Page - 73 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

Unruly Images | 73www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 55–86 The Civilising Mission Next to images showing different aspects of “Hinduism”, a second recur- ring theme in the collection is that of missionary activity itself. While the pictures depicting religion generally suggest the extravagant otherness of India and Hinduism, pictures showing missionary activity suggest that this otherness is not so extreme that nothing could be undertaken. The impres- sion of an understandable otherness which one could improve is achieved through showing scenes of progress, most typically with a missionary at work and succeeding in his task. The missionary is easily recognisable: he (never she) is distinguished by his European clothing (often white), his hat, and his position in the picture, somewhat distant from the “native people”, or at least standing in a space that is distinct from the main action, convey- ing the impression that he is observing and reflecting on what is happening (see, for example, fig. 14). Sometimes pictures were reworked in order to put more emphasis on the missionary activity. Thus, a depiction of a scene showing a “Hindu dying”36 kept in the Basel Mission archives (fig. 15) is supplemented in the repub- lished version with the figure of a missionary with his Bible (fig. 16). Evi- dently the engraver could easily modify a drawing for editorial reasons, and 36 The scene refers to the customary giving away of a cow – the vaitaraṇī cow – to a dying Brahmin, which will help him reach safely the other side of the Vaitaraṇī river in hell. See Kane 1968, 182–183 for details about the ritual. Fig. 14: Panel 55, “Tamil lands”, “Hindu children greeting the missionary”, Bilder-Tafeln, Calwer Verlagsverein.