Caste System in India: Abstracts of the Parallel Paper sessions Caste system and Indian Religions

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Abstracts of the Parallel Paper sessions
Caste system and Indian religion 1


Paolo Aranha, PhD Student – Department of History and Civilization, European University
Institute (Florence, Italy)

Missionary constructions of Hinduism and caste in the controversy on the Malabaric Rites (XVII-XVIII centuries)

The adaptationist methods followed by the Jesuits in their Madurai mission after the arrival of
Roberto Nobili in 1606 produced both in India and in Europe the so called "Controversies on the
Malabaric Rites". The whole principle of "missionary adaptation" (accomodatio) was based on the belief
that in regions as India or China it was possible to draw a clear line between social and cultural
phenomena on one side and religious beliefs and practices on the other.

The Jesuits claimed that the caste system was purely social, so that neophytes could bring it with
them once they joined the Catholic Church. Caste distinctions were seen as compatible with
Christianity and even untouchability was supposed to be analogous to European forms of social
distinction and exclusion. If castes were merely social, it was necessary to trace the borders of the
"Indian heathenism" ("Hinduism" was not yet an available category) as a specific religion.

The paper analyses the implicit characters that the religion of the great majority of South Indians had
in the eyes of the Jesuit missionaries and tries to verify whether this meant an interiorisation and
privatisation of religion. It also considers the way the critics of the “Malabaric Rites” described the
Indian native religion. The dichotomy between “aristocratic analogies” and “demotic descriptions”,
proposed by Ines Županov in her book Disputed Mission (OUP India, 1999), will be applied in order
to see whether it allows us also to detect the line that connects different treatises against the
Malabaric Rites written between the XVII and the XVIII centuries.

Finally, using the sources of the Roman Archives of the Holy Office and of the Congregation for the
Propagation of the Faith, the paper analyses reports and theological debates, substantiated with
abundant ethnographic accounts, through which the central Catholic bureaucracy in Rome tried to
interpret the Indian castes and particularly the practices of untouchability.

The aim is to extend the debate on the colonial construction of Hinduism to a phase and to actors
which have not yet been sufficiently studied, i.e. the early modern Catholic missionaries in South
India and the pre-orientalistic interpretations they produced on the religion of the people they sought
to convert. The paper will discuss to which extent these missionary constructions could be also
interpreted as colonial productions, in a period and a region where France, Great Britain and other
minor European nations were still competing with each other and all depended to a great extent on
local South Indian powers.

Scaria Zacharia, Professor Emeritus of Malayalam – School of Letters, Mahatma Gandhi University
(Changanacherry, India)

Caste system and Indian Religion

The question “are there native religions in India” has to be asked in the larger context of the
everyday life of Indians. The colonial wisdom eschewed everyday life and drew from textual sources
provided by the upper class priestly groups of Indian society. Indology and orientalism reinforced
this process and developed it to the extent of influencing the self-perception of ordinary western


educated Indians. So, there is justification in searching for alternative methodologies to understand
the ‘religious’ heritage of India.

Let me draw your attention to Kerala, which had Jews, Christians and Muslims as distinct religious
communities even during the first millennium of CE. These Semitic religious groups existed in
Kerala society as distinct but totally integrated communities. (In this context, I’d love to describe
Kerala society as a hyphenated society where oneness is maintained along with distinctions. It works
like a hyphenated compound where hyphen maintains both distinctiveness of components and
oneness of the compound.) The working principles of this model can be learned from the study of
Tarisappally Copper Plate Grants to Thomas Christians (8th Century), Jewish Copper Plate Grants
10th Century. The identification of these religious communities during the pre-colonial period can
provide clues for understanding religious identification in India as a distinct process. The sixteenth
century document of the Synod of Diamper refers to the traditional Thomas Christians’ claim that
they are a distinct Jati ‘sect/community’. The colonial wisdom has no hesitation in translating Jati as
‘caste’. The terms kulam and Jati are used by Jews also to refer to their community. We find ample
reasons to contest the colonial practice of translating Jati as Caste from the living experience of
Indian Jews and Christians for the Jews and Christians Jati was and is their community identity. The
leader of the Christian community was described in the pre-colonial period as Jatikkukartavyan which
means ‘the head of the community’.

The Portuguese and other colonialists translated Indian concepts and practices in terms of western
Christian concepts and practices causing total intellectual confusion, which is carried on to the
present. For example, colonialists translated Marthomayude margavum Vazhipadum as law of St.
Thomas. The arbitrary manner in which the marga is translated as law can be cited as the typical
example of Western intellectualisation of Indian Knowledge and experience. The critical concept in
the pre-colonial Indian Christian discourse is inangu ‘communion’. The religiosity was performed
during the pre-colonial India through Inangu ‘communion’ and it was not exclusivist or
monopolistic. We hope this dimension of the everyday Indian religious life is pertinent in
understanding the caste system of pre-colonial India.

