Reform in Tradition: Bhaktivinoda’s Apologetic for the Bhāgavata Purāṇa

Abstract

 The article Reform in Tradition by Kenneth R. Valpey analyzes Bhaktivinoda’s 1869 English tract, The Bhāgavata: Its Philosophy, Its Ethics, and Its Theology, as a response to Orientalist and Christian critiques. Valpey shows how Bhaktivinoda reframed the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as a deeply rational, ethical, and spiritual work, aimed at both reform-minded Hindus and skeptical Western audiences.