

Inter-religious relations: conciliation and confrontation As evident from the preceding discussions, relationships between relig ...

catch up economically and politically, and that Muslims were a people of two identities, one fully Indian and, like Hindus, wait ...