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doi:10.1017/S0009640708002023 Christian Inculturation in India. By Paul M. Collins. Liturgy, Worship, and Society. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2007. xvii + 244 pp. $99.95 cloth.
A wedding necklace (thäli or tali) instead of a wedding ring; an auspiciously blessed marriage mat (mukHrttam); a tonsure or topknot (küdümi, also known as sikha); a forehead mark (tilak or bindi; or kümüm); use of a palanquin, white horse, and/or parasol (châtra) in a ritual procession; clarified butter (ghee) and raw sugar (ghur), honey, coconut, or some other food for a customary celebration; ingesting a ritually "cooling" or "heating" substance; sitting crosslegged for worship or prayer; maintaining a dual identity, using both a "Christian" and a "Hindu" name; taking communion only with one's right hand; "mother-tongue" worship versus Latin, Syro-Malabari (Syriac) or Sanskriti rites: the list of cultural and social issues, with controversial religious or ritual overtones, among hundreds of Christians communities of India, seems endless.
Christian worship, ever capable of transcending cultural barriers, has never been confined to one culture. It certainly is not bound by patterns imposed from Europe. No one culture or language is, in itself, sacred. All possess a potential of becoming so, to a greater or lesser degree. Christian cultures of India, with their norms or rituals, are not mere instances of "legitimization," or "recognition," by alien Christians from the West. Rather, each reflects an instance of the "indigenous discovery of Christianity" by one among manifold Indian peoples, for themselves. Hence, each attempt to understand Christianity in India requires...