Hindu Pasts

Vasudha Dalmia is Emerita Professor of Hindi and Modern South Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She has written, edited, and translated many books, including The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions: Bhāratendu Hariśchandra and Nineteenth-Century Banaras; Poetics, Plays, and Performances: The Politics of Modern Indian Theatre; and Fiction as History: The Novel and the City in Modern North India.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Where these Essays are Coming From Part I. Colonial Knowledge-Formation 1. Friedrich Max Muller: Appropriations of the Vedic Past 2. Sanskrit Scholars and Pandits of the Old School: The Benares Sanskrit College and the Constitution of Authority in the Late Nineteenth Century 3. Sati as a Religious Rite: Parliamentary Papers on Widow Immolation 4. Mosques, Temples, and Fields of Disputation in a Late-Eighteenth-Century Chronicle 5. Vernacular Histories in Late-Nineteenth-Century Banaras: Folklore, Puranas, and the New Antiquarianism Part II. Vaishnava Renewals C. 1600–1900 6. Forging Community: The Guru in a Seventeenth-Century Vaishnava Hagiography 7. Women, Duty, and Sanctified Space in a Vaishnava Hagiography of the Seventeenth Century 8. The Sixth Gaddi of the Vallabha Sampraday: Narrative Structure and Authority in a Varta of the Nineteenth Century 9. The Modernity of Tradition: Harishchandra of Banaras and the Defence of Hindu Dharma Part III. The Hindi Novel: Nineteenth-Century Beginnings 10. A Novel Moment in Hindi: Pariksha Guru 11. Generic Questions: Bharatendu Harishchandra and Women’s Issues 12. Pilgrimage, Fairs, and the Secularization of Space in Modern Hindi Narrative Discourses 13. The Locations of Hindi 14. Hindi, Nation, and Community

"These essays, taken together, provide an important resource for our understanding of how Indian modernity and the nation have been crafted—but urge us to consider how this shaping has been undertaken in different ways and at different locations." — H-Net Reviews (H-Asia)"Dalmia's rich collection of essays attends to gender and women's roles as articulated in and through literary traditions in multiple places … her incredibly close attention to her sources and astute analyses as a literary and social historian are enduring." — Journal of the American Academy of Religion"The volume showcases some of the best works of Dalmia on the mixed legacies of modernity and colonialism vis-à-vis history, religion, language, and gender. Notwithstanding differences of opinion, the work is valuable for highlighting the complexity of issues and for presenting before the reader a veritable wealth of sources that open a new window into the past." — Reading Religion