Table of Contents

Introduction: Hinduism in India
Acknowledgments
The Emergence and Significance of the term “Hinduism” - Geoffrey A. Oddie
Hinduism and Modernity - Will Sweetman
Hinduism and Law - Timothy Lubin
Hinduism and Economics - Thomas Birtchnell
The Sacred in Modern Hindu Politics: Historical Processes Underlying Hinduism and Hindutva - Robert Eric Frykenberg
Media Hinduism - Ursula Rao
Modern Hindu Guru Movements - Michael James Spurr
Folk Hinduism: The Middle Ground? - Aditya Malik
Hinduism and Healing - Fabrizio Ferrari
Possession - Elizabeth Schömbucher
The Urban Hindu Arranged Marriage in Contemporary Indian Society - Reshmi Lahiri-Roy
On Hinduism and Caste - Vinay Kumar Srivastava
Index

About the Author

Will Sweetman is Associate Professor of Asian Religions, University of Otago, New Zealand. He studied philosophy, religious studies, and theology at the Universities of Lancaster and Cambridge. He has taught at universities in London and Newcastle, and held research fellowships at the University of Halle, Germany, and the University of Cambridge. He has published three books and several articles on historical and theoretical aspects of the study of Hinduism. Aditya Malik is Professor and Dean in the School of Historical Studies at the newly established Nalanda University, India. He was trained in philosophy, archaeology, history, social anthropology, and religious studies at St Stephen’s College, New Delhi; Deccan College, Pune; and the South Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He received his PhD and Habilitation (professorial degree) in Modern Indian Studies at the University of Heidelberg. He has taught at the Universities of Heidelberg and Canterbury in New Zealand. He was Head of Religious Studies (2002– 2004) at the University of Canterbury. He has been Senior Fellow of the German Research Council, Heidelberg; Visiting Faculty, Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Visiting Professor, University of Delhi; and Fellow at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Social Science Research, Erfurt. He was founding Deputy Director of the New Zealand South Asia Research Centre (NZSAC) and Associate Director of the New Zealand India Research Institute (NZIRI). He has numerous publications on pilgrimage; oral traditions, ritual embodiment and performance; religion, law, and justice; medieval and contemporary historiography; and secularism, religion, and modernity in South Asia.

Reviews

"The book is a compilation of essays by eminent researchers to the ongoing discussions on nature, history, and practice of Hinduism in India. The book challenges several notions of Hinduism that describe it as a uniform and monolithic tradition. The book serves as an avenue to dialogue with the past and participates in the ongoing debates on issues pertaining to Hinduism, nationalism, and world affairs…. The most significant contribution of the book is that it explains how any understanding of Hinduism is rooted in conflict"

*Free Press Journal, November 6, 2016*

 "This volume of 12 contributions from eminent scholars is well-timed because it examines multiple aspects of Hinduism as a philosophy and its engagement with society and politics…. This study is welcome because it exposes the designs of political Hindu organisations"
*Business Standard, September 28, 2016*

"This book is after all more focused on contemporary Indian sociology than on religious contents through classical or vernacular sources."
*Indian Historical Review*