Readers beware: this opening chapter is not about religion. Come to think of it, despite what many readers might think, neither are all of the other chapters. Instead, they are about some of the issues involved in defining an object of study – whatever that object of study may be. Although in our case it happens to be a collection of beliefs, behaviors, and institutions that many people know by the name ‘religion’, one would think that insights derived from examining how definition works elsewhere would pay off in our field as well.

Before one can study religion, one had better figure out who uses the word (and who does not) and what we, as scholars, mean by it. Does it refer to some real thing out there in the world? Does it refer to something deep inside the human heart? Or is it just a tool some of us use to name parts of the world that we happen to find curious? Just what does it mean to define something as a something?

To start to offer some answers to these questions, consider the following case…

In March of 1856 Andrew Scott Waugh wrote a letter. Twenty-four years prior to this he had joined the team of British surveyors who were carrying out what was then called the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India. Eventually, he became the Surveyor-General in charge of this massive project.