01514nam a22001337a 4500020001800000041000800018082001500026100002000041245007400061260003200135300005300167520110100220650005901321  a9780670093656  aENG  a294.5bMAN  aManu S. Pillai   aGods, guns and missionaries : the making of the modern Hindu identity  aLondon, bAllen Lane,c2025  axlvii, 570 pages : billustrations, maps ; 24 cm  aFrom publisher's description: When European missionaries arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering. Hinduism, as they saw it, was a pagan mess: a worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned women alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to crocodiles. But it quickly became clear that Hindu ‘idolatry’ was far more layered and complex than European stereotypes allowed, surprisingly even sharing certain impulses with Christianity. Nonetheless, missionaries became a threatening force as European power grew in India. Western ways of thinking gained further ascendancy during the British Raj: while interest in Hindu thought influenced Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire in Europe, Orientalism and colonial rule pressed Hindus to reimagine their religion. In fact, in resisting foreign authority, they often adopted the missionaries’ own tools and strategies. It is this encounter, Manu S. Pillai argues, that has given Hinduism its present shape, also contributing to the birth of an aggressive Hindu nationalism  aHinduism Historya Hindus IdentityaMissionaries India