The editors begin this volume with a brief introduction that lays out the theoretical parameters of the work. They viably argue that throughout the history of the study of Indian religions, the three themes identified in the subtitle of the book recur.
Boundaries provide the first theme, and three chapters are devoted to pushing at them. The first is by Peter Gottschalk, whose paper explores taxonomies in the context of the census of India, which did not focus on religion alone, but used paradigms from the natural sciences that were becoming prominent in the nineteenth century. This combination of surveillance in the guise of science, he argues, led to a double sense of binding in which data was bound to officials and individuals, but groups were bound to particular religious and social identities as well. Second, Arvind Mandair looks at German Indology, especially Hegel, to ask why the same sorts...
