000			01562nam a22001577a 4500
020			_a9780670093656
041			_aENG
082			_a294.5 _bMAN
100			_aManu S. Pillai
245			_aGods, guns and missionaries : the making of the modern Hindu identity
260			_aLondon, _bAllen Lane, _c2025
300			_axlvii, 570 pages : _billustrations, maps ; 24 cm
520			_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
650			_aHinduism History _a Hindus Identity _aMissionaries India
942			_cBK
999			_c23567 _d23567