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 Religions in South Asia, edited Sushil
Mittal, Associate Professor and the Director
of the Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global
Nonviolence at James Madison University in
Virginia, and Gene Thursby, Associate Professor at the University of Florida, attempts
to serve as a gentle summary regarding the religions that originated in the South Asia
and the ones that arrived here. The book was first published in 2006 by Routldge
simultaneously at Oxon, London and Madison Avenue, New York.

The book creates awareness regarding the various religions that has arrived and
mingled with the remaining in this dynamic and historically rich region, politically,
culturally and socially. This textbook has been aimed towards undergraduates looking
for an organized way to tackle the different traditions. It introduces the contemporary
religions of South Asia- from the native and contemporary religions such as the
Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh traditions, to incoming influences such as
Christianity, Judaism and Islam and how these communities have adapted to the
Indian culture and how they have differentiated themselves from the Hindu majority.
In ten chapters written by various leading experts the volume analyzes the leading
belief systems and explains their history, practices, values, and worldviews. The
chapters contain cross-religious comparison, questions for discussion, a timeline of
religious developments in Asia, and a glossary.
The book provides ample illustrations where necessary and delicately wades
through the issue of terminology, seeing as how each religion comes with its own. The
reference section is huge and lends credence to the volume.
It succeeds, in my opinion, to gather and present the facts, practices, values, and
worldviews of the nine religions talked about in the book to the students.| A final
chapter helps students relate what they have learnt to religious theory, paving the way
for future study. The chapter continues to talk about many different philosophers,
such as John B. Noss, Huston Smith, John Hick, etc., and their views on the subject.
Personally I have found that the book invoked my interest in other religions and also
made me look into mine, and all its historic origin among my ancestors in an unbiased
and factual way- which I would think of as being its greatest contribution.
 3ach of the different religions has their traditions defined, history analyzed,
literature investigated, practices probed, expressions explored, and relations with
other religions looked into. Beginning with an explication of the foundational concept
of „


, the authors demonstrate the diversity of its usage within the traditions
that have originated in the Indian subcontinent. Following a standard format covering
set topics and issues; the book reveals to students the core principles of each faith,
compares it to neighboring traditions, and its particular place in South Asian history
and society. As the region has become home to many of the world's most vibrant
religious faiths, it has become a melting pot with
changing political and social structures that has
caused religions to interact and hybridize in unique
ways.
For example, Hinduism as a religion presents a
challenge when it is so much does not correspond
with the word ¶religion·. While Abrahamic religions
praise being the one true religion, Hindus glorified
diversity. Further the fact that India didn·t even
name their religion ² rather the term dharma was
probably the closest to an equivalent in Indian
language to the meaning of ¶religion· in the West. I
found such issues I was unfamiliar with concisely
explained.
I found it useful that the authors tried their best to keep their biases at minimum,
where the last chapter in particular handled was dedicated to keep in consideration
the different perspectives. It dedicates several pages on the insider/outsider problem
of philosophy and goes on to discuss Orientalism in the post-colonial times,
discussing in details about 3dward Said and even touching various contemporary
authors such as J. J. Clarke, Salman Rushdie, Homi Bhaba, and many more.
Concluding with the sub-topic entitled Beyond Prejudice, the editors draw a line at
pointing out how not to do cross-cultural scholarship.

Because I, personally, have not followed up on many books regarding on the

diverse religions, I cannot not naturally subjectively compare the book and bring up
points of agreement or disagreement. However, I found no mention of the silent,
secular crowd, save for just over a page on Muslim secularism and nationalism at
page 255. Now whether secularism is an alien concept to South Asia or whether that
and the lack of faith itself were not covered by the book intentionally has been left
unknown to me.
Another point, not of disagreement, but something that seemed gauche was
that although the book was written in an unbiased way, the chapters were all of
different lengths. While I can agree that there might not just be much to be said about
a particular religion in the context covered in the book, I note that the ancient Buddha
Dhamma was talked about in total in 28 pages while the Hindu Dhamma was talked
about in 78 pages. A similar discrepancy can be found among all the other chapters as
well. However, to be fair, the editors did mention the unequal length was by design
(page 8), but I disagree that Buddha dharma did not create a historical presence.

All in all, I would recommend the book to those who are looking at historic and
political back story of religions in the Indian region. It provides and introductory start
into the theological ideals of said religions to undergraduate students, in particular. It
is a perfect resource for all about South Asia's diverse and fascinating faiths.