Hindu Christian Faqir

Hindu Christian Faqir compares two colonial Indian saints from Punjab the neo-Vedantin Hindu Rama Tirtha (1873-1906) and the Christian convert Sundar Singh (1889-1929). Timothy S. Dobe shows that varied asceticism''s personal exemplary models and material religion exuded their ambivalent and powerful public presence in Protestant metropolitan centers as much as in colonial peripheries. Challenging ideas of the invention of modern Hinduism the transparent translation of Christianity and the construction of saints by devotees this book focuses on the long-standing shared religious idioms on which these two men creatively drew to appeal to transnational audiences and to pursue religious perfection. Following both men''s usage of Urdu the book adopts the word faqir to examine the vernacular and performative dimensions of Indian holy man traditions thereby calling special attention to missionary and Orientalist anti-ascetic accounts of the fukeer indigenous Islamic traditions and this-worldly religion. Exploring Rama Tirtha and Sundar Singh''s global tours in Europe and America self-conscious sartorial styles and intimate autobiographical writings Dobe demonstrates that the vernacular holy man traditions of Punjab provided resources that both men drew on to construct their forms of modern monkhood. The rise of heroic anti-colonial sannyasis or sadhus of modern Hinduism like Swami Vivekananda is thus repositioned in relation to global Christianity Sufi bhakti and Sikh regional practices religious boundary-crossing contestation and conversion. A comparative and contextualized story of two Punjabi holy men''s particular performance of sainthood Hindu Christian Faqir reveals much about the broad interactional history of religious modernities.Salient FeaturesOffers a performative approach to religion that looks at shared idioms visual culture and vernacular asceticism Draws on neglected Urdu sources for both figures Argues that saints may become saints because they draw on multiple religions Historicizes comparative categories for holy men