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Christianity in British Colonial India and the Crystallization of

Modern Hindu Religious Identities
As a response to evangelical Christianity, I will argue that Hindu reformers of the
British Colonial period unified various beliefs and practices that were recognized
by Hindus as their common religious property to coalesce the foundation we know
today as Hinduism. This paper explores the influence of Christian missionary
work and ideology in the large Indian urban centers of Bombay, Calcutta and
Pondicherry. I will highlight specific colonial figures such as Rammohun Roy,
Vivekanada, Dayananda Saraswati, and Pandita Mary Ramabai who utilized new
methods of ideological disseminationpublic preaching and debates, journalism,
printing books and pamphlets, and organization to integrate, resist and absorb
Christianity. Lastly, I will examine its affect on Hindu socio-cultural-religious
domains and show how Christian ideology and the advent of competitive
proselytism formed an important impetus for Indians to delineate their religious
and cultural boundaries, facilitating an internal renewal and transformation of
Hinduism into modernity.
In the early 19th Century, Christian missionaries impacted Indian society both
religiously and spiritually in a significant and consequential manner (Palsetia
2006:616). Large urban centers such as Bombay and Calcutta exposed Hindus to
new and unsettling ideological, social and judicial pressures. In 1813 the British
East India Company lifted restraints on Christian missionary work in India, thus
setting into motion an aggressive campaign of Christian missionary schoolsan
important tool for the application of Christianity and imperial ideologies. Through
education evangelical Christians hoped to instruct high-caste and well-born urban
Hindus in English language, Eurocentric morality and the promotion of Christian
conversion (Palsetia 2006:617). Furthermore, missionaries made concentrated
efforts to learn Indian languages and investigate Hindu religious traditions to
contrast Christian and Indian morality (Palsetia 2006:618). This sparked intense
interreligious debates between Christians and Indians and drew considerable
attention in the public domain, fueled by the Indian press as aggressive and
radicalized Christian polemics clashed with protective Indian retorts (Palsetia
2006:618). It is important to note that print capitalism played a crucial role in the
creation of imagined communities through the publications of religio-cultural
spokespeople and lay leaders (Metcalf 1992:231). Thus forms of worship and
morally sanctioned models of social behaviour became the focus of intense
conscious reflection and criticism. This had the affect of fixing standards of
ideology and moral behaviour within groups, defining not only who and what they
were, but also who and what they were notthat is, to construct themselves, they
had to define their opposites (Metcalf 1992:235). This process, whereby groups
defined themselves as to what it meant to be a true Hindu, Christian or Muslim,
facilitated religious and cultural boundaries in an attempt to create wholly
homogenized religious traditions (Metcalf 1992:239).
Religious polemics throughout India manifested in two forms: 1) internal debates
between the orthodox, sects and reformists in the religious communities, and 2)
external polemics between defenders of one tradition versus all other religions
(Jones 1992:52). Emerging from this process of defining religious identity
provoked a new kind of religious guru. Claiming moral leadership in their

communities, the "lay leader" was a new kind of religious reformerrational and,
in many cases, scientific in their approach to defining the boundaries of Hinduism
(Metcalf 1992:232). These innovative people did not receive their knowledge
through traditional teachings or initiation by a guru or religious elite. Instead,
these lay leaders utilized and exploited print capitalism and became very adept
debaters, publicists, and journalists (Metcalf 1992:232). Both sides, Christian and
Hindu, were able to reach the population through literature made available on
street corners and open public debates, thus forming new voluntary associations.
Furthermore, the general public that was once only available to Brahmins and
high-caste elites could now access religious texts. Moreover, the large urban
centers with their uprooted populations separated from their familial settings, were
fertile ground to disseminate ideas, oral and written, for socio-religious reform
and recruiting adherents attuned to new cultural identities (Metcalf 1992:233).
