Hindu Pasts

Download or read book Hindu Pasts written by Vasudha Dalmia and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2017-07-31 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenges the monolithic view of Hindusim in the nineteenth century, and instead offers a vision of India that contains a rich multiplicity of Hinduisms, women’s stories, and cultural histories. In her introduction to Hindu Pasts—which showcases her work as a scholar of social, literary, and religious history—Vasudha Dalmia outlines the central ideas which thread her writings: first, to understand in greater historical depth the relationship between body language, religion, and society in India, as well as the ever-changing role of its religious and social institutions; second, to recognize that the Hindu tradition, which colonials and nationalists tend to see as monolithic, is in fact a multiplicity of distinct and semi-autonomous strands.