De illusie van een oude beschaving

Samenvatting

The illusion of an ancient civilization. In this article a critique is given of current anthropological approaches to the study of Hinduism. Two main points are made: 1. These approaches are based on an "orientalist" overestimation of the importance of the textual tradition 2. Anthropologists pay too much attention to certain brahmanical points of view, while they tend to misunderstand the social position of the brahman priest. The author argues that these pitfalls can be avoided by combining insights derived from the anthropological study of the politics of religious organization and from the psychological study of religious experience. This argument is illustrated by the interpretation of ethnographic material on asceticism and devotion which the author collected among the Ramanandis of North India.