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Abstract: The famous 19th-century Bengali saint Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa has almost universally been regarded as a Shakta (sometimes confused with Tantrika) devotee of the Mother Goddess Kali. His association with the Kali temple at Daksineshvar, in the northern suburb of Calcutta, has no doubt been a powerful argument behind his Shakta/Tantrika affiliation. This paper argues that Ramakrishna was essentially a bhakta (devotee) in the Vaisnava tradition and his cultural and family inheritance. His idea of the divine and his career and logia as a priest and a saint provide ample justification to consider him essentially a Vaisnava whose spiritual battle-cry was to demand to have dalliance with God. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The dominant culture in India in the Buddha''s day, Brahmanical culture, took as axiomatic the existence of a supernatural creator deity. This deity, termed ‘Brahmā’, was conceived as being ‘the all-seeing, the all-powerful, the Lord, the maker and creator, ruler, appointer and orderer, father of all that have been and will be’. Although the Buddha completely rejected such apparent metaphysical speculation as a ‘thicket of views’, he nowhere formulated a systematic repudiation of theism. In one canonical text, however, the Buddha, encountering a young Brahmin espousing theistic beliefs, gives a series of analogies and similes that help to illuminate his views on the matter. In short, the Buddha saw such a belief as being dangerously reflexive, and hence as a symptom of a debilitating conceptual and affective disorder. Thus, in the dialogue, the Buddha aims to ease this ailment of his interlocutor through a threefold strategy: (1) displaying the language usage that under girds the problem; (2) reorienting the interlocutor towards the primacy of his conceptual apparatus as the proper locus of concern; and (3) providing a practice through which the interlocutor may develop the skills necessary for conceptual and affective health. The parameters of the discussion in this sutta are wide enough to render it of relevance to contemporary debates on theism. That is, the issue at stake in the sutta may be read as being not only about a restricted local notion of deity, but about God, broadly conceived. The article contains fresh translations from the text under consideration, the Tevijjasutta of the Dīghanikāya (13). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This essay discusses the politics and relevance of myth and myth making in relation to the subordination of Untouchables in South Asia. Through the case study of one particular group – the Muchi-Rishi of Bengal/Bangladesh, traditionally skinners, leather-workers and musicians – it is argued that ex-Untouchables do not share the ideology of caste which places them on the lowest echelon of society. This is in contrast with the case of ‘Untouchable myths of origin’ offered by anthropological research (Michael Moffatt, Robert Deliège) in South India, Tamil Nadu. However, another set of counter-myths recounted by the Rishi, centred around the figure of Ruidas, offers an alternative which allows them to gain a self-ascribed identity. Far from engaging in a ‘theological’ struggle, the idiom of religion and myth becomes for these ‘ex-Untouchables’ and subaltern groups a ‘place of resistance’ from which they can hope to better themselves also in the economic, social and political spheres, as part of their overall endeavour to achieve full human dignity. For some Rishi, this process has taken the form of a long journey from being defined an ‘Untouchable’ to becoming a Dalit. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: For years, the authors of the best-selling guide to India, Lonely Planet, has shaped the perspectives of many travellers. This article considers how religion is constructed as a category and how it is made relevant to travellers. I argue that ‘religion’ comes in two versions, one pertaining to the Indian hosts and one to travellers. Religion is based on tradition, faith and historical institutions, whose members, rituals and sacred sites are of interest to travellers. Spirituality has to do with the personal development of travellers and is exclusively referred to as philosophy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A debate has recently re-emerged about whether Hinduism in India is a colonial invention or antedates European colonialism. Drawing on the Indian censuses of 1872–1921, I argue that Hinduism is both. It has complex linkages both to European colonialism and to indigenous Indian culture. Traditions like Hinduism are better conceived of as a negotiated territory between factions instead of solely being the creation of one dominant group. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Exploring material collected in the Hindu Temples of the Indian state capital Bhopal, this article deals with the problem of how to accommodate the divine in the modem world. It explores how the presence of the divine—in the form of revelations, miracles, mediums and prophets—is accommodated in the contemporary discourse of urban India. I show that the communication with deities is understood in terms of 'sensory experience' and 'physical experimentation' and is thus constructed in a way parallel to arguments in a 'scientific' discourse. As point of entry I have chosen the life history of Mr Bagware, a bank employee and a temple president in Bhopal, in order to show how he allowed the goddess to take over his life. This example is followed by a more general discussion of the ways the divine is experienced and the reasoning that allows for the integration of revelations, miracles, possession and predictions into the discourse of modernity. There follows a discussion of the different formulations of modernity and tradition and of the conflicting ways in which religion is accommodated within this framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on a body of scholarship which assumes that because European writers were constrained by a certain notion of what a religion is, they imposed an artificial conceptual unity on the diverse religions they encountered in India. Consensus of the inadequacy of the concept of Hinduism; Analysis of the plurality of religious affiliation in India; Emergence of the idea of a unified religion.

Focuses on the efforts of feminist scholars in India to challenge representations of Indian past inherited from nineteenth century scholarship. Development of the Arya-centered paradigm; Unilineal model of history; Glorification of the Vedic age; Devolutionary portrayals of post-Vedic periods; Women's fate and the version of India's history; Rationale for women's emancipation movement.

Focuses on the cult of Saint George, the most popular Christian saint in Kerala Christianity. Details on the devotional and narrative background of Saint George; Circumstances which surround the establishment of Puthupally's cult of Saint George; Reference to the widespread use of statues of Saint George throughout Kottayam district; Identification of the persons the plethora of Kerala's non-Protestant denominations pay tribute.

Focuses on the Great Lord Hanuman marble temple, located in downtown New Delhi, India. History of the temple; Description of the temple; Information on the temple's sanctum; Information on popular sites of Hanuman worship.

Focuses on the `Bauls' of Bengal who have opposing view to the Hindu and Muslim religions. How they have identify themselves; Importance of `Baul songs' to the urbanized, upper-class Bengalis in search of their roots; Details on the relationship between name and thing.

Focuses on the debate over Hindutva, the indigenous Indian culture. Rise of religious politics in India; Corruption of politics by religious activists; World-wide fundamentalist plague; Religious aberration; Differences between classic liberal and relativist positions.

Discusses the conversion of the Royal Pavilion estate in Briton, Sussex, into a military hospital for the Indian casualties of World War I, in order to show how religious beliefs and practices of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim soldiers were provided for in the Indian Army of Raj. Information on the relationship between the British and the Indians; Details on the religion of the Hindu, Sikh and Muslim Indian soldiers.

Reports on the resurgence of Hindu fundamentalism as magnified by an event that occurred in northern India. Destruction of the mosque at Ayodha by an angry Hindu mob and the resultant violence claiming hundreds of lives; Two broad tendencies in the academic evaluation of the Hindu resurgence; Confusion on the real definition of Hinduism and on Hindu spiritualism.