Dayananda Saraswati and the Colonial Machines: Vedic Reformation, European Science, and Modernity in Colonial India

The relationship between European science and religion has varied considerably through time and among different traditions. This monograph attempts to catalogue one such variant by exploring the context entrance of European science into the Indian subcontinent, at the beginning of the British colonial period, by focusing on how a single religion leader drew upon European notions of science in building his reformed Vedic theology. Dayananda Saraswati (1824-83) spent much of his life traveling northern India as an itinerate ascetic and ultimately founded an intellectual lineage that was instrumental in the Indian Independence movement. Despite having no formal British education included many semi-correct details about the worldview of European science in his theology. This suggests that he found considerable information about European science through non-formal channels, and that he valued this information highly. Most importantly, this hints at the larger networks of information sharing and changing values that were hallmarks of the early colonial era in India