Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority through Myths of Identity

Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority through Myths of Identity

Figueira, Dorothy M.

Paperback

Series: Suny Series, the Margins of Literature

Literary CriticismGeneral European HistoryIndian & South Asian History

ISBN10: 0791455327
ISBN13: 9780791455326
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: Sep 26 2002
Pages: 217
Weight: 0.66
Height: 0.49 Width: 6.52 Depth: 9.14
Language: English

Explores the construction of the Aryan myth and its uses in both India and Europe.

In Aryans, Jews, Brahmins, Dorothy M. Figueira provides a fascinating account of the construction of the Aryan myth and its uses in both India and Europe from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century. The myth concerns a race that inhabits a utopian past and gives rise first to Brahmin Indian culture and then to European culture. In India, notions of the Aryan were used to develop a national identity under colonialism, one that allowed Indian elites to identify with their British rulers. It also allowed non-elites to set up a counter identity critical of their position in the caste system. In Europe, the Aryan myth provided certain thinkers with an origin story that could compete with the Biblical one and could be used to diminish the importance of the West's Jewish heritage. European racial hygienists made much of the myth of a pure Aryan race, and the Nazis later looked at India as a cautionary tale of what could happen if a nation did not remain pure.

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