FEATURES OF THE
INDIAN RENAISSANCE
(I)
Socio
– religious Movements
In the beginning Renaissance led
to the repudiation of Indian values and slavish imitation of all that the west
stood for. It seems that the influence of the west in all spheres of life has
ben so overwhelming that Indians lost their own and became “sedulous apes”.
Such a state of things roused in due course a strong reaction. Consequently a
spirit of revival commenced and everything savoring of the past was supported
whole – heartily, welcomed warmly and honored enthusiastically. It was a
defensive mechanism against extreme reaction. It was symbolized in the
religious messages of Dayannand Saraswati, Ramakrishna paramahansa and Vivekananda.
It may be designated as the ‘revivalists group’. Between the two movements
arose a new one. It sought compromise between the two. It was led by Raja Ram
Mohan Roy and propagated Rabindranath Tagore, Dr. Annie Besant and Ramakrishna
Mission. This ‘Middle group’ aimed to assimilate the best and enduring features
of European culture with those of Indian without elimination or discarding the
essential ingredients of the Indian culture and civilization.
But the first decades of the
twentieth century witnessed the birth of another unique spiritual movement in
India. It was led by Shri Aurobindo. It interpreted Indian Renaissance as the
rebirth of the soul of India into a new body of enthusiasm and energy, a new
form of its innate and ancient sprit.
On account of these religious
movements “there arose in the period a number of reformers, teachers, saints
and scholars who have purified Hinduism by denouncing some of its later
accretions, separate its essentials from non – essentials, confirmed its
ancient truths by their own experience and have been carried its message to
Europe and America.
(II)
Recovery
of Indian history
