Thread by @AudreyTruschke

I'm thrilled to share my latest publication -- "Hindu: A History," published in Comparative Studies in Society and History.

The article traces the multilingual history of the term "hindu" over 2,500 years. 🧵

#Hindu #Hinduism

cambridge.org/core/journals/…

The article was partly inspired by David Lorenzen's seminal 1999 article "Who Invented Hinduism?" also published in CSSH.

I imagine my project to be complementary to his.

cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Whereas Lorenzen traces a social construct, i.e. the religion of Hinduism, across varied vocabulary, I trace a single term, i.e., "hindu," across diverse meanings.

This is a long, meandering journey over 2 1/2 millennia. Some highlights --

I argue that premodernity is the heart of the long, multilingual history of "hindu."

In this, I depart from scholars who have largely considered the term "hindu" post-1800. In contrast, I consider later events (especially post-1900) more of a footnote. #HistoricalPerspective

So, if you are looking for a history of "hindutva," a modern calque of "hinduism" with a distinct meaning, then look for a different article.

I cover "hindutva" briefly (along with other recent oddities, like when "hindu" was a race on the US census circa 1920–40), but...

I give far more attention to "hindu" in pre-colonial usages.

Over about 2,500 years, the term "hindu" has had many senses, including geographical, poetic, cultural, religious (although not always what you might think), and political. There are recurrent themes, e.g., --

Perhaps the oldest meaning of "hindu" is as a geographical signifier for the subcontinent or parts thereof, such as in Achaemenid inscriptions that use "hindu" as a geographical signifier.

This geographical sense hangs on and resurfaces for centuries...

E.g., "Hindu" as denoting "Indian" in the sense of place reappears in the "Hindu Kush" mountains, first known by the name in the 14th century (btw, if you think the name means 'Hindu killer," then you've fallen for a false etymology suggested by Ibn Battuta. Anyways...)

Throughout premodernity, a lot of people appear most interested in defining who "hindus" were not.

Sometimes that definition involved a religious contrast, most often with Muslims and sometimes with others, including Christians and others most would identify as "hindu" today.

E.g., In perhaps the earliest Sanskrit / Prakrit use of "hindu," 14th-century Jain writers distinguished Hindu and "non-Aryan" (i.e., Muslim) rulers, saying that Jains flourished under both.

More eye-popping today, some early modern Bangla texts contrast "hindu" and "vaishnava."

The meaning of "hindu," when used as a religious identity in premodern sources, rarely tracks onto the term's broad-based sense today.

Although there are some recurrent ideas (even while those were and remain contested), such as proposed caste boundaries to the term.

In premodern sources, "hindu" as a religious identity most often meant upper castes or Brahmins.

We see this in Kashmiri Sanskrit texts c. 15th century. A caste angle also occurs in 18th-century Marwar documents that distinguish hindus from "untouchables" (i.e., Dalits).

All of these ideas about "hindu" -- a geographical sense, defining by contrast, shifting religious sense, and caste inflections and more -- come up in colonial-era uses as well.

In this sense, the articles shows connections across the colonial divide.

Of course, there is also novelty in colonial-era sources, such as the term "Hinduism," coined by a Baptist missionary around 1800.

Even later were nationalist senses of "hindu," only possible in a nation-state ordered world.

The most obvious point of connection between premodern and modern uses of "hindu" is variety -- The term has had an elastic set of layered meanings well into the 20th century as communities continually define and redefine themselves.

What's the point of all of this?

Interest and fascination, of course. Also, I argue there's value in productive disruption, in unsettling what so many assume we know, namely the meaning of a basic ordering conceptual category and identity like "hindu."

This article's project is--in a sense--the opposite of a dictionary.

Dictionaries distill knowledge about words and clarify meanings. Instead, I I outline the multiform and fluid history of "hindu" to help us think more critically and precisely about this discursive category.

Do give it a read, if you're interested. The article is open access and so available to all.

#History #Hinduism #Hindu #OpenAccess

cambridge.org/core/journals/…