The Christian-Indian debates illuminated both the strength and weakness of the
Indian response, which was not only defensive but also chaotic, and signified how
far Christian ideology was perceived to have penetrated Indian society (Palestia
2006:621). Christian missionary polemics were designed to directly attack Indian
religion and undermine the Hindus self-confident beliefs and taboos. The Indian
response was mostly defensive and argued largely from the viewpoint of
comparative analogy (Palestia 2006:620). For example, aggressive Christian
proselytism in Bombay lead to a precedent setting case in which a Brahmin
sixteen-year-old underwent conversion and was baptized in 1843. This created a
great deal of concern among the Hindus of Bombay, especially when the boy's
father intervened and attempted to remove his son from the physical custody of a
Scottish missionary and was prevented from doing so (Palestia 2006:630). The
case went to the Supreme Court and ordered that the boy return to the custody of
his father. This eased conversion fears in the Hindu community, but raised central
concerns about the boy's religious and caste status (Palestia 2006:631). Having
lived with the British missionaries, thereby breaking caste laws of commensality,
Brahmins and Hindus vigorously debated how the boy could be returned, if it was
at all possible, to his caste community. The case was precedent setting for it forced
Indians to define how to treat Hindus compromised by contact with missionaries
and the external environment, and demarcate the subsequent consequences for the
caste community (Palestia 2006:631).
This case and the subsequent debates within the Hindu community had significant
ramifications for not only the Brahmin caste, but for all the Hindu castes of
Bombay, since it would established their fate within the colonial milieu (Palestia
2006:631). As a result, the first item of action was that all school children were
removed from mission schools and a general boycott of mission schools, as well
as any contact with missionaries. The second item of significance was whether or
not readmission was possible and if so, how to reach a consensus as to what
rituals were to be performed for Hindus who transgressed caste norms (Palestia
2006:633). It was along this issue of interpreting custom that the community
became divided; the Prabhu party, traditionalists composed of Brahmins and
Brahmin subcastes, who opposed readmission and the Shastri party, who attracted
supporters from across caste and social lines and were progressive thinkers who
sought readmission. Although the Christian missionaries had united Hindus in
defense of their tradition, the Christians also facilitated a polarization of Hindu
conservatives versus the Indian modernizers (Palestia 2006:632). A religious ritual
was implemented to cleanse and counteract the effects of missionary contact,
which amounted to three sins: eating meat, commensality with non-Hindus, and

the consumption of alcohol. An elaborate and comprehensive set of cleansing and

penance rituals were enacted, including: fasts, eating specific foods, Brahmin
confirmation ceremony, pilgrimage to Kashi and other Hindu holy places by foot,
and a final conducting rite to absolve the sin (Palestia 2006:633). The construction
of this ritual penance attempted to establish a Hindu precedent for traditional
societal contact with British colonialism. This created a schism in the Hindu
community whereby orthodox Hindus and the Prabhu party, who were opposed to
readmission, claimed there was no scriptural authority for readmission. The
readmission schism divided Hindus along religious and cultural lines with the
Prabhu party vehemently opposed to the progressive authorities, accusing them of
developing convenient rituals for the readmission of Hindus who had breached
their caste status, and that these actions only weakened the religious tradition and
further exacerbated the problem (Palestia 2006:634). Conversely, the Shastri party
believed its progressive stance on readmission would undermine support for
missionary conversions and help to modernize the traditional religion's service
(Palestia 2006:634). In favour of the progressives, the ruling from the pandits in
1844 interpreted scripted to allow readmission, however it also obliged them to
follow the dictates of the tradition which was administered through imposing
penances on all those who implemented the earlier readmission ritual without the
consensus of the Hindu community. Thus, the orthodox or traditionalist
proponents claimed victory over the progressives. Although the progressives had
attempted to address social and religious issues arising in the community by
implementing normative and adaptive rules of Hindu caste society, their approach
gave orthodox proponents to crystallize public opinion in their favour (Palestia
2006:635). Thus, to meet the challenges of the colonial milieu and circumvent
further Christian conversions, the Brahmin convert case of 1843 and the
subsequent polemical debates to reconcile Hinduism by an internal modernization
of the religious tradition facilitated significant and noteworthy dialogue that
further delineated the boundaries of Hindu religious observance, practices and
beliefs. Moreover, reformist debates on religious and social change highlighted
boundaries between Hindu religion and Christianity, non-Brahmins and Brahmins,
and the socioeconomic classes (Palestia 2006:638).