Sarah Claerhout, Doctoral Student – Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent
University (Ghent, Belgium)

Hinduism, Caste and the Steps of Christian Conversion

The question whether or not there is a link between Hinduism and the caste system is a constant in
the literature on the Indian culture and society. Still, it is unclear how it is to be settled. The fact that
Hindu beliefs and texts have been invoked to sanction (or to condemn) caste discrimination does not
establish a link (or its absence). Otherwise we would also have to say that there is an intrinsic
connection (or opposition) between Christianity and slavery. One could point out that the Hindu law
books, the Manu dharmashastra in particular, prescribe the caste hierarchy. But it is unclear today what
role, if any, these books have played in determining the social structures of India. Given such
difficulties, how did the question about the link between Hinduism and the caste system appear a
sensible one in the first place?

My paper will argue that the issue emerged in the European descriptions of India, because it was
essential to western Christendom to establish a deep link between the religion of India and the
immorality in its society. This was to show how ‘false religion’ did not only prevent one from
attaining salvation in the next life, but also condemned one to be either the victim or the perpetrator
of injustice in the present life.


To understand this, we need to look at the historical developments in the European culture. After
the Reformation, the concern of many Christians for following and spreading the ‘true religion of
God’ had taken a new form. The struggle against all human interference in religion became pivotal.
One attributed the degeneration and corruption of religion to this interference, especially in the form
of the priestly hierarchy. The remedy was to be the introduction of a new process of conversion.
Each individual believer had to live according to the will of God and turn to God when called. All
human additions—that is, all that is absent in the Scriptures—had to be eradicated.

By describing the Indian traditions as ‘false religion’ and by locating the unity of this ‘false religion’ in
the caste system and the Brahmin priests, western Christians had identified the enemy to be defeated
in India. Educating the Indians was seen as the first step in this process: one had to teach them how
the brahmanical Hinduism and the caste hierarchy were intertwined and how this corrupted the heart
of Indian society. This was a major concern in the British educational efforts of the 19th century. This
is where the question about the link between Hinduism and the caste system comes from.

Esther Bloch, Doctoral Student – Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent
University (Ghent, Belgium)

European Descriptions of Hinduism and its Caste System. An Account of the Supposed Survival of a Degenerated
Religion.

A central idea of Indology is that Indian history has gone through a religious evolution during which
the Vedic religion degenerated into Brahmanism, which later found its popular translation in what is
now considered to be India’s main religion, Hinduism. Closely linked to this is another supposedly
central aspect of the Indian culture, namely the social structure of the caste system. Looking at the
juncture between the descriptions of a degenerated religion and the conceptualisation of the caste
system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, I will try to show that these descriptions are
descriptions of the Western cultural experience of India rather than of the Indian culture itself.

The consensus in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries took the following form: the
Indian religion went through a movement of degeneration from Vedism over Brahmanism into
Hinduism. The Brahmin priests are supposed to have corrupted the Vedic religion. Traditions such
as Buddhism, Jainism, the Bhakti movement, etc., are regarded as catalysts in this development,
because they are thought to have threatened the survival of Brahmanical religion. Furthermore, it is
presumed that, because of the degeneration, Hinduism is characterised by the absence of a church
authority and a common creed. Therefore, it also seems to lack any source of excommunication and
means of conversion. This leads to a fundamental puzzle about the existence of the Hindu religion:
Can a religion (any religion) exist and be transmitted, if these characteristics are lacking? The
literature notices the difficulty, but translates the puzzle into the following question: ‘if the absence of
these characteristics jeopardises the existence, survival and propagation of the Hindu religion, what
else made its stubborn persistence possible?’ The textbook answer to this question revolves around
the Brahman priests and their caste system: it is said that the Brahmans recognised this challenge to
their priestly hegemony and to the survival of their religion and cunningly developed the caste system
as a means to sustain their religious authority.

In order to understand why the puzzle is not taken seriously and dissolves into another question, we
need to understand the background of the culture that has produced these accounts. My paper will
briefly show how the central ideas in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century accounts about
idolatry and false religion, about different traditions as rival and competing religions, about the
corrupting influence of the priesthood and its oppression of the masses, had their roots in the
Christian theological debates of Europe. Finally, I will indicate how these theological views have
spread in a de-Christianised form.


Colonialism and religion in India 1

Amitava Chakraborty, Reader – Department of Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies,
University of Delhi (Delhi, India)

Constructions of Hinduism: Understanding the Swarajist Interventions

While Post-colonial scholars will argue that Hinduism is essentially a colonial construct and the
classicists shall assert that Hinduism as a religion did exist before colonial constructions came into
work, we intend to look into the history of engagement with Hinduism during the colonial era from a
different perspective. Our primary assumption is that Swarajist affiliations played an important role in
determining the nature of engagement of the Indians with Hinduism during the Colonial and Post-
Colonial era and resulted in specific constructions of the idea of Hinduism; constructions which have
influenced the practices and ideas of Hinduism irreversibly. Swarajist moments, moments which
interrogated the questions of identity from a relatively independent disposition, have rendered
Hinduism identities which were in visible contrast to those of the colonialist constructions. This
paper offers a critical introduction to constructions characterised by Swarajist interventions arguing
for a fresh look in the issues involved in the contemporary debate on the nature of the development
of Hinduism through the colonial era.

