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Journal of the American Academy of Religion Advance Access originally published online on May 24, 2007
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 2007 75(2):298-323; doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfm005
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy of Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Bourgeois Vedanta: The Colonial Roots of Middle-class Hinduism1

Brian A. Hatcher

Department of Religion, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, IL 61701, USA

E-mail: bhatcher{at}iwu.edu


  Abstract

The quest to balance the material and the spiritual has a long history in the Hindu tradition, as it does in the West. While Hindus recognize desire to be a central human value, they also see it as a cause of human suffering. This tension persists within contemporary Hinduism, especially among an emergent middle class that seeks to balance spiritual fulfillment and worldly success. If we are to understand recent manifestations of Hinduism, we would do well to explore their roots in the colonial period. That is the goal of this essay, which explores the affinity between one early colonial version of Vedanta and the socio-economic activities of its bourgeois promoters. Working from a rare set of Bengali discourses delivered at meetings of the Tattvabodhini Sabha during its inaugural year (1839–40), this essay demonstrates how a rescripted Vedanta provided members with a worldview that legitimated both their spiritual concerns and their worldly activities.


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J. D. Fuller
Modern Hinduism and the Middle Class: Beyond Reform and Revival in the Historiography of Colonial India
J Hindu Studies, September 8, 2009; (2009) hip012v1.
[Abstract] [PDF]


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