As the British Colonial Government took over India's civic and public institutions,
it had the effect of pushing Hindus to rely on domestic and religious spaces to
revise and revive cultural values and practices (Metcalf 1992:231). Furthermore,
Indians certainly interpreted the colonial intrusion, whether implemented by
government officials or by missionary activities, as a Christian project and
responded intellectually in three general ways. First, to aggressively disclaim
Christianity, highlighting its short-comings and failures as Swami Dayananda
vehemently debated. Second, was to absorb Christianity as part of an imperfect
form of the universal spirituality found throughout all religions as Vivekananda
proclaimed, and third, to integrate principles of Christianity and Hinduism in one
rational universal religion as exemplified by Rammohan Roy and the early
Brahmo Samaj (Van der Veer 2001:67).
The advent of aggressive Christian conversion campaigns polarized exponents of
Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism in their various camps against the missionaries who
were proclaiming the superiority of Christianity. This religious backdrop
facilitated new forms of organizational structures and highlighted the usefulness
of the printing press and paid missionaries as a vehicle for defending their
religions and sectarian ideologies (Jones 1992:53). Out of this milieu emerged the
Arya Samaj, a sectarian division of Hinduism. Its dynamic, anti-Christian leader,

Swami Dayananda Saraswati promoted Vedic Hinduism, which garnered wide

appeal throughout Punjab and northern India, with adherents as far south as
Madras (Jones 1992:53). Dayananda's restructured Hinduism was based on the
Vedas and expunged all other elements, such as idols, Brahman priests, deities,
pilgrimages, various socio-religious customs and all scripture that did not comply
with the Vedas. Dayananda's strategic use of his basic statement of beliefs, the
Satyarth Prakashwhich he wrote and disseminated via the printing press
throughout the Arya Samaj chaptersenabled him to not only imagine his Vedic
Hinduism with its delineated boundaries, but also to construct and delineate the
boundaries of his opposites, particularly Christianity and Islam (Metcalf
1992:236). Chapter 13 of Dayananda's Satyarth Prakash is a definitive criticism of
Christianity and posits the key differences with Hinduism. Dayananda highlights
and targets the serious defects of Muslim and Christian practices, such as eating
meat (particularly cow flesh), animal sacrifice, circumcision and burying the dead
(Metcalf 1992:236). In his desire to discredit Christianity rather than understand
it, Dayananda's polemics were not only a scathing theological attack on the
validity of Christian scripture and its inferior teachings, it was also an opportunity
to emphasize his own doctrine of Vedic Hinduism and the superiority of the Vedas
(Jones 1992:64).
Hindu national revivalist Swami Vivekananda sought to absorb Christianity as
part of an imperfect form of the universal spirituality found throughout all
religions. For Vivekananda, Christianity and Islam were dualistic faithsan
expression of Vedantic truth constructed by specific cultures in historic times
(Raychaudhuri 1998:3). In reaction to Christianity, Vedanta, for Vivekananda was
the one universal religionthe ultimate expression of Hindu spiritual supremacy
over all religions (Jones 1989:46). An opponent of all religious conversion,
Vivekananda asserted that Indian conversions to Christianity were a based on the
Christian exploitation of the poor and downtrodden (Raychaudhuri 1998:7).
Furthermore, Vivekananda thought that Christian conversions were
understandable because of higher literacy rates among Christians and that
conversion offered a means of escape for low caste Hindus out of oppression
(Beckerlegge 1998:168). Vivekananda was also critical of Christianity as being
corrupted by materialism, believing that those who converted could only be
redeemed through revelation of ancient Hindu spirituality (Van der Veer 2001:68).
