Why, Salmond asks, would nineteenth-century Hindus who come from an iconic religious tradition voice a kind of invective one might expect from Hebrew prophets, Muslim iconoclasts, or Calvinists? Rammohun was a wealthy Bengali, intimately associated with the British Raj and familiar with European languages, religion, and currents of thought. Dayananda was an itinerant Gujarati ascetic who did not speak English and was not integrated into the culture of the colonizers. Salmond's examination of Dayananda after Rammohun complicates the easy assumption that nineteenth-century Hindu iconoclasm is simply a case of borrowing an attitude from Muslim or Protestant traditions. Salmond examines the origins of these reformers' ideas by considering the process of diffusion and independent invention—that is, whether ideas are borrowed from other cultures, or arise spontaneously and without influence from external sources. Examining their writings from multiple perspectives, Salmond suggests that Hindu iconoclasm was a complex movement whose attitudes may have arisen from independent invention and were then reinforced by diffusion. Although idolatry became the symbolic marker of their reformist programs, Rammohun's and Dayananda's agendas were broader than the elimination of image-worship. These Hindu reformers perceived a link between image-rejection in religion and the unification and modernization of society, part of a process that Max Weber called the "disenchantment of the world." Focusing on idolatry in nineteenth-century India, Hindu Iconoclasts investigates the encounter of civilizations, an encounter that continues to resonate today.
Why, Salmond asks, would nineteenth-century Hindus who come from an iconic religious tradition voice a kind of invective one might expect from Hebrew prophets, Muslim iconoclasts, or Calvinists?
Rammohun was a wealthy Bengali, intimately associated with the British Raj and familiar with European languages, religion, and currents of thought. Dayananda was an itinerant Gujarati ascetic who did not speak English and was not integrated into the culture of the colonizers. Salmond's examination of Dayananda after Rammohun complicates the easy assumption that nineteenth-century Hindu iconoclasm is simply a case of borrowing an attitude from Muslim or Protestant traditions.
Salmond examines the origins of these reformers' ideas by considering the process of diffusion and independent invention—that is, whether ideas are borrowed from other cultures, or arise spontaneously and without influence from external sources. Examining their writings from multiple perspectives, Salmond suggests that Hindu iconoclasm was a complex movement whose attitudes may have arisen from independent invention and were then reinforced by diffusion.
Although idolatry became the symbolic marker of their reformist programs, Rammohun's and Dayananda's agendas were broader than the elimination of image-worship. These Hindu reformers perceived a link between image-rejection in religion and the unification and modernization of society, part of a process that Max Weber called the "disenchantment of the world." Focusing on idolatry in nineteenth-century India, Hindu Iconoclasts investigates the encounter of civilizations, an encounter that continues to resonate today.
Annotation Rammohun Roy (1772-1833) and Dayananda Sarasvati (1824-1883) are two of the best-known nineteenth-century Hindu reformers. Despite radically different backgrounds, both wrote scathing attacks on the practice of image worship, which they scorned as "idolatry"--The fount, in their estimation, of all that was going wrong in India. They were Hindu iconoclasts. This presents an apparent anomaly--the denunciation of images is not typically associated with Hinduism or the Indian religion, yet both Rammohun and Dayananda made it a linchpin of their reformist programs. How, then, is this anomaly to be explained? Did they borrow this image-rejection from Islamic or Protestant Christian attitudes, or does it have roots in the indigenous Indic tradition? Or could it originate in the life experience of the two men? Noel Salmond investigates these questions through the examination of the lives and writings of the two reformers. He suggests that to explain it as diffusion from other religions is inadequate, while declaring that explanation via independent invention, i.e., life experiences, might need some refinement. This study situates modern Hindu iconoclasm both in the history of specifically Indian religions, and as a phenomenon in the history of specifically Indian religions, and as a phenomenon in the history of religions in general, as image-rejection across cultures. The book concludes with a discussion of image-rejection and modernization and the impact of Rammohun and Dayananda's iconoclasm on India "Salmond's examination of Dayananda after Rammohun complicates the easy assumption that nineteenth-century Hindu iconoclasm is simply a case of borrowing an attitude from Muslim or Protestant traditions." "Salmond examines the origins of these reformers' ideas by considering the processes of diffusion and independent invention - that is, whether ideas are borrowed from other cultures, or arise spontaneously and without influence from external sources. Examining their writings from multiple perspectives. Salmond suggests that Hindu iconoclasm was a complex movement whose attitudes may have arisen from independent invention and were then reinforced by diffusion." "Although idolatry became the symbolic marker of their reformist programs, Rammohun's and Dayananda's agendas were broader than the elimination of image-worship. These Hindu reformers perceived a link between image-rejection in religion and the unification and modernization of society, part of a process that Max Weber called the "disenchantment of the world." Focusing on idolatry in nineteenth-century India, Hindu Iconoclast investigates the encounter of civilizations, an encounter that continues to resonate today."--Résumé de l'éditeur "Salmond's examination of Dayananda after Rammohun complicates the easy assumption that nineteenth-century Hindu iconoclasm is simply a case of borrowing an attitude from Muslim or Protestant traditions." "Salmond examines the origins of these reformers' ideas by considering the processes of diffusion and independent invention - that is, whether ideas are borrowed from other cultures, or arise spontaneously and without influence from external sources. Examining their writings from multiple perspectives. Salmond suggests that Hindu iconoclasm was a complex movement whose attitudes may have arisen from independent invention and were then reinforced by diffusion." "Although idolatry became the symbolic marker of their reformist programs, Rammohun's and Dayananda's agendas were broader than the elimination of image-worship. These Hindu reformers perceived a link between image-rejection in religion and the unification and modernization of society, part of a process that Max Weber called the "disenchantment of the world." Focusing on idolatry in nineteenth-century India, Hindu Iconoclast investigates the encounter of civilizations, an encounter that continues to resonate today."--BOOK JACKET.
