In the mid-nineteenth century, the American missionary James Butler predicted that Christian conversion and British law together would eradicate Indian ascetics. His disgust for Hindu holy men (sadhus), whom he called "saints," "yogis," and "filthy fakirs," was largely shared by orientalist scholars and British officials, who likewise imagined these religious elites to be a leading symptom of India''s degeneration. Yet within some thirty years of Butler''s writing, modern Indian ascetics such as the neo-Vedantin Hindu Swami Rama Tirtha (1873-1906) and, paradoxically, the Protestant Christian convert Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929) achieved international fame as embodiments of the spiritual superiority of the East over the West.Timothy S. Dobe''s fine-grained account of the lives of Sundar Singh and Rama Tirtha offers a window on the surprising reversals and potentials of Indian ascetic "sainthood" in the colonial contact zone. His study develops a new model of Indian holy men that is historicized, religiously pluralistic, and located within the tensions and intersections of ascetic practice and modernity. The first in-depth account of two internationally-recognized modern holy men in the colonially-crucial region of Punjab, Hindu Christian Faqir offers new examples and contexts for thinking through these wider issues. Drawing on unexplored Urdu writings by and about both figures, Dobe argues not only that Hinduism and Protestant Christianity are here intimately linked, but that these links are forged from the stuff of regional Islamic traditions of Sufi holy men (faqir). He also re-conceives Indian sainthood through an in-depth examination of ascetic practice as embodied religion, public performance, and relationship, rather than as a theological, otherworldly, and isolated ideal.

Hindu Christian Faqir compares two colonial Indian saints from Punjab, the neo-Vedantin Hindu Rama Tirtha (1873-1906) and the Christian convert Sundar Singh (1889-1929). Timothy S. Dobe shows that varied asceticisms, personal exemplary models, and material religion exuded their ambivalent and powerful public presence in Protestant metropolitan centers as much as in colonial peripheries. Challenging ideas of the invention of modern Hinduism, the transparent translation of Christianity, and the construction of saints by devotees, this book focuses on the long-standing, shared religious idioms on which these two men creatively drew to appeal to transnational audiences and to pursue religious perfection.Following both men's usage of Urdu, the book adopts the word "faqir" to examine the vernacular and performative dimensions of Indian holy man traditions, thereby calling special attention to missionary and Orientalist anti-ascetic accounts of the "fukeer" indigenous Islamic traditions and this-worldly religion. Exploring Rama Tirtha and Sundar Singh's global tours in Europe and America, self-conscious sartorial styles, and intimate autobiographical writings, Dobe demonstrates that the vernacular holy man traditions of Punjab provided resources that both men drew on to construct their forms of modern monkhood. The rise of heroic, anti-colonial sannyasis or sadhus of modern Hinduism like Swami Vivekananda is thus repositioned in relation to global Christianity, Sufi, bhakti, and Sikh regional practices, religious boundary-crossing, contestation and conversion. A comparative and contextualized story of two Punjabi holy men's particular performance of sainthood, Hindu Christian Faqir reveals much about the broad, interactional history of religious modernities.

Hindu Christian Faqir compares two colonial Indian saints from Punjab, the neo-Vedantin Hindu Rama Tirtha (1873-1906) and the Christian convert Sundar Singh (1889-1929). Timothy S. Dobe shows that varied asceticisms, personal exemplary models, and material religion exuded their ambivalent and powerful public presence in Protestant metropolitan centers as much as in colonial peripheries. Challenging ideas of the invention of modern Hinduism, the transparent translation of Christianity, and the construction of saints by devotees, this book focuses on the long-standing, shared religious idioms on which these two men creatively drew to appeal to transnational audiences and to pursue religious perfection.Following both men's usage of Urdu, the book adopts the word "faqir" to examine the vernacular and performative dimensions of Indian holy man traditions, thereby calling special attention to missionary and Orientalist anti-ascetic accounts of the "fukeer" indigenous Islamic traditions and this-worldly religion. Exploring Rama Tirtha and Sundar Singh's global tours in Europe and America, self-conscious sartorial styles, and intimate autobiographical writings, Dobe demonstrates that the vernacular holy man traditions of Punjab provided resources that both men drew on to construct their forms of modern monkhood. The rise of heroic, anti-colonial sannyasis or sadhus of modern Hinduism like Swami Vivekananda is thus repositioned in relation to global Christianity, Sufi, bhakti, and Sikh regional practices, religious boundary-crossing, contestation and conversion. A comparative and contextualized story of two Punjabi holy men's particular performance of sainthood, Hindu Christian Faqir reveals much about the broad, interactional history of religious modernities.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the American missionary James Butler predicted that Christian conversion and British law together would eradicate Indian ascetics. His disgust for Hindu holy men (sadhus), whom he called "saints," "yogis," and "filthy fakirs," was largely shared by orientalist scholars and British officials, who likewise imagined these religious elites to be a leading symptom of India''s degeneration. Yet within some thirty years of Butler''s writing, modern Indian ascetics such as the neo-Vedantin Hindu Swami Rama Tirtha (1873-1906) and, paradoxically, the Protestant Christian convert Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929) achieved international fame as embodiments of the spiritual superiority of the East over the West.Timothy S. Dobe''s fine-grained account of the lives of Sundar Singh and Rama Tirtha offers a window on the surprising reversals and potentials of Indian ascetic "sainthood" in the colonial contact zone. His study develops a new model of Indian holy men that is historicized, religiously pluralistic, and located within the tensions and intersections of ascetic practice and modernity. The first in-depth account of two internationally-recognized modern holy men in the colonially-crucial region of Punjab, Hindu Christian Faqir offers new examples and contexts for thinking through these wider issues. Drawing on unexplored Urdu writings by and about both figures, Dobe argues not only that Hinduism and Protestant Christianity are here intimately linked, but that these links are forged from the stuff of regional Islamic traditions of Sufi holy men (faqir). He also re-conceives Indian sainthood through an in-depth examination of ascetic practice as embodied religion, public performance, and relationship, rather than as a theological, otherworldly, and isolated ideal.