Vivekananda's religious concern and inspiration was Advaita Vedanta, the notion
of non-duality, monistic eternal consciousness. In 1896, Vivekananda gave a series
of lectures entitled "Practical Vedanta" that discussed the "practical relevance and
the ethical and social applicability of Vedantic metaphysics and nondualism"
(Halbfass 1995:211). Vivekananda emphasized that Vedanta teaches oneness and
using the Upanisadic formula, tat tvam asi"thou are that" numerous times, and
attempts to put this expression of unity and togethernesss into practice (Halbfass
1995:212). Vivekananda claims that every person feels at one with the universe at
some moment in their life and expresses it as love and sympathythe basis of all
our ethics and morality. The idea of practical Vedanta is considered one of the
benchmarks of modern Hinduism. Hundreds of statements can be found asserting
that Advaita Vedanta has practical, ethical, social and political relevance for India
and the whole world (Halbfass 1995:212). Vivekananda was the first significant
Indian figure to promote Hindu spirituality, owing some influence to Western
notions of Orientalism and the anticlerical and anticolonial polemics of
Theosophy (Van der Veer 2001:73). Furthermore, it is important to note that
Vivekananda emphasized that Hindu spirituality was consistence with science and

many of the recent discoveries in the West were already prefigured in the Vedas
(Van der Veer 2001:81). Vivekananda's creation of Yoga as an Indian science of
supraconsciousness united Hindus in one nation, making the ancient wisdom of
Yoga a discipline not only for the entire Indian nation and for all humankind (Van
der Veer 2001:73). Vivekananda's decision to incorporate yoga as central to Hindu
spirituality would prove to have wide appeal. Devoid of any denominational or
sectarian devotional content that would require temple worship and subsequently
theological and ritual debates amongst sectarian proponents, Vivekananda's hatha
yoga and its metaphysics of mind-body unity impacted a wide range of thinkers
and movements including Savarkar, Autobindo, Gandhi and Nehru (Van der Veer
2001:74). Furthermore, because it lacked any sectarian impediments, it has been
accepted into the American health industry for its healing efficacy and has also
been incorporated into many New Age movements throughout the West, as well as
being received throughout India (Van der Veer 2001:74). Thus, Vivekanada
concern for Indian unity, coupled with his scientific rationalism and social
activism in a backdrop of anti-colonial, anti-Christian sentiments, provided the
necessary impetus to focus his socio-religious thoughts into a universal Hindu
spirituality that continues to be one of hallmarks of Hinduism today.
Rammohun Roy, a Brahman who initiated the acculturative movement amongst
the Bengali Hindus, questioned the orthodox beliefs of his family and made public
his criticisms of idolatry and polytheism (Jones 1989:31). He retired from
working for the East India Company in 1814 and turns his attention to issues of
social custom and religious belief (Jones 1989:30). One issue that was deeply
upsetting to Roy was the custom of sati. In his treatise "A Conference between an
Advocate for and an Opponent Of the Practice of Burning Widows Alive," Roy
relied on scriptural sources to posit that sati was not a requirement Hindu law, but
an example of degenerate Hinduism. Shocking Orthodox Hindus, who were
aghast by his criticisms and claiming it was a sanctioned ritual, Roy was joined in
his debate by Christian missionaries and the English in general who called for the
elimination of sati (Jones 1989:31). It was Roy's interest in reform, especially with
respect to women's rights, such as the banning of sati and their access to
education, that would rework his thinking and delineate the boundaries of correct
Hindu belief (Jones 1989:31).
Imagining God as an "almighty superintendent of the universe," Roy restructured
his notion of Hinduism based on his adherence to theism along with his
interpretation of the Vedas, Upanishads and the Vedanta-Sutra. Roy denounced
idolatry and dismissed the Brahman priests and their rituals as futile. Roy's
mandate would be to return Hinduism back to its original, pure, rational and
ethical version, which had gone astray due to the influences of Brahman priests
(Jones 1989:31). Roy thought once Hinduism had be restored to its past purity,
false customs such as sati, subjugation of women's right to education, idolatry and
polytheism, along with useless rituals, would fade away. Rammohun was
perceived by Hindu Dharma Sabha and its orthodox pundits as too willing to
accept Christian concepts, but Roy's sense of humanitarian morality and his desire
for social reform fostered a great respect for ethical Christianity, once it was
removed of its absurdities and its simple code of religion and morality revealed,
but he rejected missionary claims that Christianity was superior (Jones 1992:32).
Taking the acculturative approach, Rammohun's publications printed in Persian,
Sanskrit, Bengali and English highlight his strategic attempts to place his religious
ideology within both the linguistic and cultural domains of Muslim, Hindu and
Christian audiences (Zastoupil 2002:222). His declaration that his morality was

equivalent to the gospel (Christian) was a sincere attempt to speak from within the
Christian tradition without compromising his Vedanta beliefs (Zastoupil
2002:222). Furthermore, important to the successes of his debates was
Rammohun's ability to confidently write and publish within the radical Christian
tradition. His publication the Precepts, used the language of Unitarianism to
present Christianity's simple religious moral code by highlighting selected New
Testament passages (Zastoupil 2002:225). Rammohun's acculturative response
demonstrates a permeable frontier between Hinduism and Christianity, which
opened inclusive rational and liberal-minded discourses, interpretations and
alliances rather than established sectarian ideologies and creeds.
