Hindu pluralism: A prehistory

Abstract Sectarianism is a term that has become firmly ingrained in Western scholarly literature on Hinduism for more than a century—and with a definition that, at best, may seem peculiarly idiosyncratic, and at worst dangerously misleading. In emplotting theistic difference as deviance, previous scholarship has gone too far in erasing the variegated textures of the Indic religious landscape, layers of difference that persist unabated to this day beneath the guise of Hindu unity. By reframing the diversity of Hinduism in light of its early modern precursors, this article aims to re‐situate Hindu sectarianism as a precolonial, and distinctively non‐Western form of religious pluralism. The sectarian religious publics of early modern South India provide us with an opportunity to rethink the very criteria for a non‐Western pluralism, founded not on the prescriptive model of a Western civil society but on a historically descriptive account of the role of religion in public space.