000			02301nam a22003377a 4500
008			190504b xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9788189059712
037			_cPurchased _nMathrubhumi Books,Kaloor
041			_aEnglish
082			_a934 _bFIG/AR
100			_aFigueira, Dorothy M
245			_aARYANS,JEWS,BRAHMINS : Theorizing Authority through Myths of Identity
250			_a1
260			_aNew York _bNavayana _c2017/01/01
300			_g205
500			_aIn Aryans, Jews, Brahmins, Dorothy Figueira provides a fascinating account of the construction of the Aryan myth and its uses in both India and Europe from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century. The myth concerns a race that inhabits a utopian past and gives rise first to Brahmin Indian culture and then to European culture. In India, notions of the Aryan were used to develop a national identity under colonialism, one that allowed Indian elites to identify with their British rulers. It also allowed non-elites to set up a counter identity critical of their position in the caste system. In Europe, the Aryan myth provided certain thinkers with an origin story that could compete with the Biblical one and could be used to diminish the importance of the West's Jewish heritage. European racial hygienists made much of the myth of a pure Aryan race, and the Nazis later looked at India as a cautionary tale of what could happen if a nation did not remain pure. As Figueira demonstrates, the history of the Aryan myth is also a history of reading, interpretation, and imaginative construction. Initially, the ideology of the Aryan was imposed upon absent or false texts. Over time, it involved strategies of constructing, evoking, or distorting the canon. Each construction of racial identity was concerned with key issues of reading: canonicity, textual accessibility, interpretive strategies of reading, and ideal readers.
650			_aRacism
650			_aVedic literature
650			_aIndia
650			_aEurope
650			_aCivilization
650			_aIndo-Aryans
650			_aAntisemitism
650			_aAncient History, Indo- Aryans- History And Criticism
650			_a India History 19th Century
942			_cLEN
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999			_c176842 _d176842