Provincial Hinduism

Daniel Gold grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from UC Berkeley in 1968. After several years in India, mostly as a Peace Corps Volunteer, he did graduate work at the University of Chicago and has taught at Vassar, Oberlin, Stanford, and Cornell, where he is now Professor of South Asian Religions. He is married to the anthropologist Ann Grodzins Gold.

• On Hearing the Transliteration ; Introduction ; Part I: A City in History with Temples and Shrines ; 1. Temples in the City ; 2. Sufi Shrines for Hindu Devotees ; Part II: Community and Identity ; 3. Living Together in a Working-Class Neighborhood: Caste, Class, and Personal Affinities ; 4. Ethnic Communities and Regional Hinduisms: Maharashtrian and Sindhi ; Part III: Institutions and Personalities ; 5. Hindu Ways of Organized Service: Legacies of Swami Vivekananda ; 6. Gurus, Disciples, and Ashrams: Beyond Radhasoami ; Afterword: Personal Religious Identity in a Pluralist Society ; Permissions ; Acknowledgments ; Notes

Lucid and accessible, this important book on religion in Gwalior makes a major contribution to the study of urban religion. Daniel Gold's long history of academic and personal engagement with religious people, shrines, and organizations in this city, with its historically important migrations and diverse religious identities, is, quite simply, stellar. Gold's lively style and careful definition of terms renders this work inviting to undergraduates as well as graduate and postgraduate scholars. It is sure to be helpful to and heralded by scholars of religion, anthropology, sociology, and history.