| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Geoffrey A. Oddie. Imagined Hinduism: British Protestant Missionary Constructions of Hinduism, 1793–1900. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications. 2006. Pp. 374. $32.95.
The title of this new book by Geoffrey A. Oddie fits perfectly with its central theme: how attitudes of Protestant missionaries changed toward Indian religious beliefs and practices during the heyday of British colonialism. However, Oddie's title reveals both the strength and the weakness of his book.	1
The author, who is an important historian of the Protestant missions in India, traces in a chronological and systematic way the emergence of the dominant missionary model of Hinduism. During the nineteenth century, Oddie claims, the missionaries were the first to invent the term Hinduism. Moreover, they more or less single-handedly determined the shape, scope, and importance of Hinduism in public debates and in the popular imagination of nineteenth-century British colonial and domestic audiences. Although the missionaries never completely agreed on all points at all times, the dominant paradigm that emerged in the middle of the century was based on the presumption that an all-embracing Brahmanical "system," founded on authentic sacred texts and administered by Brahmanical priestly hierarchy, was at the core of Hinduism. Having thus defined the religious landscape that they encountered in the colony according to a Christian model, they also postulated that it was a "national system" valid for all Indians who were not defined (according to the 1871 Census) as Muslims or belonging to other religious minorities.	. . .

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