Book Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; Preface; Part I Introduction: The question of a prehistory; 1 Subalternity at the cusp: Limits and openings of the dalit critique; 2 Moral rite before myth and law: Death in comparative religion; 3 The time of having-found (God): Languages of dalit hearsay; Part II The vicissitudes of historical religion; 4 The anomaly of Kabir: Historical religion in Dwivedi's Kabir (1942); 5 The pitfalls of a dalit theology: Dr. Dharmvir's critique of Dwivedi (1997); 6 System and history in Rajwade's "Grammar" for the Dnyaneswari (1909)
Part III The prehistory of historical religion7 The suspension of iconoclasm: Myth and allegory in the time of deities; 8 Miracle and violence: The allegorical turn in Kabir, Dnyaneswara, Tukaram; 9 Deity and daivat: The antiquity of light in Tukaram; Notes; Bibliography; Index
Summary
Explores the relation between mainstream and marginal or subaltern religious practice in the Indian subcontinent. Keeping in view the power and reach of genocidal Hinduism, this book offers a look at how the religion of marginal communities at once affirms and turns away from secularised religion