Socioreligious reformer Pandiat (Mary) Ramabai was a Brahmin widow who
converted to Christianity in 1883a decision which enabled her to circumvent
many of the social and caste restrictions due to widowhood and allow her to not
only question certain practices of her new religion, but also criticize upper-caste
patriarchal constraints placed upon women and initiate new forms of femininity
(Sheety 2012:25). Christian proselytism provided Ramabai with a liminal position
that prevented her from being placed in any religious or gender frame, thus
straddling new spaces in which women could more freely dwell. Taking an
acculturative approach, Ramabai combined her newly acquire Christian identity
with Hindu practices confessing that she still liked to be called Hindoo and freely
admitted that she was not free from all her caste biases and questioned the racism,
dogmatism, superstitions and supposed superior rationality of Christianity in the
same manner that the Christians had questioned Hinduism (Sheety 2012:32).
However, it was through Christianity that Ramabai saw a new way of
reconfiguring women's bodies. Using the scriptural authority of the Bible and
structuring her institutions on English and American convent and educational
models, Ramabai organized safe places for not only high-caste Hindu widows, but
other groups of women as well who could be free from traditional and oppressive
Hindu hierarchies (Sheety 2012:36). In these places, the bodies and minds of
widows were respected and acknowledged as worthy with the right to nurture and
care (Sheety 2012:37). Thus, Ramabai, by initiating Christian egalitarian
practices, not only reorganized spaces occupied by women, she also reorganized
the female body so that oppressive caste and gender no longer applied. Ramabai
used her status as a genuine Brahman and conversion to Christianity to critique
the oppressive Brahmanical tradition, its texts and the Manu Dharma Shastra
showing how women having no right to study the Vedas and the Vedanta could not
hope for liberation through Mokshathat instead, her life would be one of
slavery. Ramabai underlined that a woman's only hope would be to earn enough
merit to escape her oppression by being reincarnated into a higher caste as a
Brahman male, learn the Vedas and Vedantas, acquire the knowledge of Brahma
and achieve final liberation (Sheety 2012:30). Ramabai's radical critiques not only
exposed the unfairness of the Brahmanical religion, but also through Christianity's
tenets of casteless, genderless egalitarianism, opened the doors to social reform
for men and women of lower castes. Ramabai's liminally occupied position that
embraced her Hinduism while espousing the tenets of Christianity, enabled her to
challenge the patriarchies of her time, organize new institutions for the care and
nurture of oppressed groups, and exemplify the power of female agency to
achieve a higher measure of egalitarian living.
Rammonhun's acculturative response to Unitarian ideology and Ramabai's
example dispels the notion of bounded and enclosed religious identities, and
instead indicates an aggregation of identities where the convert retains elements of

the previous religiocultural traits while incorporating the new conversion identity
neither abandoning the old identity for the new, but reconfiguring the Indian
notion of religious plurality as an embodiment of conjoined identities (Sarkar
2002:123).
Christian proselytization, as in the case of Hindu-Christian interaction in
Pondicherry in the 18th and 19th centuries, teases out some of the tensions and
circumstances that initiated conversions as well as the cultural, moral and social
aspects of Hinduism that made Christian conversion problematic. Prior to the
arrival of the French in 1674, there were no Christians in Pondicherry. By 1725,
the population of Pondicherry numbered 30,000 and there were some 3000 Indian
Christian converts (More 1998:99). Motivations for conversion included
employment and economic gains, such as trade contracts granted by the French
power in Pondicherry to convert high-caste men and their families to Christianity.
Another cause for conversion to Christianity were famines and epidemicswhen
conversion for low-caste Hindus were most in need to access physical and
psychological comforts (More 1998:104). However, after the famine or epidemic,
conversions diminished considerably. Unfortunately, Hindus who had converted
were ostracized from their ancestral religious, cultural, moral and social customs
and beliefs, including their Hindu names (More 1998:106).
Christian missionaries encountered no real opposition from the local Hindu
population, perhaps because the Hindu religious landscape was a pluralistic one
and thus a more accepting culture towards various customs and beliefs. Unlike
Hinduism and its tolerance for religious plurality, Christian proselytization and its
egalitarian ideology demonstrated little acceptance of religious diversityHindus
were fit only for conversion (More 1998:107). As a result, in 1701, Muslims and
Hindus were prohibited from engaging in their religious ceremonies during Easter
and on Sunday. Furthermore, attempts by Jesuit missionaries to destroy Shiva
temples were met with resistance initiated by every caste headsman in charge of
the Hindu community who threatened a non-violent exodus out of Pondicherry as
social boycott of the French and the missionaries. Since the French were
dependent on the Hindus, destruction of the temples was called off. Eventually the
French authorities won out with the conversions of many low and high caste
Hindus through economic incentives (More 1998:110).
