Reinventing Ramanand
Caste and History in Gangetic India
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3630136 |
|---|---|
| Authors | William R Pinch (Wesleyan University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1996 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 549-571 |
| Publication date | 1996-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Modern Asian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0026-749X • E-ISSN: 1469-8099 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0026749x00016590 |
| OpenAlex | W2047551067 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 9 |
According to Sir George Grierson, one of the pre-eminent Indologists of the early twentieth century, Ramanand led 'one of the most momentous revolutions that have occurred in the religious history of North India.'Yet Ramanand, the fourteenth-century teacher of Banaras, has been conspicuous by his relative absence in the pages of English-language scholarship on recent Indian history, literature, and religion. The aims of this essay are to reflect on why this is so, and to urge historians to pay attention to Ramanand, more particularly to the reinvention of Ramanand by his early twentieth-century followers, because the contested traditions thereof bear on the vexed issue of caste and hierarchy in colonial India. The little that is known about Ramanand is doubly curious considering that Ramanandis, those who look to Ramanand for spiritual and community inspiration, are thought to comprise the largest and most important Vaishnava monastic order in north India. Ramanandis are to be found in temples and monasteries throughout and beyond the Hindi-speaking north, and they are largely responsible for the upsurge in Ram-centered devotion in the last two centuries. A fairly recent anthropological examination of Ayodhya, currently the most important Ramanand pilgrimage center in India, has revealed that Ramanandi sadhus, or monks, can be grouped under three basic headings: tyagi (ascetic), naga (fighting ascetic), and rasik (devotional aesthete).4 The increased popularity of the order in recent centuries is such that Ramanandis may today outnumber Dasnamis, the better-known Shaiva monks who look to the ninth-century teacher, Shankaracharya, for their organizational and philosophical moorings
Ancient history · Archaeology · Asceticism · Caste · Colonialism · Hindi · Order (exchange · Pilgrimage · Political science · Popularity · Scholarship · History · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Indian History and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy
A history of South India from prehistoric times to the fall of Vijayanagar
Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire
Caste, Conflict and Ideology
The Life of a Text
An anthropologist among the historiansand other essays
The Founding of the Ramanandi Sect
Caste, Conflict and Ideology
Renunciation in the Religious Traditions of South Asia
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,24 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2021 (13) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |