Some postcolonial theorists argue that the idea of a single system
of belief known as "Hinduism" is a creation of nineteenth-century
British imperialists. Andrew J. Nicholson introduces another
perspective: although a unified Hindu identity is not as ancient as
some Hindus claim, it has its roots in innovations within South
Asian philosophy from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries.
During this time, thinkers treated the philosophies of Vedanta,
Samkhya, and Yoga, along with the worshippers of Visnu, Siva, and
Sakti, as belonging to a single system of belief and practice.
Instead of seeing such groups as separate and contradictory, they
re-envisioned them as separate rivers leading to the ocean of
Brahman, the ultimate reality. Drawing on the writings of
philosophers from late medieval and early modern traditions,
including Vijnanabhiksu, Madhava, and Madhusudana Sarasvati,
Nicholson shows how influential thinkers portrayed Vedanta
philosophy as the ultimate unifier of diverse belief systems. This
project paved the way for the work of later Hindu reformers, such
as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted
the notion that all world religions belong to a single spiritual
unity. In his study, Nicholson also critiques the way in which
Eurocentric concepts--like monism and dualism, idealism and
realism, theism and atheism, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy--have
come to dominate modern discourses on Indian philosophy.
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