Encountering Violence in Hindu Universes
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Authors
Publication Date
2017-04-21Journal Title
Journal of Religion and Violence
ISSN
2159-6808
Publisher
Philosophy Documentation Center
Volume
5
Issue
1
Pages
49-78
Language
English
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Barua, A. (2017). Encountering Violence in Hindu Universes. Journal of Religion and Violence, 5 (1), 49-78. https://doi.org/10.5840/jrv201742036
Description
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Academic Publishing via https://doi.org/10.5840/jrv201742036.
Abstract
A study of Hindu engagements with violence which have been structured by scriptural themes reveals that violence has been regulated, enacted, resisted, negated or denied in complex ways. Disputes based on Vedic orthodoxy were channelled, in classical India, through the mythical frameworks of gods clashing with demons, and later in the medieval centuries this template was extended to the Muslim foreigners who threatened the Brahmanical socio-religious orders. In the modern period, the electoral mechanisms of colonial modernity spurred Hindu anxieties about a weakened nation which would die out in the face of Muslim solidarity, and various Hindu organizations began to increasingly draw on motifs from the Vedas, $\textit{Bhagavad-gītā}$, and other texts to speak of a martial Hindu nation. These two moments—the articulation of the boundaries of the robust Hindu nation and the projection of the Muslim as the enemy lurking at the gates—have been integral to the shaping of Hindu cultural nationalism by several key thinkers and political activists. Thus, the forms of violence associated with Hindu universes should be placed within their dynamic socio-historical contexts where Hindus have interpreted, engaged with, and acted on a range of scriptural texts both to generate violent solidarities and to speak of peace. A study of these phenomena alongside some Christian theological attempts to legitimize, valorize or transcend violence from within scriptural horizons points to the complex conceptual terrain encompassed by the conjunction in “religion and violence.”
Keywords
religious violence, crusades, Vedas, $\textit{Purāṇas}$, Vedānta, political Hinduism
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/jrv201742036
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/261187
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