A (6:44)

Yeah. So your journey into the lives and the work of these figures and the sort of perhaps agency subscribing to them in terms of the extent to which comparative religion was a purposeful, strategic enterprise for the crafting of their times and navigating over their milieu. Would you perhaps comment on. On the extent to which they were either. How do I say, a product of colonialism and. Or reacting to Christianity and Christian bookkeeps in particular?

B (7:21)

Yes. So this is a major issue in the historiography. And there are various positions out there, some who have essentially dismissed much of this work because of a presumption that all of this work was shaped to a great degree by the influence of Christianity, as well as almost a coercion, an imposition from the context of colonialism. And I would say that it is not as if Christianity is absent from this history. In the same manner that Christianity is not absent from the history of India. From the beginning, really, of Christianity's spread throughout the world. It has a presence in India very soon after Christianity emerges. And in this case, figures like Ramahon Roy, for example. Certainly he is rising at a time when the East India Company is rising in power and influence. But his researches into. Of the variety of religions of the world, including Christianity, they predate the extremely aggressive arm of Christianity that rises a bit later in the century. And from the evidence that we have. His interest in Christianity stemmed not from the influence of colonialism, but rather from a great interest in reforming Indian religions as he perceived them to be. And that he was eager to look for sources throughout the world, wherever he would find them, that would participate in this mission of thinking critically about Indian religions, about reforming Indian religions and about synthesizing religion into something new. And we could say the same for the Beindranath Tagore, the figure who rises after roy in the 1840s and 50s. And at that time, actually, there's more of a reaction, in a sense, there's, one could say, indigenous reaction against the perception that Christianity is rising. Many in The Medranath Tagore's circles were quite critical of the rise of Christian missionaries. Some of them perceived all of these researches as being a part of a Christian takeover. However, Tagore himself was always alive again to the various sources of religion throughout the world. And I would say the same for Keshav Chandra Sen as well as Swami Vivekananda. However, by the time of Vivekananda in the late 19th century, the image of Christianity has changed radically since the time of Ramon Roy. It has turned into quite an aggressive and violent force within India which was not present at the time of Ramohun Roy's rise.

A (10:23)

Yeah, so that's really fascinating. Let's help me frame this. Let's look at the first figure, perhaps. Let's look at Ramon Roy then. Just to clarify for listeners, would you say that in your view, the founding of the Brahmo Samaj and the sort of reformation, in one sense, perhaps even the sanitization of Hinduism or the reclamation of a Vedic past, however we want to frame it, we can talk about how we're going to frame that. But his work, would you say that was driven by something personal to him, or would you say that was in part or involved a response to critique from beyond Hinduism?

B (11:07)

Yes, I would say that there are a variety of factors informing his work. The critiques that start to emerge of Hinduism. They start to emerge, I would say, in parallel with his rise. And he is quite aware by the 1790s, and I mention a few of these individuals in my book, Charles Grant, who writes a great deal, who is affiliated with the Company, the East India Company, just as many may not know, you know, right around that time, as Ramon Roy is rising in the 1780s and 90s, it is growing as an occupational force in Calcutta. Though at that time, missionaries were officially not allowed in. The Company's policy up until 1813 was not to allow missionaries into their domains. And so there were, however, Christians in other European areas, especially the Danish Company, which was north of Calcutta. They actually pioneered the translation of the Bible and other Christian literatures into Indian languages. And they. They were quite active as missionaries, but not in the English domains. In any case, writings about Hinduism that were quite critical. They start to emerge in the 1790s. And just as Ramohun Roy is rising, however, the evidence that we have would suggest that he is a figure who is into everything. He is, he is. He is shaped to some degree by the Company. He was employed by the company for some time. He acquired wealth and property at different points in his life because of the company. He's definitely immersed into that world, but he's also somebody who, who was shaped by education of that time, which had multiple sources vis a vis Islam. He was educated in Arabic and Persian, which was seen as the vehicle toward a life of mobility, a life of power, a life of employment in India of that time. And he took it upon himself to learn how to access the Gospels and Christian literature before he had any real substantive contact either with Christians or Christianity or with these critiques. However, he then became aware of those critiques in the 1800s and tens. And so it is likely that by the time that, as many know, he led a campaign against the practice of sati, or widow immolation, which he does in the 1810s, that is likely informed by the many critiques of Hinduism that he started to read in. In various languages, including in English, and company men around him who were pushing this critique. But he also had his own, I would say, independent navigation of the field of religion and of politics of the 1790s and 1800s. He also found himself at odds with many who identified as Hindu, who were quite angry at what he was arguing. He argued that Hindus did not need, you know, to practice rituals. They did not need to deploy images or objects and in their life as. As Hindus. And he used a comparative religious method to make these claims, and many Hindus claim, protested this. And so he was, in a sense, at the. At the center of a whole variety of attacks and counter attacks because of his arguments. And in short, he was informed not only by his own quest to think critically about religion, but about the various critiques around him.

