Early Modern Hinduism

Abstract

This chapter gives an overview of the transformations that combined to give early modern Hinduism its distinct characteristics. New practices of bhakti devotionalism reshaped the relationship between devotee and deity; new modes of organization, both within religious lineages and between religious agents and imperial courts, brought ideas of identity into heightened focus; and the rise of a vernacular language was followed by the emergence of broadly popular devotional literatures that still define the period in the historical imagination. By detailing the dynamics of these transformations across the lives of several key figures of the early modern period, the chapter argues that the circulation of ideas, impulses, and practices across languages and religious traditions contributed to a new set of modes of delineating Hindu identities and, consequently, that debates on the concept of ‘Hinduism’ itself should not overlook the early modern period.