This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Pailin, D. A. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

'I Cannot Tell How All the Lands Shall Worship...'

A Response to S.N. Balagangadhara's Study of the Understanding of 'Religion'

University of Manchester

This paper responds to Balagangadhara's study in five ways: (1) it questions whether its justifiable comments on the problematic character of the concept of religion prove that the concept cannot be used with a global reference; (2) it suggests that the study needs a more extensive treatment of Indian traditions to elucidate its claims about them; (3) it raises the problem of cross-cultural understanding, especially where the relevant understanding is considered to be performatively practical rather than theoretically explanatory; (4) it discusses the cultural relativity of understanding with particular reference to English works of the 17th and 18th centuries; and (5) it considers the significance of suggestions about the inappropriateness of treating 'religion' as a way of classifying certain supposedly isolatable modes of thought and behaviour.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?