Religious Entanglements Between Germans and Indians, 1800–1945 (Palgrave Series in Asian German Studies)

Note on Transliteration
Acknowledgements
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction
	Interfaces and Entanglements
	The Historical Constellation
	The Religious Field
	The Chapters
	References
Chapter 2: ‘To Read in an Indian Way’ (Johann Gottfried Herder): Pre-Emergent Colonial Epistemologies in Indian–German Entanglements, Showcased in Protestant Theology c.1800
	In Search of the Entanglement: German Orientalism, a Specific Understanding of Wissenschaft, and Their Relationship to Colonialism
	Hebrew People as Role Models: Theology in a New Era of Ethnography
	The Old Testament as a Space for the German Colonial Imagination and Johann Gottfried Herder as an Intermediary
		To Read in an Indian Way: The Romanticized Orient
		Interlude: India as Method?
	Summary
	References
Chapter 3: In Search of Purity: German-Speaking Vegetarians and the Lure of India (1833–1939)
	India and German Vormärz Vegetarianism
	Indian Connections with German Theosophists
	German Buddhists on the Subcontinent
	Aryanism Without Hindus: Mazdaznan
	Völkisch Vegetarianism: Claims to Teutonic Superiority
	German Vegetarians and the Cult of the Ascetic Leader in Weimar Germany
	Contacts with the Indian Independence Movement in the Interwar Period
	Conclusion
	References
Chapter 4: The Indian Challenge: Indology and New Conceptions of Christianity as ‘Religion’ at the End of the Nineteenth Century
	The Challenge
	The Antagonism of Religion and Science and the Birth of a New Concept of Religion
	The Problem of Religious History
	India and the ‘Religion of the Future’
	Oldenberg’s Role in Troeltsch’s Philosophy of Religions
	Troeltsch’s Reception of Oldenberg’s Buddha (1881)
	Troeltsch’s Reception of Oldenberg’s The Religion of the Veda (1894)
	Summary of Troeltsch’s Reception of Oldenberg
	Conclusion
	References
Chapter 5: Death and Transfiguration: Religion and Belonging in Felix Gotthelf’s Indian Opera Mahadeva (1910)
	Faith and Modernity: A Difficult Relationship
	A Forgotten Indian Opera
	Mahadeva: The Plot
	Press Reaction
	Schopenhauer, Wagner, and the Redemption Dramas
	Wagner’s Share: Mahadeva—A Cosmic Drama About Love, Death, and Salvation
	‘Büßerin in der Hülle des Zauberweibs’ (Penitent in the Cloak of the Sorceress): Obsession or Liberation?
	Schopenhauer’s Share: Maya, the Will, and Pessimism
	Gotthelf and the Indian Renaissance
	The Role of Religion in National Identity: Some Conclusions
	References
Chapter 6: The Indian Parsifal: Revisiting Felix Gotthelf’s Forgotten Opera Mahadeva
	An Artist’s Biography
	The Tail of Wagner’s Comet
	The Indian Parsifal
	The Final Threshold
	Conclusion: The Possibility of Revision
	References
Chapter 7: Modernism in Disguise? Neglected Aspects of the So-Called Revival of a Classical Indian Dance Form
	Previous Research and Open Questions
	Indian Influences on Western Performing Arts
	Developments in India’s Performing and Visual Arts
	Earlier and Later ‘Revivals’ of the South Asian Performing Arts
	Conclusion
	References
Chapter 8: ‘The Priestess of Hindu Dance’: Leila Sokhey’s Repertoire and Its Reception in the Netherlands and Germany (1927–38)
	Indian Debut
	Preparing for the European Stage
	Constructing Continuity
	Artistic Individuality
	Where the Gods Are Nigh: Dutch Reception
	‘Noble Grace in the Highest Perfection’: German Reviews
	Conclusion
	References
Chapter 9: Roaming Between East and West: In Search of Religious Ecstasy in the Interwar Period
	Sources and Steps Ahead
	‘A Sea of Ecstasy’
	The Convert Register
	Parallel Experiences
	The 1880 Generation
	Debating the Future of Religion
	Conclusions
	References
Chapter 10: Negotiating Germanness with Indian Religious History: Transfers of Academic Knowledge and Notions of völkisch Belief
	Indology, Nazism, and Germanness
		Knowledge of the Other for One’s Own Changing Society
		Example of History or Pre-Eminence of ‘Life’? Religion, the Social Bond, and the Individual
		The Self-Realization of Life Through a Racist Evaluation of Religious Experience
	Herman Wirth and the ‘Arctic Vedas’: Constructing Primordial Aryan Experience and Sensational Forms
		The Artist-Philosopher-Prehistorian from Youth Movement to Ahnenerbe Foundation
		How to Draw Religious Knowledge from the Dawn of Mankind: India and Indology as Resources for Human Experience
		How to Pass on Religious Knowledge in Sensational Forms: Readings of the Rising Sun
		Conflicting Evaluations of the Origins at the Conference of the Coffee Magnate
	Conclusion
	References
Chapter 11: Hakenkreuz, Swastika and Crescent: The Religious Factor in Nazi Cultural Politics Regarding India
	Introduction
	The Nazi Network in India
	Cultural Politics as Nazi Propaganda: Deutsche Akademie’s India Institute
	Nazism, Hindu Revivalism and Aryanism
	The Gaudiya Order: Krishna Worship and Nazi Propaganda
	Playing the Aryan Card: The Arya Samaj
	Hindu Mahasabha and Nazism
	Buddhist Anti-Colonialism, Aryanism and the Nazis
	Nazi Propaganda and Islamic Nationalism
	The “German Society” of the Aligarh Muslim University
	Decline of Religion Based Propaganda
	Conclusion
	References
Chapter 12: Curating the Fragments of Local Modernities: The Menaka Digital Archive from the Perspective of Ongoing Research
	Building the Archive
	Scholarly Approaches and Focus of Research
		Artistic Research
		Aryan Bodies on Stage
		Debate on the ‘Revival’ of Indian Classical Dance
	Some Conclusions
	References
Glossary
Index of Names
Index of Terms