Patronage and Popularisation, Pilgrimage and Procession

This volume is about exchange of religious ideas, focusing on channels of transmission and translation, both inter- and trans-culturally. It looks at the circulation of ideas in early modern India, with an eye to identify moments of change and its agents. The main questions under investigation are: How are religious traditions transmitted? At which point do innovations occur and are they explicitly marked as such or do they slip in unnoticed? Who are the agents involved in transmission and change, and what are the audiences and patrons of these processes? The volume also studies how this fl ow of ideas infl uences dynamics of identity formation. In particular, several papers look at the construction of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim identities in the modern period, and how this evolved from more fl uid, or differently constituted identities in the pre-modern period. The volume is organized around three themes: transcultural translation, pilgrimage and procession, and patronage and popularisation.