Santanu Dey, Lecturer – History Department, RKM Vidyamandira (Belurmath, India)

Kedarnath Datta Bhaktivinode Thakur; Autobiographic and Hagiographic Imaging of a Vaishnava Reformer in
Colonial Bengal

This paper tries to engage with the broad theme of ‘Colonialism and Religion in India’ by probing the
life of Kedarnath Datta (1838-1914), a middle class Kayastha born at Birnagar in Nadiya District of
present West Bengal who later went on to become a District Magistrate in the colonial administrative
set up. From the late 1860s Kedarnath became attracted to Chaitanya Vaishnavism and sought to
retrieve its lost glory with a zeal that earned him the epithet ‘Bhaktivinod Thakur’ from a traditional
Vaishnavite monastic establishment. Kedarnath’s role is crucial since we find in him an English
educated bhadralok bureaucrat assuming the role of a ‘bhakta avatar’ and disseminating ‘Pure Bhakti’
(Shuddha Bhakti) through the formation of the Vishwa Vaishnava Sabha and the publication of a
Bengali journal entitled ‘Sajjantoshani’. In this paper I analyse the dialectic between the self-
construction of a Vaishnava identity in the textualised printed format of an autobiography by
Kedarnath Datta in 1896 and the sacred eulogised construction of the image of the guru in a
hagiography written on Bhaktivinod Thakur by his disciple Krishnadas Babaji around 1914.

Through an attempt to focus on the embeddedness of these texts to their colonial setting I contend
that the colonial encounter with the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition in Bengal produced a
transformation that appropriated the pre-colonial past as much as its colonial present. The late 19th
century Gaudiya Vaishnava reform process professed to recreate the pristine tenets preached by Lord
Chaitanya and the Vrndavana Goswamis in the early 16th century but at the ground level it also
sought to internalise the whole range of critiques of the Vaishnava Sahajiya sects emanating from the
statements of 19th century colonial missionaries and Census observers among others.

Through this paper I seek to raise broader questions on this colonial encounter; how did the
introduction of print and the consequent multiplicity of bhakti journals influence the dissemination


of Gaudiya Vaishnava tenets? How far did the parampara tradition and canon formation processes in
Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition work out in the colonial period?

Purnendu Ranjan, Lecturer – Department of History, Government College for Girls, Punjab
University (Chandigarh, India)

Kabirpanth during Colonial Period

Kabirpanth, a nirgun devotional sect named after the great Indian sant Kabir, has been in existence
in various parts of north and central India roughly since the 17th century. As per the conservative
estimate by some scholars, the sect presently has not less than 3 million lay followers in India alone.
Certain other Asian and African countries; such as, Nepal, Mauritus and Somaliland are also said to
have a sizeable number of Kabirpanthi followers, who had settled there as indentured labourers
during British rule. Its activities and existence have been acknowledged by a number of British
colonial officers, ethnographers and Christian scholars during the 19th and 20th centuries. Most of
the scholars working on the history of Kabirpanth have been consulting the writings of H.H. Wilson
of early 19th and G.H. Westcott and F.E. Keay of the early 20th century. I have also made use of the
survey of Francis Buchanan Hamilton of 1809 and the first census of British India of 1872 in my
doctoral study.

The description of the panth in all these works of the colonial period has been picturesque and very
minute. On perusal of these descriptions, one tends to believe that such graphic presentation of the
sect’s activities could not have been aimed just to construct a unified pan-Indian Hindu religion. In
fact, descriptions of each of these British scholars themselves seem to have been influenced by their
personal prejudices. For instance, Wilson exhausted all his sources of study to prove that Kabir was
of Hindu origin, whereas G.H. Westcott and F.E. Keay tried to contradict Wilson’s view and prove
that Kabir was a Muslim Julaha (weaver) or a Sufi. Unlike these, the survey of Buchanan and the
censuses conducted under the over-all administrative control of the colonial government appear to
be reasonably objective in the description of the Kabirpanth.

No doubt, in pursuit of their exercises, they must have been guided and influenced by their
knowledge of the Christian and Islamic religions, yet we have no reliable evidence in these
descriptions of Kabirpanth to say that they were following a well-planned objective of constructing a
pan-Indian religion of Hindus. In view of the above works I would like to state that instead of
focusing on the ‘construction’ aspect of the Hinduism, we should rather try to understand the
complex process of the changing character and elements of the different cults and sects which
ultimately came to constitute the Hindu or the Indic religion.

Caste system and Indian religion 2

Cláudia Pereira, Professor – Department of Anthropology, University Institute for Social Sciences,
Labour Studies and Technologies (Lisbon, Portugal)

Religion and Caste: the Christian and Hindu Gaudde of Goa

This article analyses the relationship between Hindus and Christians in a village of Goa (southern
India) and the reciprocal social and political classifications, attempting to understand their dynamics
as part of a plural India under transformation. Focus is given to the Gaudde who are at the bottom
of the social system and who show an interesting sociological duality: although they hold the status of
a caste at the social level, they have been classified as a Scheduled Tribe, and have consequently
started to claim economic and educational benefits ascribed by law to Scheduled Tribes.