Hindu Christian Faqir compares two colonial Indian saints from Punjab, the neo-Vedantin Hindu Rama Tirtha (1873-1906) and the Christian convert Sundar Singh (1889-1929). Timothy S. Dobe shows that varied asceticisms, personal exemplary models, and material religion exuded their ambivalent and powerful public presence in Protestant metropolitan centers as much as in colonial peripheries. Challenging ideas of the invention of modern Hinduism, the transparent translation of Christianity, and the construction of saints by devotees, this book focuses on the long-standing, shared religious idioms on which these two men creatively drew to appeal to transnational audiences and to pursue religious perfection.Following both men's usage of Urdu, the book adopts the word "faqir" to examine the vernacular and performative dimensions of Indian holy man traditions, thereby calling special attention to missionary and Orientalist anti-ascetic accounts of the "fukeer" indigenous Islamic traditions and this-worldly religion. Exploring Rama Tirtha and Sundar Singh's global tours in Europe and America, self-conscious sartorial styles, and intimate autobiographical writings, Dobe demonstrates that the vernacular holy man traditions of Punjab provided resources that both men drew on to construct their forms of modern monkhood. The rise of heroic, anti-colonial sannyasis or sadhus of modern Hinduism like Swami Vivekananda is thus repositioned in relation to global Christianity, Sufi, bhakti, and Sikh regional practices, religious boundary-crossing, contestation and conversion. A comparative and contextualized story of two Punjabi holy men's particular performance of sainthood, Hindu Christian Faqir reveals much about the broad, interactional history of religious modernities.

Hindu Christian Faqir compares two colonial Indian saints from Punjab, the neo-Vedantin Hindu Rama Tirtha (1873-1906) and the Christian convert Sundar Singh (1889-1929). Timothy S. Dobe shows that varied asceticisms, personal exemplary models, and material religion exuded their ambivalent and powerful public presence in Protestant metropolitan centers as much as in colonial peripheries. Challenging ideas of the invention of modern Hinduism, the transparent translation of Christianity, and the construction of saints by devotees, this book focuses on the long-standing, shared religious idioms on which these two men creatively drew to appeal to transnational audiences and to pursue religious perfection.Following both men's usage of Urdu, the book adopts the word "faqir" to examine the vernacular and performative dimensions of Indian holy man traditions, thereby calling special attention to missionary and Orientalist anti-ascetic accounts of the "fukeer" indigenous Islamic traditions and this-worldly religion. Exploring Rama Tirtha and Sundar Singh's global tours in Europe and America, self-conscious sartorial styles, and intimate autobiographical writings, Dobe demonstrates that the vernacular holy man traditions of Punjab provided resources that both men drew on to construct their forms of modern monkhood. The rise of heroic, anti-colonial sannyasis or sadhus of modern Hinduism like Swami Vivekananda is thus repositioned in relation to global Christianity, Sufi, bhakti, and Sikh regional practices, religious boundary-crossing, contestation and conversion. A comparative and contextualized story of two Punjabi holy men's particular performance of sainthood, Hindu Christian Faqir reveals much about the broad, interactional history of religious modernities.