Author: Amiya Prosad Sen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2001
Language: English
Pages: 456
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195653397
Description
This path breaking study gives detailed analysis of Hindu-culture builders, and is surely among the most important contribution in the historiography of the Bengal Renaissance.
In this work the author examines the period of roughly thirty years separating the Brahma Marriage Bill controversy and the launching of the anti-partition agitation. He looks into the perceptible shifts within moral and intellectual attitudes in late nineteenth-century Bengal, beginning with a judicious mixture of Western values and indigenous culture but gradually hardening into far more complacent and conservative attitudes.
The author attempts to reconstruct, with the aid of new source material, the reigning public mood of the time that effected this transition.
EXCERPTS FROM REVIEWS:
Amiya P. Sen’s detailed analysis of Hindu-culture builders … is surely among the most important contribution in the historiography of the Bengal Renaissance in at least a generation.
-David Koph, ‘American Historical Review’
Sen’s study is path breaking … it indicates a powerful subterranean current which went beyond Bankim Chandra … the study implicitly contests a Marxist and neo-Marxist view of the Bengali Renaissance
-Indian Review of Books
In terms of sheer quantity of research this book surpasses all other works on the subject.
-Business standard
Contents
Acknowledgement
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Opening Remarks, Older Problems and New Perspectives
Is ‘Revivalism’ a Valid Expression? Recounting the History of
Hindu Revivalism: Problems of Definition, The Politics of
Hindu Revivalism: Historical Perspectives
CHAPTER 2
HINDU-BRAHMO RELATIONS (1870-1905): AN ENQUIRY
INTO SOME ASPECTS OF COMMUNITY IDENTITIES IN
LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY BENGAL
Problems and Perspectives, the Brahmo Marriage Bill
Controversy (1868-72): A Reframing of Identities? The Rise
and Descent of Universal Man: The Brahmo Samaj and its Changing
Perceptions of Home and the World ( 1870-1905)
CHAPTER 3
HUNDU REVIVALISM AT THE CROSSROADS – REACTION
AND REAPPRAISAL IN THE NEW BENGALI PRESS AND
LITERATURE (C. 1872-1894)
A review of the life-work of Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay, Bankim
Chandra Chattopadhyay, Nabin Chandra Sen and Akshay Chandra
Sarkar, Bankim Chandra, Nabin Chandra and the Flowering
of the Syncretist tradition, Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay, Akshay
Chandra Sarkar and the Strengthening of the Orthodox
World-view
CHAPTER 4
THEIR FINEST HOUR: HINDU REVIVALISM AND AGGRESSIVE PROPAGANDA THROUGH THE PRESS AND PLATFORM
(C. 1880-1905)
A Review of the Life and Work of Chandranath Basu, Krishna
Prosonno Sen,Pundit Sasadhar Tarkachudamani and the Major
Bangabasi Writers, The Birth of Conservative Rhetoric – A
Review of the Life and Work of Chandranath Basu, The
Success of Missionary Efforts, The Bangabasi Writer,
Jogendra Chandra and his Associates, Hindu Revivalism and
the Bangabasi
CHAPTER 5
VEDANTA AND THE REVITALIZATION OF INDIAN LIFE
A Short Reappraisal of the Life of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa
and Swami Vivekananda, The Social and Spiritual World of
Ramakrishan, Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902),
The Master and the Pupil, The Man and the Missionary (1886-1902),
Reformer or Reactionary?, Vivekananda:
His Place Within Hindu Revivalist Thought
CHAPTER 6
THE HOUR OF RECKONING: ORTHODOX HINDUISM AND
THE AGE OF CONSENT BILL CONTROVERSY IN BENGAL (C. 1890-1892)
Prelude ( 1860-86), The Gathering Storm (1887-90)
Aftermath (1891-92)
CHAPTER 7
Conclusion
APPENDICES
Appendix A ( Part I )
List of Important Protest Meetings held during the Age of Consent Bill agitation in selected areas of India (1891)
Appendix A ( Part II )
Table showing distribution of infant marriages among Hindus and Muslims of age group 0-10 in Bengal between 1881 and 1901
(Number per 1,000 who are married)
Appendix B ( Part I )
Dharma Mandali (Prospectus)
Appendix B ( Part II )
Managing Committee of the Dharma Mandali ( 1893 ) A select list
of donors to the Dharma Mandali
Appendix C ( Part I )
Bharatvarshiya Arya Dharma Procharini sabha (Prospectus)
Appendix C ( Part II )
Managing Committee of the Bharatvarshiya Arya Dharma
Procharini Sabha (1881)
Appendix C ( Part III)
A random list of contributors to the Bharatvarshiya Arya Dharma
Procharini Sabha (including donors to the Ved Vidyalaya and
Sanskrit Studies)
Appendix C ( Part IV)
List of Agents for the monthly journal Dharmaprocharak (as in 1885)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX