Translocal Lives and Religion: Connections between Asia and Europe in the Late Modern World (The Study of Religion in a Global Context)

318 Pages·2020·9.51 MB·English

T l r
ranslocal ives and eligion
The Study of Religion in a Global Context
series ediTors
Satoko Fujiwara
ExEcutivE Editor
univErsity of tokyo
Katja Triplett
sEriEs Editor
LEipzig univErsity
Alexandra Grieser
Managing Editor
trinity coLLEgE dubLin
The series, published in association with the International Association
for the History of Religions, encourages work that is innovative in the
study of religions, whether of an empirical, theoretical or methodolog-
ical nature. This includes multi- or inter-disciplinary studies involving
anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology and political studies.
Volumes will examine the continuing influence of postcolonial, decolo-
nial and intercultural dynamics, as well as contemporary responses from
intersectional studies. They will also address the relevance and application
of more recent approaches such as cognitivist, as well as ones concerned
with aesthetic culture—art, architecture, media, performance and sound.
Published
Philosophy and the End of Sacrifice:
Disengaging Ritual in Ancient India, Greece and Beyond
Edited by Peter Jackson and Anna-Pya Sjödin
The Relational Dynamics of Enchantment and Sacralization:
Changing the Terms of the Religion Versus Secularity Debate
Edited by Peik Ingman, Terhi Utriainen, Tuija Hovi and Måns Broo
T l r :
ranslocal ives and eligion
c a e
onnecTions beTween sia and urope
l M w
in The aTe odern orld
e
diTed by
p b
hilippe orneT
Published by Equinox Publishing Ltd.
UK: Office 415, The Workstation,
15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield,
South Yorkshire S1 2BX
USA: ISD, 70 Enterprise Drive, Bristol, CT 06010
www.equinoxpub.com
First published 2021
© Philippe Bornet
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system,
without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 9781781795828 (hardback)
ISBN-13: 9781781795835 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 9781781795842 (e-PDF)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bornet, Philippe (Historian of religions), editor.
Title: Translocal lives and religion : connections between Asia and Europe in the
late modern world / edited by Philippe Bornet..
Description: Bristol, CT : Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2021. | Series: The study of reli-
gion in a global context | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019021251 (print) | LCCN 2019981193 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781781795828 (hardback) | ISBN 9781781795835 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781781795842 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Asia—Religion. | Europe—Religion. | East and West.
Classification: LCC BL1033.T73 2020 (print) | LCC BL1033 (ebook) | DDC 200.9—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019021251
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019981193
conTenTs
Preliminaries
List of Figures vii
Foreword ix
sujit sivasundaram
Editor’s Preface xi
PhilliPe bornet
Part i: introduction
1. From Comparative to Connected Religion: Translocal Aspects 3
of Orientalism and the Study of Religion
PhilliPe bornet
Part ii: transnational trajectories and individual aPProPriations of religion
2. “In-Between” Religiosity: European Kālī-bhakti in Early 35
Colonial Calcutta
gautam chakrabarti
3. The Making of the Ideal Transnational Disciple: 57
Unravelling Biographies of Margaret Noble/Sister Nivedita
gwilym beckerlegge
4. The Curious Case of the Drs. d’Abreu: Catholicism, Migration 89
and a Kanara Catholic Family in the Heart of the Empire,
1890–1950
dwayne ryan menezes
5. Religion and the “Simple Life”: Dugald Semple and Translocal 123
“Life Reform” Networks
steven sutcliffe
v
6. Re-discovering Buddha’s Land: The Transnational Formative 149
Years of China’s Indology
minyu zhang
Part iii: religions on the move
7. Charles Pfoundes and the First Buddhist Mission to the West, 171
1889–1892: Some Research Questions
brian bocking
8. Travelling through Interstitial Spaces: The Radical Spiritual 193
Journeys of Pandita Mary Ramabai Saraswathi
Parinitha shetty
9. A “Christian Hindu Apostle”? The Multiple Lives of Sadhu 219
Sundar Singh (1889–1929?)
PhiliPPe bornet
10. The Chen Jianmin (1906–1987) Legacy: An “Always on the 253
Move” Buddhist Practice
fabienne jagou
Part iv: in summary
11. Afterword 275
maya burger
Index 291
vi
lisT of figures
Figure 2.1 Antony Firingee, dir. S. Banerjee, India, 1967. 41
Figure 3.1 Sister Nivedita’s statue installed in the city of Salem, Tamil 58
Nadu, India, to mark the 150th anniversary of her birth.
Figure 4.1 Dr. John Francis d’Abreu. 94
Figure 4.2 Dr. J.F. d’Abreu, with his wife Teresa and three daughters 95
(c. 1900).
Figure 4.3 Pon and Elizabeth, with two daughters, c. 1945. 97
Figure 4.4 Frank and Ann at their wedding, 2 June 1945. 98
Figure 4.5 Angelo Saldanha (aka E.C. Francis) in Western Australia. 114
Figure 4.6 Angelo Saldanha, Daily News [Perth], 11 April 1929. 115
Figure 5.1 Dugald Semple’s “Wheelhouse” colony, Beith, c. 1930. 125
Figure 5.2 Dugald Semple preaching the “Simple Life” c. 1940. 129
Figure 5.3 Semple’s photograph of Gandhi at lunch, London 1931. 130
Figure 5.4 Madeleine Slade (Mirabehn) visiting Semple at “Wheel- 131
house,” Beith, North Ayrshire, 1931.
Figure 8.1 Anant Shastri with his family. 196
Figure 8.2 Photograph of an inmate of Mukti Sadan “before and after” 202
her arrival.
Figure 8.3 Ramabai at work on her translation of the Bible into popu- 214
lar Marathi.
Figure 9.1 “I was thirsty and you gave me to drink” in Mitteilungen der 221
Schweizerischen Hilfskomitees für die Mission in Indien.
Figure 9.2 Eugène Burnand (1850–1921), “Go forth into all the world 231
and preach the gospel to all creatures” 1915.
Figure 9.3 Sundar Singh in Lausanne 1922. 232
Figure 9.4 Sadhu Sundar Singh in Saanen, March 1922. 235
Figure 9.5 “As you look for me wholeheartedly, I will let myself be 236
found by you [Jeremiah 29: 13],” Mitteilungen der Kanaresis-
chen Mission 4.4, July 1922.
Figure 10.1 Chen Jianmin. 263
Figure 10.2 Chien Jianmin’s Five Elements Stūpa, Taipei. 266
vii

