Christian Perspectives of Lingayatism: The Trajectory of Lingayat Identity and Literatures in Colonial Karnataka

Abstract

Abstract: Recent postcolonial scholarship gives an impression that Western Christianity was an overarching religion, which reinforced Orientalism and self-imposed the task of civilizing/modernizing the local literatures and traditions. In this article, I enter into these debates, tracing a trajectory not only of Christianity in the colonial period but also local traditions and literatures. In this connection, I focus on the Lingayat literatures of south India, which are understood to be exclusively the product of colonial modernity and Western Christianity. It stands on the premises that knowledge production in colonial India evolved through the intermediary relations and participation of both local scholars and Western orientalists. I argue that these relations were neither integrated nor harmonious. Rather I highlight the collaborative, competitive, resistant and appropriative energies of local vernacular voices in defining and representing their literatures and traditions vis-à-vis Christianity.