A (15:03)

Yeah, so that's. That's really fascinating. There will be a number of members of the audience who may well be scholars or researchers or graduate students in the field or, you know, very well read in the files, who will completely grok, at least in terms of the standard narrative of Ram Mohan Roy and his personality. And there'll be those who may, you know, vaguely have a sense. So we're just sort of kind of fleshing it out. It's. It's sort of. The book seems to be staunchly reclaiming Roy Zatani and his decisions to pursue the path that he saw fit, or his view of life, his view of Hinduism. And part of the intrigue of that claim would be the moving away from Roy as primarily responding to Christian critique or drawing from colonial education. So, I mean, they're fascinating ideas. They're in is all the listeners will know, certainly my, My job, my role, my function, my dharma as the Host is to focus on what the book is doing in the audience and certainly judge whether specialists or laypersons alike. But to my mind, from something well beyond my niche. Although I do vividly recall learning about Roy probably 20 years ago in a modern Hinduism class at the University of Toronto, that I don't think we've really underscored the extent to which this is a relatively novel and maybe not claim, but I don't claim that this book is really pushing back against much of, would it be fair to say, the characterization of Roy in the scholarship as well as the pedagogy. I mean, this is your subfield. Is that fair to say?

B (16:56)

Absolutely it is. And so you've hit on a very important issue in the historiography that presents a divide between those who see Roy almost dismissively so, as a figure who's merely a product, as you are mentioning, merely a product of colonial education and the politics of colonial intensification of power, and therefore not of interest to those who are so dismissive of that moment. And then there are those in an earlier time who saw Roy as a heroic figure who rose above and outside of his community to help others, as in the case of his campaign against Sati. And I would say that I am offering an angle into his life, as I do for all of the other figures in the book, to see them as both intellectuals and as individuals. So they are individuals who have an intellectual odyssey and a journey that is to be respected on its own terms, regardless of the fact that later generations have had their own reactions to a colonial context or the, the. The imposition of a colonial education, and that their own individual intellectual journeys into the world of religion are to be understood for all of the insights that they bring to our understanding of religion today. So I am not in any way aiming to minimize the political and the socio cultural impact of colonialism on India or on anywhere in the world. It is indeed a primary interest of mine, but I'm interested in also in trying to wade through these later perceptions to access what it was actually doing for him. The journey through religion as it was for all of the other figures, Debendunath, Tagore as well, Keshab, Chandra, Shen, Vivekananda, all of them are related in some form or fashion to the world of colonialism, as everybody of the time was. It was impossible for anybody not to be. But that does not mean that their ideas should not be taken seriously within an intellectual history of religion. And that is. That is my overarching claim.

A (19:37)

Yeah, so many interesting threads there Close

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A (21:09)

of the audience might be interested to know what sources you're relying on to craft your argument.

