Saints, Goddesses and Kings
Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700–1900

Saints, Goddesses and Kings illumines the meaning and history of religious conversion and the nature of community.

Susan Bayly (Author)

9780521891035, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 22 April 2004

532 pages
21.7 x 14 x 3 cm, 0.703 kg

"This book breaks new ground in understanding the history of Christianity in India. Bayly's perspective, insights, and conclusions are of great importance." John C. B. Webster, Church History

South India is often portrayed as a land of Hindu orthodoxy, yet in fact three great 'world religions' have inter-acted in the region over many centuries. Saints, Goddesses and Kings uses a powerful combination of oral, literary and archival evidence to investigate the social and religious world of those large and influential groups of South Indians who came to identify themselves as Christians and Muslims, while retaining powerful links with the religion and culture of the wider society. Susan Bayly shows how Christianity and Islam spread along the military and agricultural frontiers of southern India, and how certain beliefs and practices derived local force from an ambiguous relationship with the worship of existing Hindu goddesses. Saints, Goddesses and Kings thus illumines not only the meaning and history of religious conversion and the nature of community, but wider processes of social and political change within the sub-continent and, indeed, colonial societies in general.

Preface
List of maps
Note on transliteration
Abbreviations
Glossary
Introduction
1. South Indian religion and society
2. The development of Muslim society in Tamilnad
3. The Muslim religious tradition in south India
4. The south Indian state and the creation of Muslim community
5. Warrior martyr pirs in the eighteenth century
6. The final period of nawabi rule in the Carnatic
7. South Indian Christians in the pre-colonial period
8. The collapse of Syrian Christian 'integration'
9. The Christian Paravas of southern Tamilnad
10. Christian saints and gurus in the poligar country
11. Christianity and colonial rule in the Tamil hinterland
12. Conclusion
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], Asian history [HBJF]