Amiya P. Sen – författare

This is a fresh attempt at historically reconstructing on a popular and accessible level, the life and times of the medieval Hindu -Vaishnava mystic, Chaitanya. In this short work, I consciously keep away from both hagiographic accounts of the saint as also such works that treat him and his religious faith rather superficially. An important part of this work is the study of how Chaitanya came to be understood and internalized in post-Chaitanya Bengal, particularly in the environment of a burgeoning cultural nationalism of late nineteenth century. For this reason, my work focuses on Chaitanya alone and on his intimate companions rather than produce a history of Vaishnavism in Bengal such as has been attempted before. Using a wide range of extant sources both in English and Bengali languages, this work also attempts to raise certain key theoretical questions concerning the relationship between Chaitanya and the movement that followed him, albeit in a manner that is more engaging than pedantic.

This book weaves the past with the present to trace and analyze the distinctive but reiterative evocations of Hindutva ideology in the modern-colonial period. It studies the concept of Hindutva as understood by its first major spokesperson Chandranath Basu, a formidable late nineteenth-century scholar-critic. The author examines the new rhetoric that has shaped Hindu ideologies in a colonial-modern context by foregrounding debates between Chandranath Basu and radical revisionists such as Rabindranath Tagore. It provides original translations of Basu’s works and brings to light a long-neglected professional literary critic.A unique contribution, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of religion studies, history, postcolonialism, literature, Indian political thought, Indian history, political science, Hindu studies, Hindusim, sociology and political ideology, and South Asian studies.

This book weaves the past with the present to trace and analyze the distinctive but reiterative evocations of Hindutva ideology in the modern-colonial period. It studies the concept of Hindutva as understood by its first major spokesperson Chandranath Basu, a formidable late nineteenth-century scholar-critic. The author examines the new rhetoric that has shaped Hindu ideologies in a colonial-modern context by foregrounding debates between Chandranath Basu and radical revisionists such as Rabindranath Tagore. It provides original translations of Basu’s works and brings to light a long-neglected professional literary critic.A unique contribution, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of religion studies, history, postcolonialism, literature, Indian political thought, Indian history, political science, Hindu studies, Hindusim, sociology and political ideology, and South Asian studies.