B (21:14)

Yes, and so the kinds of sources that I look at as this is an intellectual history include first and foremost the writings of these figures, and the writings are of various genres. So not only the translations of particular texts and the form by which particular translations and compilations were created. So for example, the Maidranath Tagore writes this work, Brahamudhormu, which is really a compilation of different sources from ancient Indian history, as well as a compilation of particular Upanishads that really spoke to him, and they are then organized into a form for readers to think about how to live their own lives through the following of certain precepts. In these curated selections he writes it quite quickly in a series of fits in a few hours which he dictates a figure who had worked with him and then quickly compiles it into a Bangla edition, and then later in the century has it translated into English. It is remarkably similar to how later in time Mohammad Gandhi writes Hind Swaraj, which was created very quickly in a. In a series of fits and then compiled into a text later to be circulated throughout the the world. A figure I also look at in my third chapter, Dayanand Saraswati, who writes the work Satyarth Prakash. This work is also something that he comes out with quickly and then delivers a series of lectures and has it compiled into a text. And so these are the kinds of things that I look at, the form as well as the content of pamphlets, books, speeches, translations and letters, as well as practical elements in the history of reformist practices that help us think about comparative religion. For example, Keshav Chandra Shen in the 1860s and 70s, a major figure in the Brahma Shrimaj, creates a separate Brahma Shamaj because of various internal divisions and debates within the group and and initiates a system of overseeing new kinds of architecture. They create a new worship space that in his view combines elements of different religious traditions within it. That is the image on the COVID of the book, the Brahma Mundir, which in his view combines elements of Hindu, Muslim and Christian motifs. And he creates a system of pilgrimages to various great men in history from the world of religion, from the world of science, all of which is aimed at rethinking religion for his time in the 1870s.

A (24:16)

So this notion of religion, of course, it's a word that means many things to many people. It's a word where it's used in common parlance and folks have a sense or think they have a sense of what it means. It's a term that is endlessly deconstructed and problematized in the study of religion. So clearly we can't succumb to either extreme of accepting it as it's all the same, you know, what it is, or picking it apart to 300 definitions. But I'm wondering if you could say a little bit about your position. Begin the book in terms of the category, the concept of religion, the extent to which it is imposed, manufactured, modern, the extent to which it is incomparable to indigenous terms and concepts. Could you talk about that a little bit?

B (25:13)

Yes. I would say that this is a particular time period and a particular context historically that offers up a very specific angle into the ongoing, perhaps from the beginning of recorded time, the ongoing conversation about what constitutes religion. So I would say there is no one answer to that question that could fit across all time and space. But for this particular moment, there are conversations that cohere. And I would start with Bibikanand, who is near the end of his. What is called in the scholarship around him, his mature period from the 1890s, 1894 through 1901. He writes a great deal about this very question. And he again, through, as I have argued, through a comparative religious impulse, ends with a conclusion that religion is a. A facet of modern life that cannot be denied. And by that he means that when people find themselves in a situation in which they have to make choices, they have to make a recourse to something beyond themselves. And so that recourse to something beyond themselves, again through comparative religious thought, he concludes, relies on an ideal unit, abstraction which might be a transcendental figure, a transcendent. A figure that transcends. It may be a conception of divinity, it may be something else, but there's something beyond oneself that has to be referred to, to ground oneself in an ethical position about making decisions. And it comes to this position after. After a great amount both of personal. Of a personal journey that I recount in the work by starting as somebody in his young life who. Who was reared by the Brahmo Shrimaj and reared by fairly detailed studies of science and had very little interest in the trans. The transcendental world at all. But then he was touched by his encounters with the mystic Sri Ramakrishna. And he found that there is a spirit space to think about what happens in the relationship between one's own choices and some relationship with the transcendental world. And in that he started to think and research about what that actually meant. And so I'm suggesting here that from the era of Ramohun Roy there's a concerted effort to accept that there is an isolated space in human life for religion, this. This relationship between one's own existence and. And a unit outside of oneself, and that the sources for that are multiple and that those sources come from all different directions. And this is another insight that Ramohan Roy on his own starts to cultivate. And I argue in the book, in every time, from him to Devendranath to Keshav Chandra Shen and then to Vivekananda, is something that is emphasized that the space of religion is both undeniable in one's human experience and then the sources for understanding it come from every direction imaginable.

A (28:45)

Yeah, fascinating. What. In your process of piecing together this narrative, was there anything that was rather surprising to you or was it sort of clear at the outset that, you know, the sort of the through line across these figures or what was that process like for you?

B (29:04)

One thing that I didn't fully expect that I became, you know, more interested in as I researched and wrote this. The process of research and writing, in my view, is one that continually takes from both ends. One researches, reads, writes, comes back to the writing, develops the writing, transforms the writing. And that is a process that I took. And in the beginning, I had the. Perhaps a presumption that these figures and their relationship with sources from ancient India, their relationship to sources from the Vedas and the Upanishads, would perhaps not be so central to their lives or to their intellectual journeys or their spiritual experiences. But I found that. That actually there's a quite a consistent reference point to both the Vedas and the Upanishads for all of these figures. And they, not by any means, in any singular or monolithic form, shape their orientation to the world. Indeed, for the Bendranath Tagore, through a fairly intensive period of study that he himself initiated with bandits in Varanasi, he came to conclude that the Vedas were not infallible sources of knowledge, but he and then every other figure in this work. And I would argue that the vast majority of figures in the 19th century in India who thought about comparative religion deeply spent a lot of time with both the Vedas and Upanishads as a corpus as well as a way of thinking. And this is something that I think is fairly consistent across the century and back to a point that I made in the beginning. Many in the study of religion in India focus on various aspects of religious practice. The. The topic of lived religion is a common topic in our present day, incidentally, something that some of my figures that I study refer to without the term being invented at the time, like Bonkim Chandra Chatterjee, who writes about this, as well as others. But the figures throughout the 19th century, they had a very detailed relationship to these sources. And there's a presumption often that in the 19th century, because of the rise of colonialism and colonial knowledge, that the Vedas and the Upanishads basically are just, you know, they're just there for Orientalists to work on. They don't have an actual life in the spiritual or intellectual journeys of people. But I would say that is that is not the case.

A (32:03)

Is there anything in addition that you'd like to share either about the book in particular or the. The research in general?

B (32:10)

Yes, I would say that I would hope that for those who read this work, that there are a whole variety of audiences that I think would be interested in work like this, those who study religion formally from within the field of religious studies. And who may be interested in the modern history of religion. The history of comparative religion in India in the 19th century, I would hope, offers some insight into how the modern history of religion came to be. Also, those who study religion in South Asia, I would Hope that the 19th century comes out as a century which is not only captive to a narrative about the colonialism of the time or about communalism that occurs later in the 20th century. And then finally, for those who think about comparative religion from this perspective of philosophy or religion and the philosophy of religion following the work of scholars like David Chidester and his. His masterwork and comparative religion in South Africa, I would follow in that direction and say that India offers an extraordinary amount of data for comparative religion, showing that the impulse to compare, to think broadly and deeply about religion and to synthesize the data of religion throughout the world is not only a part of European history, it is not only a part of the European enlightenments, it is definitively a part of the history of modern India.

A (33:47)

Fascinating. Well, thank you very much for appearing on the podcast today.

B (33:51)

Thank you so much for having me.

A (33:53)

All right, and welcome. For those listening, we have been speaking to Dr. Naresh Bose of the University of Victoria, British Columbia. He's been speaking about his brand new Cambridge University Press publication, Chips from a Calcutta Workshop. You know what they say about ships? You just can't. You can't just have. Can't have just one. The subtitle comparative religion in 19th century India. So until next time, keep. Well, keep listening, keep reading, Keep reading, Chips, and keep contemplating the enterprise of comparing religions.