Anthropologists have spilt much ink deconstructing concepts inherited from the Enlightenment. Religion, possibly the most misleading such concept, has proved highly resistant to the acid of cross-cultural comparison. Debates about the nature of religion go back to sociocultural anthropology's beginnings as a discipline and beyond. Proposed definitions have been numerous, but none has come close to universal acceptance, mainly because conventional definitions are secularized versions of Abrahamic, and especially Protestant, positions and reproduce their essentialism and intellectualism. I argue that by looking closely at the way religious phenomena are conceptualized in South Asia, and especially at how distinct types of religion are practised in characteristically different spaces, a fresh take on the subject is possible. Religion as practised is not one thing but at least three distinct activities and should be conceptualized as such. But, if that is so, how and why is the totalizing conventional view still so pervasive and so powerful? Seeking the answer to that question takes us back to the constitution of modernity and the relationship of religion to the nation-state. The way forward is to contest the way in which religion has become the last bastion of pure essentialism.

中文翻译：

---

宗教空间：南亚视角★

人类学家花费了大量笔墨解构从启蒙运动继承下来的概念。宗教，可能是最具误导性的概念，已被证明对跨文化比较的酸度具有高度抵抗力。关于宗教本质的争论可以追溯到社会文化人类学作为一门学科及其以外的学科的起源。提出的定义有很多，但没有一个接近普遍接受，主要是因为传统定义是亚伯拉罕学派，尤其是新教立场的世俗化版本，并再现了它们的本质主义和理智主义。我认为，通过仔细研究南亚宗教现象的概念化方式，特别是不同类型的宗教如何在具有特征的不同空间中实践，对这个主题有一个新的认识是可能的。所实行的宗教不是一件事，而是至少三种不同的活动，应该这样概念化。但是，如果真是这样，那么总体化传统观点如何以及为何仍然如此普遍和如此强大？寻找这个问题的答案让我们回到现代性的构成以及宗教与民族国家的关系。前进的道路是对宗教已成为纯粹本质主义最后堡垒的方式提出质疑。