Bhakti and the British Empire

Abstract

Discusses the interpenetration of the religious worlds of Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad and George Abraham Grierson in India in the 19th and 20th centuries. Understanding of British India and the British Empire; Ways in which the lives of the two men encourage a rethinking of post-colonial depictions of British India as a site of unidirectional mental colonization inflicted by a rationalizing, scientific Europe; Need for greater attention to be paid to religion and religious belief to fully understand what Empire meant to the individuals who lived in it.