This paper aims to trace the emergence and articulation of the concept of ‘superstition’ (andh-vishwas; andh-shraddha in vernaculars) in 19 \(^{\textrm{th}}\) century colonial India and its role in the construction of modern Hinduism. It begins by tracing the evolutionary history of this concept in Europe where it first functioned as a relational concept to differentiate between true-and false religion, and later been religion and science. Drawing upon recent scholarship that conceptualizes religion, superstition, and the secular as constituting a triadic relationship and examines its role in the boundary-making processes through which religion was historically defined in Europe and East Asia, this paper explores a similar process in colonial India, though under different historical conditions. Through an analysis of the writings of Rammohan Roy, Dayananda Saraswati, and Swami Vivekananda, it explores how ‘superstition’ (idolatry, miracles, astrology, etc.) served as a central concept through which these reformers defined true religion and, by extension, delineated the boundaries of ‘true Hinduism’ in the context of colonial modernity.
