Sisir's Tears: Bhakti and Belonging in Colonial Bengal.

This article explores the manner in which bhakti emerges as a politicotheological concept in the period of rising nationalism in colonial Bengal. It examines Śrī Amiya Nimāī Carita, a multivolume sacred biography of Kṛṣṇa-Caitanya (1486-1533) authored by Sisir Kumar Ghosh (1840-1911) between 1885 an...

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Published in:International Journal of Hindu Studies Vol. 21; no. 1; pp. 1 - 25
Main Author: Bhatia, Varuni
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Apr2017
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        10.1007/s11407-017-9205-1
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        atl: Sisir's Tears: Bhakti and Belonging in Colonial Bengal.
      aug:
        au: Bhatia, Varuni
        affil: Department of Asian Languages and Cultures , University of Michigan , Ann Arbor USA
      su:
        Bhakti
        Political theology
        Nationalism
        Imperialism
        Devotion
      sug:
        subj:
          Bhakti
          Political theology
          Nationalism
          Imperialism
          Devotion
      keyword:
        Śrī Amiya Nimāī Carita
        anticolonial nationalism
        Bengal
        Caitanya (1486-1533)
        deś -bhakti
        Sisir Kumar Ghosh (1840-1911)
        Swadeshi movement
        Vaiṣṇavism
      ab: This article explores the manner in which bhakti emerges as a politicotheological concept in the period of rising nationalism in colonial Bengal. It examines Śrī Amiya Nimāī Carita, a multivolume sacred biography of Kṛṣṇa-Caitanya (1486-1533) authored by Sisir Kumar Ghosh (1840-1911) between 1885 and 1910. Ghosh was a journalist and a publisher with a reputation for anticolonialism and Hindu revivalism. Ghosh's autobiographical and didactic prefaces attached to this sacred biography allow us to parse out a complex narrative of filial bonds and belonging that is integrally connected to an ambrosial ( amiya) Nimāī (Caitanya's nickname) and the devotional collective dedicated to him. Furthermore, these sacred biographies draw correspondences between the figure of Nimāī himself and the idea of Bengal-its history, culture, people, and society. This article systematically examines the evidence provided in this sacred biography of such overlaps between the figure of Caitanya and love for Bengal to argue that in the years leading up to the Swadeshi movement (1905-8), Vaiṣṇava bhakti, with its emphasis on love, loss, and femininity, arises as the idiom of comprehending and reifying ideas of intimacy and belonging to one's homeland. In this fashion, they intellectually prepare the ground for the emergence of the powerful notion of deś -bhakti in its modern form-as patriotic nationalism based upon love and devotion for homeland.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
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    language: English
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      custom: International Journal of Hindu Studies is a copyright of Springer, 2017. All Rights Reserved.
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