ABSTRACT
Statements concerning ‘the construction of religion’ have become commonplace in postmodern scholarship in religious studies and other domains. Particularly in the contemporary study of India, the idea of a colonial construction of Hinduism has gained popularity (Dalmia and von Stietencron (eds) 1995; Frykenberg 1989, 1993; Inden 1990; King 1999a, 1999b; Oddie 2006; Pennington 2001, 2005; Sugirtharajah 2003; Viswanathan 2003). Many share the sense that the notions of religion and Hinduism in modern descriptions of India are peculiar and this sense of peculiarity is expressed in terms like ‘construction’, ‘creation’, ‘imagining’, ‘invention’, ‘manufacturing’ and ‘making’.
