R.S. Sugirtharajah shows how at the height of European colonialism whilst the colonizers were studying the sacred texts of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs and Zoroastrians, the Hindus were themselves scrutinizing the invader's book - the Christian Bible . Sugirtharajah examines how these Hindus transformed the Bible into what they deemed fit for and suited to their contexts. The result was that the Bible acquired a totally different form and lost its authority as the Book of the Empire. Sugirtharajah shows how the resistant, subversive and at times antagonistic readings of the Hindus went beyond what the colonizer had intended. Sadly what these Hindus made of the Bible went largely unnoticed and was ignored by Western scholarship. This volume seeks to rectify this regrettable omission and to place both the Hindu reformers and nationalists attitude to the Bible in their own specific context and to allow them to speak on their own terms rather than reading them with Christian preconception. The Hindu reformers covered include figures such as Raja Rammohun Roy, Arumuga Navalar, Keshub Chunder Sen, Swami Vivekananda, Ponnambalam Ramanathan, M. K. Gandhi and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and nationalists such as Dhirendranath Chowdhary, Sita Ram Goel and Ram Swarup. The book contains the interpretative context; the textual negotiation that went on between these Hindus and the missionaries and orientalists; examples of their Hinduization of the Bible; and the hermeneutical impact on mainstream biblical interpretation.

lgrsnf/39131.indb - Ids.pdf

Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.

Bloomsbury Academic

Cassell

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

US, 2024

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Cover
Halftitle page
Title page
Copyright page
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1 A MORAL TESTAMENT
The Reduced Version
Jesus: Dispenser of Moral Maxims
The Brahmin, the Baptists and their Bible
‘The Heathen’ and his Hermeneutics
English Man’s Book and Ethical Teachings
Notes
Chapter 2 TEXTUAL ORDINANCES FOR TEMPLE WORSHIPPERS
Tendentious Translations
Relatable Rituals
Ritual Resonances
One Book, Two Readings
Revered Texts, Restricted Readings
Saiva and Jewish Religions and Their Temple Theologies
A Testament of its Time
Notes
Chapter 3 UNIVERSAL AND INTUITIVE TRUTHS
Possessed of the Bible, Obsessed with the Truth
Reading as Introspection, Spiritualization and Visualization
Two Testaments: Tentative and Tendentious
Intuitive Selections, Emotional Readings
Transgressing and Transcending
Our Jesus, Our Asiatic Christ
A Bible-Besotted Bengali
Notes
Chapter 4 A SAIVA CĀSTIRAM
The Bible: Depository of Spiritual Experiences
Spiritual Doubles: Matthew and John
Visions of Seers and Outpouring of Souls: Judaean Prophets and Psalmists
Saiva Assurances, Biblical Blunders
Sanctified Soulmates: Jesus and Paul
Be Like a Saivite and be Saved
Notes
Chapter 5 A WORLD-RENOUNCING GOSPEL
A Veiled Vedanta: Fitting the Scriptures
Let’s Eat Mango
Jesus the Renunciant
A Suitable Scripture
Notes
Chapter 6 BAPU’S BIBLE
Testaments as Records of the Soul
Babu’s Personal Preoccupations and Biblical Expositions
Mahatma and his Hermeneutical Manoeuvres
A Sermon for a Spinning Brigade
Mahatma Waiting for the Messiah
Peripheralizing and Praising Paul
Make me a Better Indian
Scriptures as Common Cultural Property
Notes
Chapter 7 A VARIANT OF THE VEDAS
Scriptures: Beyond Words
The Bible: An Upanishadic Book:
Texts and Testaments
Moving Beyond the Canon
Jesus an Eastern Seer, Paul a Vedic Rishi
Hermeneutics: Rehearing, Revisioning, Re-enacting
Exaggerated Exegesis
Some Texts are more Equal than Others
Notes
Chapter 8 FANATICAL AND FRAUDULENT
Hindu Sceptics, Christian Scriptures
Calibrated Christ, Maligned Messiah
Praising Paul, Pillorying Paul
Embracing the Enemy of My Enemy, Enlarging the Textual Spectrum
Caustic Commentaries, Egregious Exegesis
Misappropriating Western Scholars
Paranoid Interpreters, Passionate Polemicists
Notes
AFTERWORD: CHALLENGES AND CONFRONTATIONS
Notes
GENERAL INDEX
BIBLICAL SCRIPTURE

2024-01-08