As with other similar groups in British India, the Gaudde were depicted as the first inhabitants of
Goa both by Portuguese colonialism and by postcolonial literature and are considered as a tribe. In
spite of the fact that, like other communities in South India, Christian and Hindu Gaudde share
sacred entities and public spaces, historical, social and ritual singularities have arisen between them as
a result of Portuguese colonialism in Goa that need to be understood -namely the specificities of
conversion to Christianity under colonial power.

The article therefore deals on the one hand with the production of colonial knowledge and, on the
other, with the processes of self-identification, examining the nature of caste at the ritual, social and
political levels, and addressing the transformation of the Gaudde’s ways of representation as opposed
to those produced by the government, the Catholic church and the Hindu temple and most of all by
the other castes living in the village.

Ülo Valk, Professor – Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, University of Tartu
(Tartu, Estonia)

Caste Divisions in Religious Narratives of Tamil Nadu

S. Lourdusamy (Centre for Dialogue and Communication, Hyderabad),
Ülo Valk (University of Tartu, Estonia)
Religious traditions (aideegam) of rural Tamil Nadu are dominated by local deities such as Aiyanar,
Muniesvaran, Veeranar, Mariamman and many others. These deities figure in oral narratives that link
social reality with supernatural sphere and affirm the active participation of deities in the everyday life
of villages, whose social structure is marked by caste divisions. The paper argues that vernacular
forms of religion, such as oral traditions, customs and rituals, are powerful factors that contribute to
the formation of social borders and caste identities. Some deities are worshipped by particular castes

(e.g. Dalits worship Veeranar, Udaiyar worship Aiyanar, Arundidi worship Madurai Veeran, etc.).
Biographical narratives about several deities are linked with the caste system. Thus, Jabardaka Muni’s
wife Renuka Devi becomes goddess Mariamman when her head is mistakenly replaced with the head
of a woman from Dobi caste. In another myth Murugan wants to marry a girl from the low Koravar
caste who has to pass several tests before she gets permission from gods and becomes goddess
Kathayi. Although deities support the caste divisions, they promote social movement upwards within
the caste borders. Narratives confirm that devout worship makes people wealthy and provides them
with successful careers.
The paper is based on the analysis of fieldwork interviews and narratives that have been
recorded from the region around T. Athipakkam in the districts of Villupuram and Tiruvannamalai in
Tamil Nadu. Most informants were men and belong to the following castes: Udaiyar, Vanniyar,
Reddiar (all farmers), Vellalar, Mudaliar (both agricultural landlords), Shettiars (well diggers), Sakliers
(leather workers), Konars (shepherds) and Dalits (untouchables and agricultural labourers).

Sumio Morijiri, Visiting Professor – Department of Kannada, Mangalore University (Mangalore,
India)

Rethinking Animism in India and Japan. A comparative perspective

The main purpose of my paper is to compare the Japanese concept of Kami with the Indian concept
of Bhuta. Both belong to folk religion.

Shintoism is a popular religion of Japan based on animism. It never had a problem with Buddhism,
which arrived in Japan from India during the 7th century BC. The earliest available written text
Kojiki talks about the religious feelings of early Japanese communities. If we see the Kojiki text and


existing rituals in rural Japan, the supreme power is termed as ‘Kami’, which is very difficult to
explain with the help of western terminologies. Hence, it is necessary to find out some new ways and
terminologies to explain the concept of Kami. Japanese ‘Kami,’ like Indian Bhuta (of Tulunadu,
Karnataka State) comes on earth during certain rituals through a shaman or priest who mediates
between man and god. In this paper, I want to throw some light on the concept of Amateras (sun
goddess) and Bhagavati of South India to explain the concept of supreme power ‘Kami’.

Buddhism in Japan had no problems with Shintoism. Both were synchronised properly. This
synchronisation could be seen in Japanese contemporary folklore. I want to show this
synchronisation with the help of an example of a Mother Goddess in Hinduism and Kannon
Goddess of Japanese Buddhism.

The Japanese, like the Indians, worship the Mountain and the Sea. We believe that this represents the
birth of human beings in another world. However, the worship is for the benefit of mountain, water,
and agricultural society. This is equal to the Bhuta worship of Tulunadu.

My paper includes a video presentation on Japanese Kami and Indian Bhuta.

Caste system and Indian religion 3

Rajaram Hegde, Professor – Centre for the Study of Local Cultures, Kuvempu University
(Shimoga, India)

Fictitious Connections. Caste system and Hinduism

The caste system is generally considered to be an integral part of Hinduism, sustained through the
varna division, the Brahmanical priesthood, and an ideology provided by the Hindu texts. In this
presentation, we will attempt to examine to what extent the aspects of the classical account of the
caste system and its relation to Hinduism, correspond with the empirical reality. To do this we will
draw on the findings of an extensive fieldwork project into caste, community and tradition in
Karnataka.

We chose to test the awareness of the members of different jati groups in several villages in
Karnataka about some of the central aspects of the general descriptions of the caste system: (1) are
the different groups aware of the doctrines which the caste system is supposedly based on? (2) Do
these jatis know the contents of the sacred texts in which these doctrines can be found? (4) Do the
jati groups classify all groups in Indian society in terms of a hierarchy and do they consistently refer
to the same hierarchy (of the caste system)? (5) Are the Brahmins generally recognised as an
influential and powerful priesthood and does this priesthood know the tenets of its own religion?

