Religion in India: A Historical Introduction

7 Developments in the Late Medieval Period

Orthopraxy

Hindu polities

Devotionalism

Mara ̄thı ̄

Benga ̄lı ̄

Hindı ̄

Accommodation and appropriation

Conversion

Syncretism

Sikhism

Recommended reading

The centuries following the first appearance of Islam in the subcontinent
were among the most creative in the history of religion in India. In some
cases, these developments show little or no explicit relation to the role of
Muslims. In other cases, the changes and continuities that occurred were
the direct result of Islam’s presence and/or were in response to it. These
responses were as varied as the nature of Islam itself and differed from
region to region and community to community. In this chapter, we broadly
outline these developments in terms of five thematic rubrics which illus-
trate the diversity and scope of the period. These themes are: a) orthopraxy,
b) devotionalism, c) accommodation and synthesis, d) conversion, and
e) syncretism.

Orthopraxy

We begin with orthopraxy. Simply put, orthopraxy is the propensity to find
one’s “roots” in order to ascertain what is the “correct” way to act. In the