Cultural Encounters: Religious Histories of South Asia
VIEW EVENT DETAILSThursday, 27 June 2024, 6:00 pm
In the eighteenth century, Governor-General Warren Hastings asked for a document compiling Hindu law for the British to better rule over the South Asian region. But unlike the suggestions of the ‘Code of Gentoo Laws,’ religion and religious practice in South Asia evades easy categorisation. Missionary Christianity, for example, took on local forms as Dalits converted to the religion. Islam has a unique history and character in present-day Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. Buddhism, once a response to the stifling societal norms of Hinduism in northern India, was spread far and wide, to present Nepal, Sri Lanka, and even south-east Asia. Sikhism and Jainism, also born in South Asia, each have their own set of paeans, codes, and histories, as does Zoroastrianism, which came to the western coast of India via Iran. Hinduism is not just one thing, one ‘Gentoo’ law: it changes across the vast, varied terrain of India. The religious movements of bhakti and Sufism took hold in South Asia too. From symbolism of the divine on Earth and cosmological understandings of why we are here and what we must do; to how to live life and how to materially exist in society, each religion brings its own understanding that forms what South Asia is today. Each religion has also left its imprint on the architecture, art, edifices, and material reality of everyday life in ways that involve overlaps between religion, culture, and identity: making it difficult, even impossible, to separate one religion from another neatly. So what does religion and pluralism in South Asia signify? How can we understand religious confluences, and how does one religion change or impact another?
This is the third session of Cultural Encounters: South Asian History in the 'Third Space,' this year's edition of our annual summer learning series, taking place virtually over June and July. Over four sessions and with panels of experts, we will explore the ways in which cultural similarities, hybridity, and interaction have shaped South Asia. The programmes focus on the colonial vs. local; food histories; religious histories; and histories of freedom. For more, visit this link.
OUTREACH PARTNERS