A01=J. Barton Scott
anticolonialism
asceticism
Author_J. Barton Scott
authority
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=NL-HR
Category=QRD
christianity
colonialism
control
COP=United States
despotism
Discount=15
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
ethics
Format=BB
Format_Hardback
gandhi
helena blavatsky
hindu
hinduism
HMM=229
IMPN=University of Chicago Press
independence
india
individual
ISBN13=9780226368672
james mill
karsandas mulji
keshub chunder sen
Language_English
max weber
nonfiction
PA=Available
PD=20160826
politics
Price_€20 to €50
priest
priestcraft
protestant reformation
PS=Active
PUB=The University of Chicago Press
reform
religion
secularism
self rule
self-governing
SN=South Asia Across the Disciplines
spirituality
subject
Subject=Religion & Beliefs
WMM=152
Product details
- ISBN 9780226368672
- Format: Hardback
- Weight: 510g
- Dimensions: 17 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 19 Jul 2016
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Historians of religion have examined at length the Protestant Reformation and the liberal idea of the self-governing individual that arose from it. In Spiritual Despots, J. Barton Scott reveals an unexamined piece of this story: how Protestant technologies of asceticism became entangled with Hindu spiritual practices to create an ideal of the “self-ruling subject” crucial to both nineteenth-century reform culture and early twentieth-century anticolonialism in India. Scott uses the quaint term “priestcraft” to track anticlerical polemics that vilified religious hierarchy, celebrated the individual, and endeavored to reform human subjects by freeing them from external religious influence. By drawing on English, Hindi, and Gujarati reformist writings, Scott provides a panoramic view of precisely how the specter of the crafty priest transformed religion and politics in India.
Through this alternative genealogy of the self-ruling subject, Spiritual Despots demonstrates that Hindu reform movements cannot be understood solely within the precolonial tradition, but rather need to be read alongside other movements of their period. The book’s focus moves fluidly between Britain and India—engaging thinkers such as James Mill, Keshub Chunder Sen, Max Weber, Karsandas Mulji, Helena Blavatsky, M. K. Gandhi, and others—to show how colonial Hinduism shaped major modern discourses about the self. Throughout, Scott sheds much-needed light how the rhetoric of priestcraft and practices of worldly asceticism played a crucial role in creating a new moral and political order for twentieth-century India and demonstrates the importance of viewing the emergence of secularism through the colonial encounter.
Through this alternative genealogy of the self-ruling subject, Spiritual Despots demonstrates that Hindu reform movements cannot be understood solely within the precolonial tradition, but rather need to be read alongside other movements of their period. The book’s focus moves fluidly between Britain and India—engaging thinkers such as James Mill, Keshub Chunder Sen, Max Weber, Karsandas Mulji, Helena Blavatsky, M. K. Gandhi, and others—to show how colonial Hinduism shaped major modern discourses about the self. Throughout, Scott sheds much-needed light how the rhetoric of priestcraft and practices of worldly asceticism played a crucial role in creating a new moral and political order for twentieth-century India and demonstrates the importance of viewing the emergence of secularism through the colonial encounter.
