This book offers a focused examination of the Bengali Vai??ava tradition in its manifold forms in the pivotal context of British colonialism in South Asia.

Bringing together scholars from across the disciplines of social and intellectual history, philology, theology, and anthropology to systematically investigate Vai??avism in colonial Bengal, this book highlights the significant roles--religious, social, and cultural--that a prominent Hindu devotional current played in the lives of wide and diverse sections of colonial Bengali society. Not only does the book thereby enrich our understanding of the history and development of Bengali Vai??avism, but it also sheds valuable new light on the texture and dynamics of colonial Hinduism beyond the discursive and social-historical parameters of an entrenched Hindu "Renaissance" paradigm.

A landmark in the burgeoning field of Bengali Vai??ava studies, this book will be of interest to scholars of modern Hinduism, religion, and colonial South Asian social and intellectual history.