'I Cannot Tell How All the Lands Shall Worship...'

Abstract

This paper responds to Balagangadhara's study in five ways: (1) it questions whether its justifiable comments on the problematic character of the concept of religion prove that the concept cannot be used with a global reference; (2) it suggests that the study needs a more extensive treatment of Indian traditions to elucidate its claims about them; (3) it raises the problem of cross-cultural understanding, especially where the relevant understanding is considered to be performatively practical rather than theoretically explanatory; (4) it discusses the cultural relativity of understanding with particular reference to English works of the 17th and 18th centuries; and (5) it considers the significance of suggestions about the inappropriateness of treating 'religion' as a way of classifying certain supposedly isolatable modes of thought and behaviour.