In answer to these and more questions, we received a set of surprising responses: Except a few
Brahmin pundits, the term varna was not understood by most of the informants. The so-called
Brahmin priests are also unable to relate jati practices to any specific text or varna system. Informants
told almost unanimously that they are following their ancestral practices and did not refer to a
religious belief system or prescriptive text. The origin stories of the different groups merely tell us a
story about this group in particular and not about society as a whole. Moreover, the respondents
failed to locate themselves systematically within a hierarchical arrangement of caste and sub-caste
groups. We also could not observe the Brahmanical priesthood acting as an authoritative group,
controlling the practices of the other jati groups.


In brief, in this paper we will analyse some of the central aspects of the classical account of the caste
system in view of the results of our fieldwork to see to what extent these descriptions help or do not
help us in understanding the structure of the Indian society.

A. Shanmukha, Lecturer – Centre for the Study of Local Cultures, Kuvempu University
The Practice of Untouchability and Hinduism

The classical text book stories, from the colonial writers to the modern 21st century writers, argue
that the practice of untouchability is generated by the caste system, which is based on Hinduism. This
presentation attempts to show that these kinds of arguments neither identify the root of the problem,
nor give any sensible solutions for them.

The classical accounts of the caste system and the practice of untouchability assume that Hinduism is
a religion and that Manu Dharma Shastra, Purusha Sukta, etc. are its sacred texts. These texts, the
classical descriptions hold, have given birth to the Varna system which has later generated the caste
system. It is said that it is the belief system of the Indian religion that compels its people to practice
untouchability.
If one uses the above descriptions to understand and explain the problem of untouchability then one
has to show that people who practice untouchability believe that these textual doctrines are sacred
and that they follow them in their daily life. In our empirical investigation in the State of Karnataka,
we have found that some castes do experience some kinds of discrimination in hotels, public wells or
taps, in the work place, etc. However, our fieldwork has shown that both those who practice
untouchability (or certain kinds of inter-caste discriminations) and those who have been victims of
untouchability have not even heard of the so-called sacred texts. Even if they have heard of them,
they do not feel that these texts are sacred, nor are they following their doctrines.

Thus, our field experience shows that there is hardly any evidence to prove that the practice of
untouchability is generated by the Indian social structure, i.e. the caste system, which is based on a
religion, namely Hinduism.

Dunkin Jalki, Doctoral Student – Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (Bengalooru, India)

Stereotyped Stories and their Action Consequences

Since the last days of colonialism, we have grown used to talking about Indian society in terms that
betray our moral attitude towards them. It is generally considered that Hinduism is predicated on a
caste system which is inherently unjust. The only saving grace which often comes to the rescue of
India’s national pride, whenever this story is told, are the indigenous movements against the caste
system, like the bhakti movements. These movements are supposed to have risen in a dark period
and to have fought against the caste system.

The vacana movement of the12th century Karnataka is one such bhakti movement. Scholars in the
modern period have generally agreed that it was self-consciously anti-brahman and anti-caste, led by
Basava in the name of the low-castes. Such stories, which are part of common parlance by now, are
deeply problematic: they are historically ungrounded, empirically inadequate, and conceptually brittle.
Modern theories about Indian culture are based on such stories. This can be shown by scrutinising
those theories historically, empirically and conceptually. In this paper, however, I do not talk about
such theories but about the stories behind them, by focusing on the modern lingayata scholarship.

This scholarship is a composition of pieces of narratives borrowed from traditional Kavyas and
Puranas. But what directs their selection and valorisation are the western stereotypes about the
lingayata community. The modern understanding of the vacana movement, then, is basically a story:


a narrativised stereotype, which functions like a story, albeit in a modified way. This also means that
they are not knowledge claims about the traditions, as they appear to be. This paper will discuss the
impact that stereotypes have had on Indian stories during the colonial period. Stories, under the
influence of stereotypes, get tagged with moral injunctions, which take the form of “the moral of the
story.” If so, the action-consequences of stereotyped stories will be dangerously moralistic and
decisive.

Colonialism and religion in India 2

James M. Hegarty, Lecturer – School of Religious and Theological Studies, Cardiff University
(Cardiff, United Kingdom)

On Mistaking Names for Things: Provincialising ‘Post-Westernisms’ and Delineating the Function of Imagination in
the Study of Religion (or ‘Everything can be justified but not everything can be justified by anything’)

This paper will explore the epistemological status of a range of key terms in the study of religion with
particular reference to the study of ‘Hinduism’. Particular emphasis will be placed on discrepancies
and inconsistencies in secondary literatures that question the empirical basis of ‘Hinduism’ but which
assume that the referential content of ‘Colonialism’ is clear. The central hypothesis will be that clarity
with regard to the necessity, and particular histories, of analytic terminology, combined with the
awareness of the anthropological universality of classificatory activity, can serve to refine and develop
the relationship between theory and method in the Study of Religion. It will further suggest that the
omnipresence of classificatory and heuretic and counter-classificatory and counter-heuretic activity in
and between social groups must be aggregated to general social theory outside of the highly
politicised contexts in which such activities were first drawn to scholarly attention.

