ABSTRACT
My agreement in writing this chapter was to think (as a non-specialist in colonial India but nonetheless generally interested party) about the role of colonial and postcolonial realities in the construction of religions in India. I agreed to do so through the lens of my recent ethnographic project on women and Sanskrit in India. My exploration of the question revolves around two major resources in my ever expanding database of now over ninety interviews with women Sanskritists: older women and younger women. My remarks are based on a comparison between the women Sanskritists over sixty-five who were involved in the movement out of colonialism, and the women Sanskritists between thirty and sixty-five, who are now fully embroiled in the postcolonial realities of a twenty-first century liberalized economy.
