Rajnarayan Basu and His “Science of Religion”: The Emergence of Religious Studies through Exchanges between Bengali and Christian Reformers, Orientalists, and Theosophists

Abstract

This article explores the genealogy of the “science of religion” developed by the Bengali intellectual Rajnarayan Basu (1826–1899). One of my central aims is to demonstrate that a “science of religion,” or Religionswissenschaft in the sense of Friedrich Max Müller, has emerged within a global context that was actively shaped by “non-Western” actors. To this end, I will focus on exchanges between the Indian reform movement of the Brahmo Samaj, Christian Unitarians, Transcendentalists, orientalist scholars, and members of the Theosophical Society. All these actors were concerned with the origin of religion, its modern meaning, and its function in shaping the future of society. Building on an analysis of the global exchanges revolving around these issues, special attention is paid to the inherent tensions between religious universalism and a nationalist insistence on “true religion,” which directly pertains to contested demarcations between reform and revival, or modernity and tradition.