Historically, nineteenth-century Bengal was the site where the first crop of a Western educated
Hindu intelligentsia creatively and actively engaged in a two-pronged intellectual
enterprise. On the one hand, there was deep introspection that encouraged the overturning of
traditional categories of thought and ways of life, and on the other, a growing cultural pride
that preferred suitably defending these even under perceptibly changed intellectual and
material conditions. Many claimed that while the preceding centuries of Indo-Muslim rule had
made no difference to the Hindu mind, the Christian West had critically challenged it in
intellectual and moral ways. In the course of time, this was also intimately tied to the growing
desire to confront colonial modernity on one’s own terms.
This work examines in some detail, a regional culture as it was subjected to acute
interpretative stress for much of the nineteenth century. This is done through an original study
of three key facets of contemporary Hindu thought: new perspectives on the possible
interplay between the divinely ordained and humanly enacted history, innovative extensions in
the meaning of older terms like Dharma and attempts at evolving new moral and cultural
theories around select mythical figures and traditionally revered texts. Copious writings on the
figure of Krishna-in a historical vein-and the hermeneutical, as also the unprecedented
popularity of the Bhagavat Gita are cases in point.
In essence, this is a pioneering contribution to the intellectual history of modern Bengal as
distinct from the more conventionally political or social.