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The exploration of the psychological terrain of the Indian inner world begins by looking at the cluster of ideas, historically derived, selected, and refined, through which Hindu culture has traditionally structured the beliefs and behaviour of its members. This chapter deals with Hindu philosophy in prescriptive configuration of ideal purposes, values and beliefs which percolate down into the everyday life of the ordinary people and give it form and meaning. It tackles the theme of fusion—moksha; life task and life cycle—dharma; and ideas of time and destiny. As posited by Hindu culture, the ultimate aim of existence, the chief purushartha (man’s meaning), is moksha or mukti. In the Hindu philosophical tradition, dharma is the central concept of Mimamsa, the intensely activist philosophy of the first two parts of the Vedas. The third essential idea in the Hindu world image is karma.

This chapter continues the discussion on the fragility of moral choices. A heightened moral awareness is the ideal, but the road to it is seen by ordinary people to lie in the consistent effort of self-improvement through attention to the proper (culturally defined) conduct of life. This is the process of maturation discussed in Chapter 1 in the context of the notion of the good life as Kashmiri Brahmans entertain it. While the pitfalls of making moral choices in a spirit of or hubris are recognized in Hindu culture, the importance of bringing what one desires under the control of what one ought to prefer is also stressed. In fact, the two perspectives are seen as mutually reinforcing rather than as contradictory. The moral effort involved is great, but failing to make the endeavour causes suffering. The theme of suffering, and of preparation for death, which are of central importance in Indian (Buddhist, Jaina, Hindu) worldviews, are introduced.

This chapter discusses one kind of human suffering—that associated with death. A concern with longevity has long been present in Hindu culture. It is not, therefore, surprising that the rituals were mostly concerned with prolonging life. There was also the idea of the possibility of exchanging an old body for a new one. The notion of the good life lived in the light of ethical norms became salient later on, but never completely displaced the value placed upon plenitude. The notion of karma came to be recognized as the primary cause of birth and death. It also became the basis of the ethical doctrine of works and retribution.

The preceding chapters were devoted to a consideration of the emergence of the view that the Hindus lacked a sense of history, its influence on Indian Studies, and the responses it evoked. This chapter now asks whether the proposition itself—independent of its origin, influence, and the response it has provoked—is valid or not. It argues that if one is looking for evidence to judge the presence or absence of historical sense among the Hindus, then the place to look for it are the epigraphic records left by the rulers. Stones and not parchment seems to have the medium of choice in ancient India. The two inscriptions examined are the Junagadh Inscription of Rudradāman (c. 150 AD) and the Allahabad Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta (c. 350 AD).

This chapter highlights the fact that even radical religious innovation occurs within the frame of preexisting structures of thought, which can on occasion act as “prisons of the longue durée.” It places this notion within ethnographic and historical contexts, returning to the “small-scale” societies. Bali, a “nation” consisting of villages that resemble the small-scale societies of the sample yet have historical connections with Buddhist and Hindu cultures, is predominantly described in the chapter. It begins with an existential puzzle, or aporia, which is expectable in any rebirth eschatology and that is waiting to surface under suitable circumstances. If it is indeed the spirit that initially gets incarnated or reincarnated in the human womb, then what is the role of coitus and seminal ejaculation in conception? This theme raises different ideas from various critiques. According to Plato's idea of a society of men without genitalia, immoral men are punished by being reincarnated as women, beasts, and plants, whereas good males reincarnate in their original form. To resolve this issue it refers to a famous controversy that animated the anthropological imagination in the late 1960s.

This chapter explores the layered status and reception of South Asian art in US culture. It begins by setting the context for museum displays, explaining both the strategies used in exhibiting cultures and the power-play that museum organizers engage in, to suggest that what the public sees is not “just art” but the careful showcasing and eliciting of aesthetic responses by “mediating between art and the visitor.” Next, using three different exhibitions curated by the Sackler Gallery—“Devi The Great Goddess,” “India Through the Lens,” and the “Chola Bronzes”—the chapter explains how the author's Asian Americanness, that is, “the politics of her own identity as an insider-outsider, an individual with a hyphenated status, and a woman” coincided with the planning and curating of the exhibitions. “Devi,” in particular, was executed as an interactive exhibition that made concrete numerous aspects of Hindu culture as the materiality of many South Asian homes in the United States.

This chapter interrogates the contradictions that befell the Congress Party in the wake of Indian independence in 1947. What happens when concepts and practices associated with Enlightenment—suffrage, freedoms of various kinds, political economy—are not homegrown but imports? When they do not develop gradually but are instituted in one year? Are not expressions of popular sovereignty but the explicitly pursued policy of a state seeking to discipline a people into modernity? The chapter describes the special privilege the Nehru government gives to modern communications, and most especially television and advertising, as channels through which to reach the nonliterate members of the nation and reorganize the sensorium of India. A reading of one television ad for the Times of India, entitled “A Day in the Life of India,” demonstrates the complex mediations entailed in the co-mingling of the promises of Enlightenment, advanced capitalism, and alluring visual displays of wealth, with the knowing skepticism of an indigenous oral Hindu culture.