Specifically, this paper will suggest that there has been a fundamental failure to acknowledge that the
‘Orientalist’ hypothesis that one interest-group should describe another group in self-serving terms is
neither historically unique nor particularly significant in and of itself. Nor is it necessarily historically
significant that a given theoretical term should fail to encapsulate fully the phenomena or range of
phenomena that it seeks to characterise. What is of fundamental interest is the how and why of these
processes and failures and the forms, and levels, of meta-awareness exhibited by participants in them.
This is something that can only be ascertained on a source-by-source basis. We must also, of course,
consider the social function of the institutions that analyse and classify such processes
retrospectively. Brief case studies will be presented on 18th, 19th and 20th century materials (both
scholarly and literary) that demonstrate the richness and complexity of the data-field in this regard.

The secondary hypothesis of this paper is that the function of ‘imagination’ in the study of religion is
located precisely in the origination and application of heuristic orientations to data appropriate to a
given investigative agenda. It will also be argued that imaginative activity of this kind must be both
safeguarded and regulated by means of the protection and ongoing refinement of the academy as a
global institution with a clear remit open, but not overly susceptible, to change. Building on these
considerations, this paper will consider recent developments in Historiography and Social Theory
with a view to contextualising recent calls for the ‘provincialisation’ of Europe and the establishment
of a ‘post-Western’ hermeneutic in a wider theoretical, methodological, institutional and socioeconomic
framework.


Masahiko Togawa, Associate Professor – the Graduate School for International Development and
Cooperation, Hiroshima University (Hiroshima, Japan)

Encountering Islam: Historiography of Caitany in the Gauriya Vaisnava Literature

This study analyses the usage of the term Hindu in various contexts in the Gauriya Vaisnava
literature, which is a series of hagiographies of the saint Caitanya (1486–1533). Caitanya is well-
known as the medieval Bengali saint, who took the initiative in the Bhakti movement in the eastern
and northern parts of India. In particular, the term hindu appeared on two masterpieces of the
hagiographies, namely the Sri Caitanya Bhagavata (completed around 1545) and the Sri Sri Caitanya
Caritamrita (around 1612–15).

Both texts are popular as religious scriptures among Bengali Hindus for many years, and are valuable
as historical documents that describe the religious life and discourses among the Indian society of
that time.
It is well known that Joseph T. O’Connell has discussed the term Hindu in these texts, and several
scholars have referred to his pioneering study for their arguments over the modern construction of
the concept of ‘Hinduism’. This fact demonstrates the importance of these Bengali texts with respect
to the issue; however, at the same time, it is interesting to note that some scholars, who supported
the colonial construction theory, such as R.E. Frykenberg and Richard King, referred to his study
and made it the basis of their arguments. In the meantime, other scholars such as Wilhelm Halbfass
and Arvind Sharma used it for their counterarguments. In this context, it is important to re-examine
the usage of the term Hindu in these texts, and to analyse its implications in the context of self-
consciousness and self-representation as Hindus, in contrast to the others, the Muslims.

In the Sri Caitanya Bhagavata, the term Hindu appears 14 times, and in the Sri Sri Caitanya
Caritamrita, it appears 22 times. The author categorises the meanings of the term Hindu in each
sentence, and points out the transition of the usages in both texts. This analysis sheds light on the
process of the formation of ‘self-conscious religious identity’, to borrow David Lorenzen’s phrase, in
which the native people of India became aware of a religious community, who suppose to share the
same norms and values as the Muslims. In particular, the usage of the term Hindu-dharma indicates
that the Hindu people recognised their beliefs and practices as a ‘religion’ (dharma), in contrast to the
different beliefs and practices of the Muslims, who were dominated the Bengal region of those days.

Raf Gelders, Doctoral student – Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent
University (Ghent, Belgium)

Dindimus and the Indian Priest. Orientalist Tropes in Sixteenth-Century Europe

The standard image of Hinduism that is generally associated with Orientalist scholarship consists of
two distinct branches. One branch identifies an ancient, monotheistic Hinduism in Brahmin
scriptures, referred to as “philosophical Hinduism.” The second branch points to its corrupted
manifestation in idolatry and ritual, referred to as “popular Hinduism.” This distinction between
“philosophical” vs. “popular Hinduism”—and the emphasis on a Brahmin priesthood as the axis
around which both revolve—can be traced back to two composite images in sixteenth-century
German scholarship.

The legendary tale of Dindimus the ascetic Brahmin was immensely popular in medieval Europe.
The image of the Brahmins that emerges in popular consciousness said the following: Brahmins are
proto-Christians. This image is a composite, yet its elements reappear with sufficient constancy to
recognise a unified, pan-European mode of representation. It became sharpened in the Scholastic
disputes on salvation. Those who argued for the extra-Christian understanding of Christian doctrines


pushed the Brahmins to the archetype of proto-Christians, prior to Christ. This positive image
inspired the Orientalist notion of a monotheistic Indian religion and predates the age of exploration.

