The Life of Hinduism
John Stratton Hawley and Vasudha Narayanan (Eds)
New Delhi: Aleph
340 pages; Rs 549
The end of the Cold War created new global antagonisms. As Harvard professor Samuel Huntington’s memorable “clash of civilisations” posited, the future fault lines of international conflicts would occur around the major religions of the world. He was talking specifically of Islam and Islamic militancy versus the Christian West, but the western academic world responded to this trend of religious militancy by expanding religious studies in university curricula. This is the context of the voluminous writings on Hinduism, beginning with the last
