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Religion and the emergence of print in colonial India: Arumuga Navalar’s publishing project
- Source :
- The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 53:473-500
- Publication Year :
- 2016
- Publisher :
- SAGE Publications, 2016.
-
Abstract
- This article offers one of the first scholarly analyses of the impact of print on religion in India in the middle of the nineteenth century. It focuses on the publishing project of Arumuga Navalar, one of the most important authors and editors of Tamil Shaiva works. I examine the details of some of Navalar’s key publications, especially his 1852 prose rendition of the Tamil Shaiva classic Periya Puranam. This work was part of Navalar’s effort to make Shaiva canonical texts, traditionally composed in verse, more widely accessible. He employed prose and print to defend established Shaiva caste and ritual practices; to respond to Christian critiques of Hinduism; and to marginalise Shaiva voices that questioned caste or engaged in ritual innovation. I argue that in nineteenth-century South India, print served as an effective tool to disseminate messages of established religious interests.
- Subjects :
- 060303 religions & theology
Economics and Econometrics
History
Religion in India
business.industry
05 social sciences
0507 social and economic geography
General Social Sciences
06 humanities and the arts
0603 philosophy, ethics and religion
Colonialism
050701 cultural studies
Publishing
Sociology
Tamil literature
Social science
business
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 09730893 and 00194646
- Volume :
- 53
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- The Indian Economic & Social History Review
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........51d3f7bd35aeef8808f27506b288a07a
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0019464616662138