The biggest obstacle the French missionaries encountered in their desire for
Christian conversions was that of caste. Christian converts were ostracized by
their families, the caste and Brahman priests. Furthermore, caste marriage was
endogamous, making it very difficult for a Christian convert to find bride in the
same caste (More 1998:115). Another serious impediment to conversion was the
fact the many converts were pariahs and high-caste Hindus believed Christian
conversion was equivalent to parianism. Moreover, the missionaries themselves
were indentified as pariahs by high-caste Hindus, making conversion unappealing
(More 1998:116). Thus, unlike egalitarian Christianity, with its competitive need
to dominate and convert all non-believers, peacefully, persuasively or by coercion,
traditional Hinduism, tolerant and respectful view of non-Hindu to engage in their
customs and beliefs, preserved a cultural and religious diversity without need to
proselytise in an effort to establish a homogenous society.
The abolition of sahamarana was a defining moment in the construction of modern
Hinduism for it compelled Indians to debate not only on what defines the Hindu
Tradition, but also to debate what alterations to the tradition would be required to
traverse the modern world (Pennington 2001:596). An important catalyst for the
debates on Hinduism and social reform were aggressive evangelical proselytizing

Christians. Rather than taking the stance of promoting specific texts and doctrines
of authorityan approach taken by Hindu rationalist reformers such as
Rammonhun Roy, Vivekananda, and Dayanandathe architects of modern
Hinduism did not highlight specific deities, texts, doctrines or sectarian traditions,
they instead endorsed a set of norms for Hindu practice (Pennington 2001:578).
Delineating the boundaries and contours of a modern Hindu identity were
expressed in Samacar Candrika, the Bengali newspaper, which helped to forge
Bengali literature and spearhead the Bengal Renaissance. Its editor, Bhabanicaran
Bandyopadhyaya, parted company as a journalist with reformer Rammohun Roy
in 1822 over Roy's opposition to sahamarana. From 1830-1831, the Bengali
newspaper Samacar Candrika provides a snapshot of emerging popular Hinduism
now embodied by modern national Hinduism (Pennington 2001:577). This would
have significant political, religious and social consequences for Bengal as
Bhabanicaran's strategy would be to promote Indian unity and identity, and forge a
public image of Hinduism (Pennington 2001:581). Furthermore, the paper's
mandate would be to configure religious activity for Hindus while displacing
discordant Hindu issues of beliefs and sectarian ideology (Pennington 2001:581).
Moreover, the Candrika focused on the morphology of Hindu ritual, caste and
gender relations, attempting to nuture normative and unified Hindu practices, and
by using the power of print, exert the pressure and authority of various authors
and editors from the political and counterrepresenation arenas in the temple and
homes of Hindu familiesin all places where Hindus practiced and interpreted
religion for themselves and others (Pennington 2001:581). As the voice of
steadfast religious conservatism, the Candrika would become a consistent
advocate of Hindu orthodoxy.
The iconographic status of sati for both Chrisitans and Hindus acted as a fulcrum
with the banning of sahamarana in 1829a move that was vehemently urged by
Christians in Britain and India and feared by orthodox Hindu community, and
served to shape new forms of engagement with the colonial government and the
Hindu populace. The advent of new associations and the publishing of newspapers
not only presented the issues from their own standpoint, but also applied pressure
on the government (Pennington 2001:580). Out of this milieu came the creation of
the Dharma Sabha (Society for Religion) as a rebuttal to interference by British
rule in Hindu religious affairs and the overly aggressive Christian proselytization
of Hindus (Pennington 2001:580). Together, the Dharma Sabha and the Candrika
would forge a link between the past and modernity, giving Hindus a transition
ideology that would not only allow Hindus to thrive in the new social and
economic order, and also remain faithful to traditional Hinduism (Pennington
2001:581).
