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RECAP THREAD, PART 1
Friends, as we've now reached the 20th century, it's a good opportunity to reflect on our journey thus far. As such, I'll be revisiting some earlier posts to try and tease out the major themes of our #HindooHistory story. 1/n
Friends, as we've now reached the 20th century, it's a good opportunity to reflect on our journey thus far. As such, I'll be revisiting some earlier posts to try and tease out the major themes of our #HindooHistory story. 1/n
With the formation of the Asiatic Society in Bengal in 1784, interest in Hindu religious and philosophical texts exploded. Scholars steeped in enlightenment principles sought to build a universal system of religious thought grounded in reason. 2/n
American and British missionaries were instrumental in this task, as they had spent years learning local languages and customs, and knew that understanding native religious practices would improve their conversion efforts. 3/n
Similarly British administrators wanted to leverage this knowledge to ensure law and order. In America, we see the downstream effects of this knowledge production in the burgeoning field of comparative religion. 4/n
Hannah Adams and Joseph Priestley of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, respectively, both wrote works on Hindu theology in the early 19th century that would set the stage for the American encounter with the "Hindoo" 5/n https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1287895380747669504?s=20
In Adams's Compendium, we see the intellectual origins of what we call the "declension" theory. For American scholars of religion, it was a given that Protestant Christianity represented an evolutionary zenith of religious thought: 6/n
Protestantism was explicitly understood as the rational religion in contrast to Catholicism, which was allegedly rife with superstition and idolatry. In studying the Hindu texts translated by the Orientalists of the Asiatic Society, Adams saw in the early Vedantic texts 7/n
a concept of the divine that in her mind was similar to the Protestant vision of God. On the other hand, missionary reports from India spoke only of demon worship, heathen ritualism, and corrupt priests. What happened? 8/n
According to Adams, Hindus begin as monotheists, and Indian religious history was a story of gradual degradation, from this once pristine— if primitive— monotheism, to heathen idolatry. 9/n
For Adams, the blame for this “degradation” fell on the Brahmin priesthood, who led the masses astray. As Altman puts it, India was presented as “an upside-down place where religion declined away from truth instead of progressing towards it.” 10/n
If Adams provided the intellectual framework for the declension theory, then Claudius Buchanan provided the "meat." Buchanan was a Scottish missionary in India whose book Christian Researches in Asia gave readers a vivid picture of the "horrors" of Hindoo India 11/n
Buchanan was particularly famous for his writings on the "Juggernaut," a corruption of "Jagannath," a deity worshipped in eastern India in particular. Buchanan's account of the Jagannath Yatra quickly entered the public imagination, as seen here: 12/n https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1288325641788485634?s=20
. @MichaelJAltman provides a helpful summary of Buchanan's depicition of the Yatra in his book Heathen, Hindoo, Hindu, which I've linked here: 13/n https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1288474499206115328?s=20
Where Hindus saw a joyous, festive expression of devotion, Buchanan saw a satanic ritual “full of meaningless worship, unredeeming death, blood that failed to atone, and horror instead of beauty.”
Lighten up, Claudius! 14/n
Lighten up, Claudius! 14/n
As Buchanan's accounts spread throughout America via newspapers and missionary literature, the call for increased missionary activity increased as well. Here we see an 1821 piece from the Portland Gazette on the necessity of Christianity for India 15/n https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1288981534150504448?s=20
In the piece linked above, we see a reference to “Hindoo writings” that encourage infanticide and individuals to “drown themselves in some sacred river, or to throw themselves under the wheels of the car of the Juggunnat [ed: Shoutout Claudius!].” 16/n
In case you want to see some actual footage of the yath ratra, check out this cool footage below! 17/n https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1288515155437920256?s=20
Although Buchanan's vision would exercise immense power over the American conception of the "Hindoo" (as noted by Altman in the excerpt linked below), he did not enjoy a monopoly of influence: 18/n https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1288859242812723200?s=20
America maintained a trade relationship with India from the late 18th century, which ensured a steady flow of rich textiles, exquisitely carved murtis (i.e. idols), and other goods from India that proved immensely popular among the New England elite. 19/n
In addition, artists like Francois Solvyns were producing richly detailed portraits of everyday-life in India that helped humanize the "Hindoo" for European and American audiences alike 20/n https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1288625758403846145?s=20
As a contrast to Buchanan's writings, here's a clip from 1840 on Indian hospitality, and another from 1836 on "Hindoo women" 21/n
https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1289681575228055552?s=20 https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1290681170947010561?s=20
https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1289681575228055552?s=20 https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1290681170947010561?s=20
These two streams of influence would be in constant tension throughout this period, at once pulling Americans towards and repelling them from India and the "Hindoo." 22/n
The tension referenced above is pervasive in newspaper clips throughout this period, but the comic linked below is a particularly good example, published in Harper's Weekly in 1871: 23/n https://twitter.com/HindooHistory/status/1289342559290974209?s=20
Here we see a lone Protestant minister protecting his flock of children from reptilian bishops crawling out of a river labeled "American Ganges," with the Vatican looming in the background. A strange juxtaposition! 24/n
Early American attitudes towards Hindus were shaped by preexisting anti-Catholic prejudice. Though the “Hindoo” was the quintessential “Other” in missionary literature, the emphasis on idolatry, immoral priests, and superstition recalled Protestant critiques of Catholicism. 25/n
