Jagat

I just finished going through the revision of the translation of Sva-likhita-jīvanī and am trying to write my introduction, but that is also leading me into various back alleyways. Quite a bit of research has been done since Shukavak came out with his book, A Hindu Encounter with Modernity . One of the questions that I have asked myself for some time is how did Bhaktivinoda Thakur, who was such a devoted Anglophile, such an avid consumer of European knowledge through the English medium, then later a devoted servant of the Raj -- putting down rebellious sannyasis in Orissa, and defending the British rule to his Vaishnava audience -- become such a committed follower of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, "the Eastern Saviour"? In America, there is a disparaging expression, "Oreo," meant to describe African Americans who have internally totally assimilated to white culture. Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay ’s famous “ Minute on Education ,” emphasized this purpose in the most not...