As Calcutta's population experienced an influx of various rural communities, the
Candrika would serve as a pandit and mediate questions concerning ritual
throughout Bengal, especially in counteracting antiritual stance of Rammohnan
Roy, student radicals and Christian missionaries, by emphasizing ritual as being
central to Hinduism and Hindu identity (Pennington 2001:586). Thus, the
Candrika declared ritual as an essential part of modern Hinduism and with the
adoption of a uniform ritual code and unifed and coherent Hinduism would
emerge. Deciding questions of authority and performance in ritual matters such as
funeral rites, marriage and education of shudras and whether or not they should
speak and learn Sanskrit, the Candrika embodied the role of hermeneut
(Pennington 2001:586). The results were innovative constructions of tradition by
ritual and religious specialists that connected historical practice to timeless ideal

in a new and modern context. Issues such as how was the divisive notion of caste
in the growing urban, mercantile environment of Bengal was to be handled.
Questions pertaining to status relative to other castes, roles in particular rituals,
permission to attend certain ceremonies, and approval of marriage partners needed
to be clarified (Pennington 2001:587). Through the power print and the new rules
of exclusion, locuses of authroity and emerging hierachies, the Candrika published
many provocative letters confronting these questions of social orderings and ritual
traditions (Pennington 2001:587). Furthermore, the Candrika asserted that caste
was commensurable with modern religious identity and by positioning itself as not
only an arbiter of caste, but a recognized authority on caste questions, it was able
to construct a centralized and rationalized Hinduism that continued to embrace
caste orderings and strong ritual practice (Pennington 2001:588). Lastly, it was
Bhabanicaran's policy not to criticize other religions nor respond directly to
attacks on Hinduism (Pennington 2001:592). Instead, Bhabanicaran initiated a
theme of "tolerance," establishing yet another signifying characteristic of
Hinduism. Furthermore, Hindu faith did not harm other religions or cultures as did
the aggessive proselytizing tactics of the Christian missionaries (Pennington
2001:592). The Candrika authors understood the complex connections between
religion, knowledge and power, and were adept as distinguishing them in respect
to Hindu as well as Christian beliefs and practices (Pennington 2001:597). It is the
legacy of the Candrika, in its vigorous print approach to the recovery of Hindu
beliefs and practices on poverty, caste, and ritual that not only instilled Hindu selfconfidence and created an institutional and centralized practice of Hinduism
(Pennington 2001:598).
In summary, by outlining the influence of Christian missionary work and ideology
in the large Indian urban centers of Bombay, Calcutta and Pondicherry, I have,
through specific colonial figures such as Rammohun Roy, Vivekanada, Dayananda
Saraswati, and Pandita Mary Ramabai, shown how new methods of ideological
disseminationpublic preaching and debates, journalism, printing books and
pamphlets, and organizations were employed to integrate, resist and absorb
Christianity. Rammohn Roy sought an inculturative, unitarian approach to
reforming the social landscape of Hinduism. Roy's adherence to theism and his reinterpretation of the Vedas, Upanishads and the Vedanta-Sutra, not only
highlighted signifying texts of Hindu thought and practice, but also his
denouncement of idolatry and dismissal of the Brahman priests and their rituals as
futile, emphasizing a return to Hinduism's original, pure, rational and ethical
foundation and need for social reform. Vivekanada's concern for Indian unity,
coupled with his scientific rationalism and social activism in a backdrop of anticolonial, anti-Chrisitian sentiments, provided the necessary impetus to focus his
socio-religious thoughts into a universal Hindu spirituality, that continues to be
one of the hallmarks of Hinduism today. Dayananda's polemics attacked the
validity of Christian scripture, highlighting its inferior teachings and emphasizing
his own doctrine of Vedic Hinduism and the superiority, while Ramabai, whose
liminal position as a Christian convert, permitted her to embrace Hinduism and
propose Christian tenets of social reform, challenged the partriarchies of her time,
organized new institutions for the care and nuture of oppressed groups, and
underscored the power of female agency to achieve a higher measure of
egalitarian living in mondern India. Lastly, Christianity's affect on Hindu sociocultural-religious domains of caste, ritual and gender have shown how Christian
ideology and the advent of competitive proselytism formed a needed impetus for
Hindus to delineate their religious and cultural boundaries by examining their

significant texts, practices and beliefs, and their place in the colonial milieu, thus
facilitating an internal renewal and transformation of Hinduism into modernity.
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