Unifying Hinduism

''Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History'' is a 2010 book written by the American Indologist Andrew J. Nicholson, Associate Professor of Hinduism and Indian Intellectual History at the State University of New York (SUNY), on the history of Indian philosophy, describing the philosophical unification of Hinduism, which the author places in the Middle Ages. The book was published in the United States in 2010 in hardcover, with a paperback edition appearing in 2014. An Indian hardcover edition was published by Permanent Black in 2011. The book won the 2011 award for Best First Book in the History of Religions from the American Academy of Religion, and has been reviewed in numerous academic journals.

Topics covered

''Unifying Hinduism'' contains 10 chapters. Much of the book focuses on the thought of the medieval Indian philosopher Vijñānabhikṣu. The book's central concern is to show that Vijñānabhikṣu provided a philosophical synthesis of diverse schools of Indian philosophy, thereby providing a philosophical unification of Hinduism long before the British colonial conquest and rule of India. This refutes claims that Hinduism only attained unity (or only was "invented") as a response to colonial influence.

After an introductory first chapter, the next five chapters focus on Vijñānabhikṣu's philosophical syntheses. Chapter 2, entitled "An Alternate History of Vedanta", sets the stage by tracing the history of Bhedābheda Vedānta, a comparatively neglected tradition that teaches the "difference and nondifference" of Brahman and the individual self. Vijñānabhikṣu's version of this "Difference and Non-Difference" Vedānta is described in Chapter 3.

Chapter 4 offers a historical overview of two important non-Vedānta, earlier orthodox Indian philosophies: the philosophical schools of Sāṃkhya and Yoga, focusing on their views of God, documenting that, contrary to the widespread view of Sāṃkhya as an entirely atheistic school of thought, most first millennium Sāṃkhya philosophers were theistic.
Chapter 5, "Reading Against the Grain of the ''Sāṃkhyasūtras''", focuses on a controversial assertion by Vijñānabhikṣu that some verses in the ''Sāṃkhyasūtras'' that explicitly argue against God's existence do not ultimately intend to deny God's existence, but represent merely a “temporary concession” (''abhyupagamavāda'') or “bold assertion” (''prauḍhivāda'').
Finally, Chapter 6, "Yoga, Praxis, and Liberation", discusses Vijñānabhikṣu's commentary on Patañjali's ''Yogasūtras'', arguing that Vijñānabhikṣu's commentaries on Vedānta, Sāṃkhya, and Yoga represent a unified whole.

Chapter 7, "Vedanta and Samkhya in the Orientalist Imagination", discusses how Vijñānabhikṣu was diversely viewed by 19th-century European scholars, who in some sense can be understood as "intellectual inheritors of Vijñānabhikṣu’s thought".

The next two chapters return to South Asian thought, with Chapter 8 focuses on Indian philosophical doxographies (categorizations) and Chapter 9, "Affirmers (Āstikas) and Deniers (Nāstikas) in Indian History", providing a history and preferred translation of the two terms '' āstika and nāstika'', which are more often translated as " orthodox" and "heterodox".
The concluding tenth chapter, "Hindu Unity and the Non-Hindu Other", discusses the timing of the unification of Hindu philosophical schools, suggesting that the stimulus was the presence of Islam in the Indian subcontinent.

Reception

''Unifying Hinduism'' won the 2011 award for Best First Book in the History of Religions from the American Academy of Religion.

Reviews have appeared in academic journals such as the ''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'', ''Religious Studies Review'', '' Sophia'', ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'', '' Journal of Hindu Studies'', ''South Asian History and Culture'', '' Literature and Theology'', ''Choice'', and ''Metapsychology''. ''Unifying Hinduism'' has also been discussed in the 2014 book '' Indra's Net: Defending Hinduism's Philosophical Unity'', written by Indian-American author Rajiv Malhotra.

In the ''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'', Christopher Key Chapple wrote that the author "has created a tour-de-force that puts India’s premodern thinkers in conversation with its postmodern intellectuals". In particular, Chapple stated that "Nicholson has created a masterful analysis of how premodern India conceptualized and reflected upon the issues of unity and plurality. Medieval Hindu thinkers set forth a philosophical position that seeks to articulate a coherent worldview without sacrificing the complexity of India’s divergent views and deities. Nicholson demonstrates that this endeavor was not an artificial product of modernist, revisionist hybridity as asserted by Orientalist scholars but an authentic autochthonous response to an intricate theological context ndhad a reflexive self-awareness and a level of sophistication commensurate and perhaps even more inclusively complex than those found in the western Christian, Jewish, and Islamic theological traditions."

Also in the ''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'', Michael S. Allen wrote that the book won Best First Book "for good reason: lucid and accessible... Nicholson’s book offers an excellent model for South Asianists seeking to engage with the wider field of religious studies", while the book "can also be recommended to nonspecialists with interests in religious identity, boundary formation, and comparative theology". To Allen, "Nicholson has convincingly shown that a process of unification began well before the British colonial period, extending back several centuries at the very least". However, "there is reason to suspect that the beginnings of the process he describes predate the twelfth century.... hichwould in turn call into question the degree to which Islam influenced the process."

In ''Religious Studies Review'', Jeffrey D. Long wrote that the book "sets the record
straight" regarding the historical emergence Hinduism, and "promises to change the scholarly conversation on Hindu identity". Long describes the book as "marvelously clear, meticulously researched, and tightly argued", pointing out that the book also "problematizes or demolishes a number of other oft-repeated truisms of Indian intellectual history, such as that Samkhya was always atheistic, that Advaita is the earliest and truest to the original sources of the systems of Vedanta, and that Vijnanabhiksu... was an unrepresentative thinker of little importance to the Vedanta tradition."

In '' Sophia'', Reid Locklin wrote the book was "somewhat fragmented", with chapters showing marks of prior publication or presentation elsewhere, but that "The cumulative effect is nevertheless very impressive", and that "Given the enormous scope of its enquiry, the work is relatively concise, very accessible and therefore suitable for the advanced undergraduate or graduate classroom".

In ''Journal of the American Oriental Society

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