A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ACADEMIC STUDY OF HINDUISM

The history of the academic study of Hinduism is not a study which lends itself easily to segmentation and delineation; there are no huge landmark events that revolutionized the field to a point of complete reconstitution. Rather, what we see when we look at the history is the blending and melding of trends as they reflect and refract upon one another. As a result, we can look at trends and orientational adjustments over the course of the field's historical development.

The field itself is heavily rooted in the traditional academic enterprise of Indology which can be dated as far back as Alexander the Great and more systematically to the turn of the millennium. However, we see the first institutional structure for the study of Indian religious traditions in 1784 with the establishment of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and the creation of European academic programs focusing upon India in the early 19th century. These institutions were developed largely out of an appreciation of India's Sanskrit textual tradition. As such, the majority of the scholarship for many many years was largely philological and historical in focus. Classical Indology was developed most completely near the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. It comes to its full fruition in such great scholars as Muller, MacDonell, Keith and Bloomfield. These scholars were fascinated primarily by the Vedic Brahmanic tradition and focused their studies on texts relevant to this tradition. As a result, their translations and critical analyses tended to shove aside texts such as the Puranas and the Tantras. While I have said that this scholastic tradition began to lose its strangle-hold on the field around the early and mid 20th century, it is nevertheless still a vital force in the scholarship of the field.

With the rise of Anthropology and other social sciences in the early to middle 20th century, the textual focus of the field begins to wane and we see the emergence of a new a vital force in the scholastic appropriation of the tradition. The emergence of this force does not break clean from the past, but rather fuses many of the old ideological conceptions into their thought. As a result, this group of scholars was generally interested in the relationship of the textual tradition so often discussed by classical Indologists to the daily practices of Hindus. They were interested in the interplay between various sociological phenomena and religious beliefs . For example, there is a huge literature on the purity/impurity dichotomy within not only the social structure, but also the religious framework as well. This is where we seen the emergence of such great scholars as Louis Dumont who did and still does greatly influence scholarship with his analysis of hierarchy. His work, and others associated with this movement are largely a response to another body of literature which was interested in looking at the interplay between what has been called the "great" and "little" traditions. Specifically, these terms are meant to categorize the interplay between the Sanskrit, Brahmanic tradition and the vernacular traditions of geographically localized areas. This discussion still goes on today. Dumont's theory however, was that this division was trivial and that there was a more pervasive conceptual framework in which people participated. This framework was the hierarchical categorization not only of society, but also religious systems.

Framed largely in theoretical terms, the reaction to these types of scholarship moved toward a more specific localized (scripturally or geographically) discourse. That is, there were, and still are, a great deal of studies which are about Sri Vaisnavaites in Madras or pilgrims in Prayag during a certain festival time. Yet while these studies are localized they do make, at least implicitly, claims toward more general theories.

Currently, as the lines between departments begin to blur and the fertility of inter-disciplinary discourse is realized, scholars are drawing largely on areas such as folklore, philosophy, geography, and cognitive science. As these departmental lines blur so do the traditional geographic boundaries of scholarly activity. The United States and Europe are no longer the only place for Hindu studies. In fact, as I understand it, the work which is now coming out of Japan is highly respected. In addition, Indian scholars, who have actually participated in the discourse for a long time, are making a stronger appearance from not only Indian Universities, but also American and European Universities. The majority of studies I have seen are no longer primarily textual, or anthropological, (at least the ones coming from scholars who would self identify with the academic study of religion), but rather there is a fusion of sorts, a methodological approach which uses both textual and non-textual approaches. As such, much of the work coming out about, for example, Bhakti and asceticism, is extremely engaging and informative.

In the course of a historical overview of the field, it seems necessary to look, not only internally, but also externally. That is, how have these studies changed and shaped Hindu's understandings of themselves. When looking at this issue, one of the most interesting things to me is the use and development of the term Hindu itself. This word is a western academic creation which was and is used to group a diverse and polymorphous set of beliefs, texts and practices. The interesting thing to me is that it has been completely adopted by Indians themselves. Traveling around India this summer and talking with people I was always interested to hear Indians claim, after only a few minutes of casual conversation, that they were "Hindu." This term has also been appropriated by major political forces in India at the present time including the BJP, who claim to be a Hindu fundamentalist group.