Description:The power of definitions: a genealogy of the idea of 'the mystical' -- Disciplining religion -- Sacred texts, hermeneutics and world religions -- Orientalism and Indian religions -- The modern myth of 'Hinduism' -- 'Mystic Hinduism': Vedanta and the politics of representation -- Orientalism and the discovery of 'Buddhism' -- The politics of privatization: Indian religion and the study of mysticism -- Beyond orientalism? Religion and comparativism in a postcolonial era