Dayānanda Sarasvatī as Irascible Ṛṣi: The Personal and Performed Authority of a Text

摘要

Scholarly discussions of a Christianised (Nandy 1983), modernised (Radice 1998), Semiticised (Hansen 1999), Orientalised, or middle class (Fuller 2009) Hinduism have emphasised the wide-ranging changes in south Asian religion in the colonial period. While these analyses have moved beyond earlier binaries of reform and revival in some ways, they simultaneously echo common themes of Protestant historiography, especially in their stress on the effects of modern textuality on Hindu notions of scripture. This article examines the case of Dayānanda Sarasvatī, often called the ‘Luther of India’ because of his use of the Veda in the cause of ‘reform’. In contrast, I argue that close reading of his Satyārtha Prakāśa reveals neglected dimensions of mythic, personal, and traditional authority that work performatively to authorise both him and his text. These dimensions are best captured in the image of Dayānanda as a ‘Mahāṛṣi’, precisely the title his followers gave him.