The explorers introduced another “ethnographic fact,” i.e. Indian idolatry. This “fact” was at once
incorporated in German, Protestant scholarship: like the Catholics surrendered to the worship of
saints and images, the Brahmins were similarly led astray by the Devil. A second composite image
now emerges: Brahmins are crafty priests. Though constructed in Protestant books, the Catholics
were familiarised with this imagery via Jesuit scholars, who adopted key elements of the Protestant
critique against the Catholic Church. This negative portrayal inspired the imagery of “popular
Hinduism.”

From the 1530s onwards, both images started to coexist in close textual proximity. The first image
was simply relegated to the past tense, i.e. to descriptions of ancient India. In other words, Orientalist
discourse merely secularised representations of India that emerged in the Scholastic theology of the
Middle Ages and in debates in Reformation Europe. This paper suggests that Orientalism has to be
understood as a cultural instead of a colonising project.

Indians are Aryans, so what?

Marianne Keppens, Doctoral Student – Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent
University (Ghent, Belgium)

Indians are Aryans, so what?

One of the most heated debates that has occupied scholars from several different domains over the
last few decades is the controversy about the Aryan invasion theory. One side of the debate is
represented by those who defend the standard Aryan invasion theory. The latter claim that a
Sanskrit-speaking Aryan people invaded or entered India around 1500 BC and brought along a
language, religion and social structure which they imposed on the indigenous population. The other
side of the debate is represented by those who claim that the Aryan people, their language and
religion have always been present in India and hence that an invasion could never have happened.
However, when we look at the arguments given by both sides we can only conclude that India has
known a long history of different groups of people, cultural elements and languages, etc. coexisting
and mutually influencing each other. The question then becomes: what is problematic about this? It
is in answer to this last question that we suggest to look at how the Aryan invasion theory was
developed in the nineteenth century. In this paper we would like to argue that the theory itself was
not based on any scientific or empirical facts about Indian languages, archaeology or history. Instead
we will argue that it developed as an explanation of two main entities in the European experience of
India: the caste system and the degeneration of the religion of the Vedas. The Aryan invasion theory
not only explained how the caste system came into being, it also accounted for the degeneration of
the religion of the Vedas and allowed for the classification of its evolution into the three main
phases, viz. Vedism, Brahmanism and Hinduism. When we look at the debate as it is taking place
today we see that it is still not possible to defend the occurrence of such an Aryan invasion on the
basis of the available linguistic, archaeological or other facts. Both the importance of the issue as well
as its controversial nature are situated in the fact that the Aryan invasion theory never had any
reference to events that took place in reality. Instead, it is a theory that explained entities that only
exist in the European experience of India. As such, if we want to understand how the Aryan invasion
theory, as well as the ‘caste system’ ‘brahmanism’ and other related concepts, came into being we
need to study the development of Western culture and its internal dynamic of Christian
secularisation.


Caste system and Indian religion 4

Meera Ashar, Teaching Associate – Department of English, University of Pune (Pune, India)

The caste system and Indian religion

In the posthumously published Lectures on the Philosophy of History, G.W.F. Hegel wrote that
India does not have a history. This assertion, which was not Hegel’s alone but representative of an
identifiable intellectual position on India in the nineteenth century, sparked off a series of responses
on history in India. Hegel and his controversial statements still find a mention in contemporary
debates on Indian history, if only in negation of his charge. Little attention, however, has been given
to the associated claim that India cannot have a history because it follows a “natural classification” or
‘caste.’ Caste, for Hegel and his confreres is an embodiment of Indian religion or of the religion of
the Hindoos. It is a limitation not of individual people or a group, community or nation that they do
not and cannot have a history, but the constraints of a particular religion, Hinduism. So then, is the
history that Hegel finds lacking in India a ‘secular’ one, inaccessible to a people confined by their
religious worldview?

In this paper I wish to argue the contrary. A careful reading of the Hegelian emplotment of the
historical drama of humanity and of the Marxist visionary politics of history would allow us to argue
that Hegel’s lament about the lack of history in India was not actually a bemoaning of religiosity in
India. It was in fact a plaint for the very lack of religion in India.

Rishabh Sancheti, Student – European Master in Law and Economics, University of Vienna
(Vienna, Italy), and Padma Priya, Law Researcher - Delhi High Court, Justice Hima Kohli (Delhi,
India)

Spread of the Caste System Beyond Hinduism. A Law and Economics Perspective

To begin with, the caste-system emerged in Hinduism. However, the converts of Hinduism following
various religions asserted their rights to receive a share in the affirmative action plans. This and
several other reasons led to a spread of caste-system across religions in India.

The past decades have seen an upsurge in the litigation going on till the Supreme Court of India,
where litigants are seeking “lower caste” recognition to avail of the special benefits. The
constitutional mandate for affirmative action for limited time period has been seemingly forgotten.
The political parties are being blamed for “vote-bank- politics”, while recent constitutional
amendments are seen as perpetuating the caste-cleavages in the Indian society. The caste-system
arising essentially out of religion, now has turned to a sui-generis character.

