Book – Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History

Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History by Andrew J. Nicholson attempts to prove that the unified Hindu identity did not happen with the arrival of the British in India as widely propagated by the British, Christian missionaries and Marxist historians. Andrew J. Nicholson, assistant professor of Hinduism and Indian intellectual history in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at Stony Brook University, suggests that the unity happened during the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries when philosophers and saints of the Bhakti cult treated the philosophies of Vedanta, Samkhya, and Yoga, along with the worshippers of Vishnu, Shiva, and Shakti, as belonging to a single system of belief and practice.

About the book from the flyer

Drawing on the writings of philosophers from late medieval and early modern traditions, including Vijnanabhiksu, Madhava, and Madhusudana Sarasvati, Nicholson shows how influential thinkers portrayed Vedanta philosophy as the ultimate unifier of diverse belief systems. This project paved the way for the work of later Hindu reformers, such as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted the notion that all world religions belong to a single spiritual unity. In his study, Nicholson also critiques the way in which Eurocentric concepts—like monism and dualism, idealism and realism, theism and atheism, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy—have come to dominate modern discourses on Indian philosophy.

British, Christian missionaries, Marxist historians and the secularists conditioned by missionary teaching propagated and taught that Hindus attained unity or Hindu identity began only after the arrival of British in India – after the unification of India by the East India Company.

Andrew J. Nicholson tries to disprove the above said theory. But suggests that the unity happened between 14th and 17th century.

But what about this quote from the Rig Veda - "Truth is One, Sages call It by different names." (More than 5000 years ago.)

The sages of Sanatana Dharma never believed in or neither did they ever propagate a Hindu Identity. This is because all paths lead to the same Truth. We just call it by different name. Truth cannot be divided. Nor there is anything called untruth. This why the ancient sages of Sanatana Dharma did not force the idea of religion. Instead they respected the individual’s quest to find the truth. There are no rules in the search for the truth. Thus they respected and accepted all attempts to find the truth.

If ever there is a Hindu Identity it is this - to see the Supreme Truth in all animate and inanimate.

Note – I am yet to read the book. But the subject matter of the book is interesting and an email I received introducing the book contained a sentence - instead of seeing various groups in Hinduism as separate and contradictory, the philosophers of 14th to 17th century re-envisioned them as separate rivers leading to the ocean of Brahman, the ultimate reality.

 True students of Sanatana Dharma from the time of the Upanishads to the present day always knew that various different religious thoughts are separate rivers leading to the ocean of Brahman, the ultimate reality. This is why they were not even bothered about giving a single name to their teachings. It is the failure of the British and the Christian missionaries to realize this that led to coinage of the term Hinduism. 

Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History
Author - Andrew J. Nicholson
Price - $45.00 / £31.00
Pages – 280
You can buy the book online at the Columbia University Press