The Legacy of Vaiavism in Colonial Bengal

This book offers a focused examination of the Bengali Vaiava tradition in its manifold forms in the pivotal context of British colonialism in South Asia. Bringing together scholars from across the disciplines of social and intellectual history, philology, theology, and anthropology to systematically investigate Vaiavism in colonial Bengal, this book highlights the significant rolesreligious, social, and culturalthat a prominent Hindu devotional current played in the lives of wide and diverse sections of colonial Bengali society. Not only does the book thereby enrich our understanding of the history and development of Bengali Vaiavism, but it also sheds valuable new light on the texture and dynamics of colonial Hinduism beyond the discursive and social-historical parameters of an entrenched Hindu "Renaissance" paradigm. A landmark in the burgeoning field of Bengali Vaiava studies, this book will be of interest to scholars of modern Hinduism, religion, and colonial South Asian social and intellectual history.