FOR the purposes of this panel discussion, it seems more appropriate to make a series of suggestions and observations about the difficulties and promises of writing history within a Hindu-Christian framework than to offer a paper arguing a single point or perspective. Hindu-Christian history presents a particular set of challenges given the shifting political and material conditions that have attended the dramatic encounter between these disparate cultures and traditions. In what follows I

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... pt to articulate some of the larger issues with which I wrestle as I study and write Hindu-Christian history. Brian·Pennington is Associate Professor of Religion at Maryville College, Maryville, TN. He is author of Was Hinduism Invented?: Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion (Oxford University Press, 2005). He specializes in colonial-era Hindu-Christian interaction and has written also on method and theory in the study of religion. His current research proj ect is a comparative analysis of transitions now underway in the regional religious traditions of the Himalayan and Appalachian mountains.