ABSTRACT
The European Enlightenment gave the Romantics a sense of individual self-
identity, freedom from the constraints of social confi nes, and the promise of
progress among all peoples. Its promotion of social self-consciousness made
possible the development of linguistics in the second half of the eighteenth
century. This chapter gives particular attention to the contributions of
German Romantics because they were instrumental in creating images of
India and of Hinduism that have continued to be infl uential in popular
consciousness and in academic scholarship down to the present time.