This paper attempts to give a law and economics explanation of how “rational, self interest seeking”
of individual players in the society led to a spread of the caste-system across religions in India. It tries
to locate why the ‘invisible hand principle” has been faulted within the Indian societal setup, and if
the caste system has gained prominence over religious identity. It also attempts to explain the spread
of the caste system from Hinduism to various other religions in India, and tries to understand the
role ‘religion’ plays in caste-system dynamics.

The recent violent agitations by certain sects and communities to have them included in the “lower
castes” or “back ward castes” surprise logic and common notions. An intuitive law and economics
explanation is that the benefits arising from the recognition as a “lower caste” surpass the
disentitlements attached thereto. However, if this is true than the whole concept of caste-system in


the Indian religions and the constitutional and legal provisions in this regard deserve a serious
rethinking.

Sindhu Shankar, Student – National Law University (Jodhpur, India)

The debate on conversion in India

The past year has seen many a controversy brewing over the enactment of the anti-conversion laws
in many parts of the country. While on the one hand, there are those who weigh their political
winnings and vote for the bill, there are others who do so with the genuine intent of preventing
forced conversions. Right on the opposite camps are those who vehemently oppose such legislation
on the grounds that it places restrictions on Article 25 of the Constitution of India, which talks of
Right to Propagate religion.

This paper aims to delve into the legislative history of the aforesaid laws and examine its
implementation in the past and important judicial aspects of the same through case laws and its
implications on our rights as well.

While some allege Hindutva fundamentalism to be the backbone of the alleged political facade,
others maintain that it is a potent weapon against those foreign powers who aim to convert and
corrupt the innocent and the poor using inducements and threats. It has also been alleged that the
nationalist groups have now been emboldened and have taken over the States and are being backed
by the local police and political elements through anti-conversion laws.

The loopholes in the proposed bills are many and the extremist facets need to be curbed. The
implications of necessity of Government consent for a conversion to take place are a grave question
of personal liberty at stake. It could result in excessive Governmental control, posing a threat to the
very image of India as a democracy and a religious double standard might result.

This paper endeavours to analyse the interplay of politics and religion in this issue from a legal
perspective and provide an objective analysis of the anti-conversion laws.

Evolutionary explanations of religion

Jakob De Roover, Post-Doctoral Fellow – Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap
(Ghent University, Belgium)

Animal Religiosum? Human Evolution and the Universality of Religion

For an evolutionary explanation about the origin of religion to be true, it is absolutely necessary that
religion has existed and exists in all human cultures at all times. If it originated only in a specific
human community and spread elsewhere, the issue becomes a historical question, like, say, the origin
and spread of democracy in human civilisation. In my paper, I will make four claims: (a) no one has,
ever, in any field or at any time, provided theoretical or empirical evidence for the universality of
religion; (b) we do not know if religion is a cultural universal and do not possess theoretical criteria to
determine whether or not it is; (c) the current crop of evolutionary biological explanations
presuppose as true what they have to prove is true; and (d) the idea that religion is a cultural universal
is Christian-theological in nature: Christianity claims that all peoples have religion because of the
biblical covenant. My paper will trace the debates about the universality of religion in order to show
how this theological ‘truth’ has been transformed into an anthropological ‘fact’, which serves as the


starting point for evolutionary explanations of religion. These can hardly be scientific explanations,
since they reproduce theology as science.

Peter Gottschalk, Associate Professor of Religion – Department of Religion, Wesleyan University
(Middletown, USA)

Scientism and the Evolution of Religion

Underlying the question of whether or not evolutionary biology can be applied to religion in a
scientific manner is the presumption that modern science cannot only authoritatively explain the
natural world, but also reduce all phenomena to the empirically observable. The possibility of
imagining evolutionary understandings of religion results from scientism, the hegemonic position of
the discourses and practices associated with Western-originated science that situate these as
authoritative in understanding the world. An examination of the ascent of scientism and evolutionary
thought demonstrates that they have anything but a disinterested relationship with religion.

The utility of the term “scientism” rests in its usefulness for describing modern science’s role in
societies while avoiding judgments of the truthfulness or accuracy of various ways of knowing. The
contemporary cultural prominence and epistemological authority of modern science in the West and,
increasingly, India, contrasts with medieval Europe where the sciences served as Christian theology’s
handmaiden.

The recognition that nature changes gradually represented a departure for empirical science from the
stasis suggested in certain biblical interpretations. Although Christian antagonism to Lyell’s geological
arguments and Darwin’s evolutionary theory has prompted many to suppose that modern science
inherently competes with, if not displaces, religion, evolutionary explanations of religion demonstrate
continuity between scientific and Christian epistemes. Medieval Christians posited a history of
gradual salvation from pagan origins, through Judaism, that concluded with Christianity. European
science not only has reinterpreted this progress in secular terms (i.e., religion yields to science), it has
also influenced scholars to imagine progress in the development of religion (i.e., animism yields to
polytheism) and progress in the evolution of humanity (i.e., biological changes yield neurological
receptivity to divinity). The prevalence of evolutionary narratives demonstrates that the Christian
paradigm has been not so much displaced as absorbed by science.