The Legacy of Vaiṣṇavism in Colonial Bengal. Edited by Ferdinando Sardella and Lucian Wong

Abstract

A Bengali proverb says that there cannot be any song, without Kṛṣṇa (Kānu bine gān nāi). In a historical and cultural region that is so relevant for the study of Tantric Yogic traditions, Goddess cults, and South Asian Islam, even devotion to Śakti and the life of Prophet Muhammad are impregnated by Vaiṣṇava tropes and aesthetic sensibilities. The literary history of, and intellectual debates on the love of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa in Bengal are not only indispensable to understand Kṛṣṇa bhakti in its transnational and global declensions, but also to appreciate their pervasive aesthetic and affective influence across regions and religions. For these and many other reasons, The Legacy of Vaiṣṇavism in Colonial Bengal, based on a 2015 workshop held at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, is a welcome contribution. It comprises eleven chapters discussing not only the complicated trajectories of Vaiṣṇavism in colonial Bengal, but also the legacy of colonialism in the taste and ethical regime of new Vaiṣṇava agents, communities, and institutions. The so-called revival of Vaiṣṇava devotionalism initiated by Caitanya (1486–1534) and his followers gave way to multiple religious orientations and contrasting interpretations. This edited volume does not give readers the illusion of a standardised phenomenon that might be unequivocally called Bengali Vaiṣṇavism. Rather, it takes into account a variety of textual traditions and life stories to include various Vaiṣṇavism-s, differently transmitted, practiced, and embodied by diverse communities. The introduction by Ferdinando Sardella and Lucian Wong suggests that much research in this area assumed that modern manifestations constitute a rupture from the precolonial past, induced by the influence of Western education and Christian ideas. They argue instead that pre-existing Hindu sampradayic currents continued to play significant roles throughout the colonial period. Therefore, providing us with a fruitful path for future research, they suggest that explorations of the legacy of sampradayic Hindu streams in colonial South Asia can offer a richer picture of religious life than that afforded by analyses that rely on the ‘Renaissance paradigm’ (pp. 5–6).