Table of Contents

Introduction: Vaiṣṇavism in Colonial Bengal: Beyond the Hindu Renaissance; Part One: Recovering the Legacy: How Vaiṣṇavas Adopted Colonial Modalities; 1 The Afterlife of an Avatāra in Modern Times; 2 Theorising Bengal Vaiṣṇavism: Bipin Chandra Pal and New Perspectives on Religious Life and Culture; 3 Vaiṣṇava Institutional Processes in Colonial Bengal; 4 Baba Premananda Bharati: His Trajectory into and through Bengal Vaiṣṇavism to the West; 5 Claiming High Ground: Gauḍīya Missionising Rhetoric on the Adhikāra of Worship; 6 Directions for Future Research on Vaiṣṇavism in Colonial Bengal; Part Two: Contending the Portrayal: How Ethics Shaped This Religion of Love; 7 The Power of the Secret: The Tantalising Discourse of Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā Scholarship; 8 Sahajiya Texts of Nadia: Beyond Reform and Revival; 9 Love of Woman: Love of Humankind? Interconnections between Bāul Esoteric Practice and Social Radicalism; 10 Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern and Modern South Asia: The Case of Bengali Vaiṣṇavism; 11 Colonial Morals, Vaiṣṇava Quarrels: Tracing the Sources of Nineteenth Century Anti-Sahajiyā Polemics

About the Author

Ferdinando Sardella is Assistant Professor at Stockholm University, Sweden. He is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, University of Oxford, UK.

Lucian Wong is a Post-Doctoral fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (OCHS), University of Oxford, UK and is Co-Director of the Bengali Vaiṣṇavism in the Modern Period Project of the OCHS.