One thing I found interesting about this reading, was how King opens his chapter with the genealogy of the “mystical” and exposes epistemologies of Western blindness and assumption. He believed that the western study of religion largely depended on Enlightenment. IN some sense, Orientalism reflects the political power relationship between the western civilization with Asia where the west dominates and maintains authority over the Orient (or in this case the East). The reading even mentions that according to Inden, the “indological discourse transforms Indians into subjugated objects of a superior knowledge” (King). This suggests that the oriental discourse is more a sign of power than a true account of the Orient. Inden is especially critical
