A democratic and peaceful society can be built out of knowledge and hope, said Prof. Raymond Brady Williams, LaFollette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities emeritus at Wabash College, US. He was speaking at the launch of the book “Swaminarayan Hinduism – Tradition, Adaptation, and Identity” at King’s College, London, on June 2.
Williams highlighted how this book came about, which is full of chapters from leading authorities from multiple disciplinaries from within the community and outside, presenting new and relevant information about Swaminarayan history, theology, arts, and transnational development.
Tradition, adaptation and preservation of individual and group identity in the midst of economic, social, political and religious changes are the highlight of this book, he said.
Williams, one of the editors of this book, described how after a four-day conference of Swaminarayan Sampradaya in Delhi in August 2013, 20 scholars were chosen and invited to write for this book.
“I am so glad that present in this book are the voices of authors of many national and cultural settings, both insiders and outsiders, people who are religious and non-religious, Swaminarayan Sadhu leaders, secular scholars, and incredibly impressive young scholars who are entering the field of research on the Swaminarayan Sampradaya, Hinduism and religion in general and that’s the most exciting aspect of this book,” Williams said.
The book is divided into four sections – History; Theology and Literature; The Arts and Architecture; and Transnational Movements.
Williams said this book provides first-hand eye-witness accounts and therefore is a prime resource material for the history of the Swaminarayan Sampradaya.
He said there’s a chapter on the history of the Swaminarayan Sampradaya in East Africa. A primary resource for this chapter was Nairobi-resident Mahendrabhai Patel, who gave a first-hand eye-witness account of many of the events in the history of East African development of the Asian community, the Hindu community and the Swaminarayan Sampradaya itself. Williams gave a brief description of how Mahendrabhai, as the leader of the Swaminarayan Sampradaya in Kenya and East Africa, managed to get the ritual objects of the temple at one place and get them across the border to a safe place in Kenya. This was during the turbulent times in East Africa when Asians were expelled from Uganda.
Mahendrabhai was present in the hall when Williams was describing about him at the book launch event. He was given a huge round of applause by the audience.
Another chapter deals with an account of the terrorist attack on Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar in 2002. The chapter is written by Brahmavihari Swami, a prominent Sadhu who grew up in Leicester and left the sampradaya here to become a sadhu and now works in the global office and works closely with Pramukh Swami Maharaj. He happened to be inside the temple when the terror attack took place. Williams said such a poignant eye-witness account is not available anywhere else except in this book. More importantly, he put it in the context of inter-faith relationship, keeping in mind inter-communal harmony, and keeping tension and conflict at bay.
Yogi Trivedi, Adjunct Professor in the Graduate School of Journalism and a doctoral student in the Department of Religion at Columbia University, and also co-editor of this book, focussed on the poetry and music of Swaminarayan Samprayadaya.
He said this book launch is to get a word out to Swaminarayan community and also to wider Gujarati and wider Hindu diaspora community that there is more to Swaminarayan Sampradaya than just temples and the humanitarian work that is done so well that is appreciated and celebrated around the world.
On the occasion, Trivedi rendered soulfully a few brilliant lyrical compositions of Brahmanand Swami and Premanand Swami.
The event was hosted and presided over by Professor Sunil Khilnani, Director of King’s India Institute.
Khilnani said the book is a serious scholarly study of a very important living tradition in India and across the world. It’s not written with abstraction, it’s a book that carries through the life of the community.
He said: “Swaminarayan community has always been very much part of my broader understanding of India, yet I have never really seen any scholarly writing about it. So I am truly delighted that there is such a book or work now available to all of us.”
This book will instruct and provoke or stimulate a conversation about the evolving nature of our beliefs and practices, he said.
The event was moderated by Dr Katherine Butler Schofield of King’s College London.
The book is edited by Raymond Brady Williams and Yogi Trivedi.
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Prof. Raymond Brady Williams spoke exclusively to Asian Voice.
Q. What’s the message of this book?
A. The message of the book is that people are Hindu within specific traditions and this presents a variety of perspectives on one significant Hindu tradition so that if one wants to learn about Hinduism you can get an entry point by looking at this particular tradition and that opens up to the wider world.
Q. What were your goals or intentions while editing this book? How well do you feel you have achieved them?
A. Well, that would be for others to say. The goals and intentions were to bring together the best scholars from around the world from a diverse perspective, all focusing on the Sampradaya in order to open up various aspects of Swaminarayan traditions, art, architecture, poetry, history, philosophy, bring them all together and I think we did that – but how successfully that would be for the reviewers and readers to say. But I am very pleased.
Q. How tough and interesting was it working on this book?
A. Coordinating was the most difficult part of it, communicating across so many different nations – Uganda, UK, Canada, etc. And without the modern communications it would have been impossible to bring this book together.
The valuable part was how willing these world renowned scholars were to join together to meet deadlines, to be cooperative and so it represented a wonderful sort of collaboration, a great diverse group of people all working together which I found very satisfying. Some of the chapters are individually very interesting.
Q. Was there any effort in the book to remove any misconceptions about Swaminarayan Sampradaya?
A. I think the book is not polemic in the sense that it is trying to correct things that other people may have mistaken. But the only way to correct error is to present a true picture and in so far as presenting the true picture calls into question something that others may or may not have said, the only way to respond accurately to those is to present the truth and that I think is what the various scholars have tried to do. It is not polemical in any sense.
Q. What are you doing next? Is there anything in the pipeline?
A. The book I wrote called “A New Face of Hinduism” as an introduction to Swaminarayan Hinduism was issued as a second edition by Cambridge University Press. That came out in 2001. And so I have been in conversation with Cambridge about the possibility of issuing yet another revised edition because, as I say, the Sampradaya and the scholarship have developed so much over the last 15 years. So my next task is to decide whether I want to undertake that revision but I hope to be able to do so.
