The idea of a unified ʻHinduismʼ has found new and interesting arguments in recent scholarship (e.g. Nicholson 2010, Fisher 2017, Allen 2022). Most of them involve the delineation of a heterodoxy versus orthodoxy, but they usually do not consider the boundary-making by explicitly non-Vedic traditions. Within the Jain literary corpus, the idea of the Brahmin other is prominent and decisive in claiming a distinct Jain identity. This Brahmin other is not unified in the sense that he expounds a single philosophical view, or adheres to a single set of gods, but rather exists as the representative of a group of religious followers that is different from the Jains as well as the Buddhists. This lecture considers how the representation of a brāhmaṇa (Brahmin) or dvija (twice-born) in the ʻExamination of Religionʼ (Dharmaparīkṣā) adds to this discussion on the possibility of a premodern ʻHinduismʼ.

The ʻExamination of Religionʼ is a polemical narrative that comically criticizes Hindu purāṇic stories and exists in several adaptations composed between the tenth and eighteenth century in languages of Northern and Southern India, including Sanskrit, Braj, and Kannada. A diachronic analysis of these versions suggests that a Brahmin was understood differently by the specific authors in their specific locations. The idea of the Brahmin other seems to have depended on time and geography, but also on the social environment of the audience. The choice of language is another factor that arguably influenced the depiction of the brāhmaṇa. Before this backdrop, the lecture will probe whether these different Brahmins are ununifiable or whether they could perhaps represent a continuum of a composite religion.