Foreword
sujiT sivasundaraM
The search for authenticity and purity has often necessitated a sojourn to
somewhere far away while setting aside the known. Yet if archaic forms of pil-
grimage, ascetic wandering and evangelism were already characterized in this
way, such longings were accelerated by the late modern period as this volume
makes clear in great detail. On the one hand the acceleration of a search for
authenticity and purity in far away places came to be because of the possibili-
ties provided by new technologies. On the other hand, it was also connected
with a period of intensified territorial imperialism radiating outwards from
Europe and an intensified stage of capitalism. Yet if these are infrastructural,
political and financial changes, the volume before us pays less attention to
these themes and focuses instead on the individual in the midst of this period
of profound change. A recurrent idea is that this individual life is “intersti-
tial,” “in-between” and “hybrid.” It is not fully formed and its twisting paths
denote a characteristic feature of religious practice of this age.
There are different ways of explaining this interstitiality. One might point
to the reconsideration of what religion is, and the redefinition of specific
religions, or even “world religion,” in the light of new knowledge and ethical
commitments as well as secularism and the demarcation of the non-religious.
But the life in transit in this set of decades also comes to be because of new
modes of association and institutionalisation, about which this volume pro-
vides plenty of evidence. Circulating lives were also generated partly from
late-modern political expression and fraternity which had dizzying axes of
coordination as the authors of this volume demonstrate. Additionally, the vast
migrations of this era were bringing people into contact, while making it pos-
sible for people to “pass” between identities. At the heart of this passing and
mutation of significations were religious beliefs and the solidarities that they
ix