Monotheism and modernity: W. E. Hearn, Ireland, empire and the household gods

Operating with Darwinian categories, and beginning with Sir Henry Maine's Ancient Law (1861), scholars in comparative ethnology, jurisprudence, and philology claimed that some societies evolved organically in a series of stages while others failed to develop. In religious discourse a key indicator of modernity was a belief in monotheism. This belief, however, like the related achievement of 'civilisation', was generally held to be incapable of spontaneous growth in savage or barbaric societies and the transition from archaic polytheism to the monotheism of modernity was powerfully enabled by the spread of empire. W. E. Hearn (1826-1888) published The Aryan Household in 1878, with the subtitle An Introduction to Comparative Jurisprudence. He saw archaic society as household-centred, lacking both a state and law, operating a regime of what Maine termed 'status' rather than 'contract', where the foundation of human association was religion rather than kinship. This shared worship was symbolized by a common meal in honour of the household gods, the spirits of deceased ancestors. In Hearn's words, 'The common meal was the sole means by which a communication could be maintained between the spirit-world and the earth'. Christianity waged a 'war without parley and without truce' against the household gods but its victory in 'clannish' Ireland was far from complete, for Hearn saw Ireland, in many respects, as closer to archaic society than to modernity with its unreformed majority religion and its still unvanquished household gods

Dining alone in Rawalpindi? Max Arthur Macauliffe: Sikh scholar, reformer, and evangelist

Max Arthur Macauliffe, originally Michael McAuliffe (1838-1913), Indian Civil Servant, judge, and Sikh scholar, was born in Glenmore, Monagea, Co. Limerick, Ireland. He graduated from Queen's College Galway in 1860 and began his colonial career in India in 1864. He became Assistant Commissioner and Judicial Assistant in the Punjab, then Deputy Commissioner, and finally a Divisional Judge. Born a Catholic, when he lived in Amritsar Macauliffe became deeply interested in the Sikh religion. He learned the languages of the Sikh scripture, the Adi Granth, and did the classic translation of major parts of it into English. In 1909 the Clarendon Press published his celebrated work, The Sikh Religion: Its Gurus, Sacred Writings and Authors, in six volumes. He saw his translation as pioneering in that he collaborated closely with indigenous Sikh scholars and he committed to writing what had previously been orally communicated. Macauliffe was an erastian in his belief that the Sikh religion should be subject to the state which, in turn, had a duty to support it. In his unceasing quest for official sponsorship, he emphasised the advantages of Sikhism to the state but he was bitterly disappointed in his failure. He began his masterpiece in missionary mode: 'I bring from the East what is practically an unknown religion', and he had a central role in propagating the Tat Khalsa interpretation of Sikhism in the west. He had serious difficulties in his professional career and major scandals in his personal life. However, Macauliffe died a wealthy man