ABSTRACT
Kehama presents a domesticated, western vision of India, enveloped in Hindu 'mythology', in which Robert Southey endeavours to control those foreign aspects of it that he considered 'monstrous'. The links he found in his research, between the 'Trimourtee' and the Trinity, and Christ and the Hindu avatars, as well as with classical mythology, reconciled him to the use of his Indological material, which he then incorporated and moulded for his own ideological purposes. The character of Kehama should not be taken as evidence that Southey opposed all forms of imperialism, his eastern 'Rajah' is simply the obverse of the paternalistic western empire-builder that he constructed in Madoc. Smith argues that the missionaries are jeopardizing the empire in India by their actions, and to no very useful end because the Hindu religion 'extends its empire over the minutest actions of life', and therefore Christianity is unlikely to succeed.
