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The Emergence of Conversion in a Hindu-Buddhist Polytropy: The Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, c. 1600–1995

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2005

David N. Gellner
David N. Gellner
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Extract

The practice of conversion—changing from one religion to another—is certainly not a modern invention, but it takes on a new and sometimes threatening significance in a modern context characterized by censuses, elections with universal suffrage, and majority rule. In the modern world separate religions have come to be defined, like ethnic groups or nations (Barth 1969), by the boundaries between them. One can only be a refugee if one flees across an international boundary; likewise, conventionally, religious change is only labeled “conversion” if it occurs across a boundary. Thus, as boundaries have become sharper between ‘religions,' so the issue of conversion has grown in political significance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , October 2005 , pp. 755 - 780
Copyright
© 2005 Society for Comparative Study of Society and History

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