German Visions of India, 1871 1918
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German Visions of India, 1871 1918 Commandeering the Holy Ganges during the Kaiserreich Perry Myers
german visions of india, 1871 1918 Perry Myers, 2013 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-29971-0 All rights reserved. First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-45290-3 DOI 10.1057/9781137316929 ISBN 978-1-137-31692-9 (ebook) Myers, Perry. Leopold von Schroeder s Imagined India: Buddhist Spirituality and Christian Politics during the Wilhelmine Era. German Studies Review 33.2 (2009): 619 36. 2003 2012 German Studies Association, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Scribe Inc. First edition: March 2013 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Carlyn F. Myers
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Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1 I Protestant and Catholic Champions and Their Visions of India 1 Restoring Spirituality: Buddhism and Building a Protestant Nation 25 2 Catholic Visions of India and Universal Mandates: Commandeering the Nation- State 53 II Breaking Out of the Iron Cage: Fringe Religious Innovators and Their Detractors 3 Responding to Science and Materialism: Buddhism and Theosophy 81 4 Buddhism s Catholic and Protestant Detractors 113 III The Radicalization of Germany s India 5 Ambivalent Visions of the British Raj: Spirituality and Germany s Colonial Champions 149 6 Prescriptive History and the Radicalization of Community Building 169 Epilogue 199 Notes 201 Bibliography 239 Index 251 ix xi
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Illustrations Figure 1.1 Leopold von Schroeder 29 Figure 2.1 Catholic Vicarages in India (1838) 68 Figure 3.1 Theodor Schultze 88 Figure 5.1 Hübbe- Schleiden s Pyramid of Power Potentialities 155 Figure 5.2 Hübbe- Schleiden s Evolution in the Animal World 157
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Acknowledgments As I contemplate the completion of this manuscript, somewhat in disbelief, I realize the debts that I have accumulated to friends, family, and colleagues. Early on I began to make a list of those who had written a support letter, made an insightful comment at a conference, found a book for me in a library, read a chapter, or posed a question that made me think about something in a different way. To all of those people I give my heartfelt thanks. I hope that I have not missed any who have contributed in some way, big or small, to this project. First, I would like to thank my parents, who never said no to my at times unusual adventures, which in effect was always a vote of support. I give special thanks to my mother, who as a multidecade public school teacher modeled for me the kind of educator that I would like to emulate. My family in Germany, Karl and Renate Abel, has provided a hospitable summer home during our stays in Bad Soden. Their generosity has provided the means to conduct research and writing during our numerous stays in Germany. Also thanks to Grit Liebscher and Frank Eisenhuth for providing a fantastic gateway to Germany every summer. Several institutions and granting agencies also deserve recognition. I received a DAAD Faculty Research Visit Grant during the spring of 2010. My home institution, Albion College, also provided sabbatical leave during that same semester, as well as generous financial support, which allowed me to spend a memorable eight months working at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz. The friendly and helpful staff at the Stabi made research easier and fun. While in Berlin I was sponsored by the Friedrich Meinecke Institut at the Freie Universität. Its director at the time, Bernd Sößemann and his administrative assistant, Gilda Langkau, were most helpful in arranging my sabbatical in Berlin. Also at the FU, my thanks go to Sebastian Conrad and Claudia Ulbrich for their support. I also spent time in the Evangelisches Zentralarchiv Berlin, where Henner Grundhoff helped me dig up archival references to India. A special thanks also goes to Margrit Pernau from the Max Planck Institut for Human Development in Berlin, who invited me to spend an afternoon discussing my research with her and several graduate students. I would also like to thank the staff at Albion College s library who have never hesitated to help me find sources with those strange and long German words. Here Nicole Garrett, Becky Markovich, Allie Moore, and Mike VanHouten deserve special thanks for their help in several last minute searches. During recent summers my library away from home has been the
xii Acknowledgments Universtätsbibliothek at the Goethe Universität Frankfurt. There Anne- Marie Kaspar, Maike Strobel, and Franziska Voss have been most helpful and deserve recognition. Over the past several years numerous people deserve my appreciation: Sai Bhatawadekar, Joanne Miyang Cho, Robert Cowan, Jörg Esleben, Veronika Fuechtner, Nicholas Germana, Pascal Grosse, Bradley Herling, Katie Kirch, Christina Kraenzle, Sukanya Kulkarni, Eric Kurlander, Hiram Maxim, Douglas McGetchin, Kamakshi Murti, Erika Nelson, Diethelm Prowe, Mary Rhiel, Peter Staudenmeier, George Steinmetz, Rodney Symington, Corinna Trautel, Thomas Trautman, and George Williamson. Special thanks go to Nicholas Vazsonyi, Pascale Rabault- Feuerhahn, and Sabine Mangold for their support. When all is said and done a book needs a good editor and publisher. I would like to give special thanks to Chris Chappell, Sarah Whalen, and Katherine Haigler at Palgrave Macmillan, as well as the anonymous readers, for their help in improving the quality of my work. Special thanks are also due to Kyriaki Tsaganis at Scribe Inc., whose probing questions and excellent copyedits have improved the book s clarity. I am grateful to Lisa Kleinholz for creating the index. Any errors remain my own. Rarely does one work in a department as harmonious as Modern Languages and Cultures at Albion College. I would like to express my appreciation to my colleagues, both present and former: Catalina Pérez Abreu, Linda Clawson, Dianne Guenin- Lelle, Eriko Ike, Julia Medina, Takami Mohri, Makiko Nakano, Marcie Noble, Kalen Oswald, Rebecca Whitehead- Schwarz, Emmanuel Yewah, and most importantly my former colleague in German and now sorely missed, Cathie Grimm. Several other former and present colleagues at Albion deserve recognition: Geoffrey Cocks, Chris Hagerman, Bhindu Madhok, the late Selva Raj, Yi- Li Wu, and Midori Yoshii. I would also like to thank Nina Berman for her continued support throughout recent, now many, years. Also an enthusiastic thank you goes to Suzanne Marchand, whose research and generous feedback have helped me tremendously to frame arguments better, and more precisely. Her insightful comments on much of this manuscript have certainly made it better. Since my graduate school days continuing to the present, Katie Arens has met every request to read one more chapter, and one more chapter. I personally and this book have benefitted tremendously from her support, keen insight, and willingness to help. I save the most important for last. I would like to thank Susanne, my spouse who has always supported my adventures and the hardships they have incurred. We have made them together. Without her this book would be half empty. I will be forever grateful. My two daughters, Larissa and Marina, courageously departed familiar schools and their friends in Michigan, and braved their own eight- month sabbatical in Berlin. For their willingness to forego the security of the familiar and their great attitudes about Papa s endless research I am forever indebted. When this book finds its place on the shelf, Susanne, Larissa, and Marina will still be my heart. In the book s context, translating from German into English poses particular problems at striking a balance between meaning, English syntax, and the
Acknowledgments xiii expressive flair of these German India experts. Susanne Myers and I have pored over quotations for hours trying to achieve that balance. The reader will notice that at times the English translations are cumbersome, perhaps at times even flamboyant, but this indeed reflects our attempt to respect the writing style of these thinkers. I hope that we have achieved that delicate balance.