Reconsiders whether Hinduism can be considered a missionary religion.
Is Hinduism a missionary religion? Merely posing this question is a novel and provocative act. Popular and scholarly perception, both ancient and modern, puts Hinduism in the non-missionary category. In this intriguing book, Arvind Sharma re-opens the question. Examining the historical evidence from the major Hindu eras, the Vedic, classical, medieval, and modern periods, Sharma’s investigation challenges the categories used in current scholarly discourse and finds them inadequate, emphasizing the need to distinguish between a missionary religion and a proselytizing one. A distinction rarely made, it is nevertheless an illuminating and fruitful one that resonates with insights from the comparative study of religion. Ultimately concluding that Hinduism is a missionary religion, but not a proselytizing one, Sharma’s work provides us with new insights both on Hinduism and the consideration of religion itself.
Spis treści
Preface
1. The Antiquity and Continuity of the Belief that Hinduism Is Not a Missionary Religion
2. The Neo-Hindu Conviction that Hinduism Is a Non-Missionary Religion
3. Hinduism as a Missionary Religion: The Evidence from Vedic India
4. Hinduism as a Missionary Religion: The Evidence from Classical India
5. Hinduism as a Missionary Religion: The Evidence from Medieval India
6. Hinduism as a Missionary Religion: The Evidence from Modern India
Conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
Index
O autorze
Arvind Sharma is Birks Professor of Comparative Religion at Mc Gill University. He is the author of many books, including One Religion Too Many: The Religiously Comparative Reflections of a Comparatively Religious Hindu and Hinduism as a Missionary Religion, and the coeditor (with Ellen Bradshaw Aitken) of The Legacy of Wilfred Cantwell Smith, all published by SUNY Press.