Bengali Brahaminical Spiritualism as the Soul of Hindu Nation!What led the Ex revolutionary RISHI Aurobindo to Escape in sipritual world! Did he betray the Freedom movement or he was disillusioned!

All Bengali Icons Bankim, Swami Vivekanand, Tagore and even kazi Nazrul Islam played major role to shpae in not only Bengali Brahaminical nationalism but also the India Hindu Nationality.Shantiniketan and Aurobindo ashram are bigger Centres of Brahaminical Hindutva than the RSS Headquarters in Nagpur! So are the Belur Math and Ramkrishna Mission! The Mharaj class emerging from the Ramkrishna Mission are better PRACHARAK than any RSS Pracharak. They brain wash quite systematically and scientifically and leaves NO space forNon Hindu Non aryan Identity or Nationality!

Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time - FIVE Hundred Thirty Five

Palash Biswas

http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/

http://basantipurtimes.blogspot.com/

www.sriaurobindosociety.org.in

The official web site of the Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry, India

The presentation to follow has been executed in Flash 3.

In order to view the same, you'll require a Flash plugin

| wish to view in flash | no flash option |

If you wish to visit the homepage directly, click here

http://www.sriaurobindosociety.org.in/

Sri Aurobindo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sri Aurobindo (Bengali: শ্রী অরবিন্দ (অরবিন্দ ঘোষ) Sri Ôrobindo) (born Aurobindo Ghose, in Calcutta 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) ...
The Life Divine - Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Integral psychology - Involution
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Aurobindo - Cached - Similar
Sri Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo, yoga, the ...
The official web site of the Sri Aurobindo Society in Pondicherry, India.
SAS Newsletter - No flash option - Wish to view in flash
www.sriaurobindosociety.org.in/ - Cached - Similar
Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo ...
Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, his life, writings, yoga, supramental, philosophy and ...
www.sriaurobindosociety.org.in/sriauro/sriauro.htm - Cached - Similar
Show more results from sriaurobindosociety.org.in
Images for Sri Aurobindo
- Report imagesThank you for the feedback. Report another imagePlease report the offensive image. CancelDone
Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Information about the ashram in Pondicherry, India, and its activities. Includes an image gallery.
www.sriaurobindoashram.org/ - Cached - Similar
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15 August 1872. At the age of seven he ...
www.sriaurobindoashram.org/ashram/sriauro/index.php - Cached - Similar
Show more results from sriaurobindoashram.org
Sri Aurobindo - Biography Section
30 Jun 1997 ... Autobiography, biographical sketches and an index of published texts relating to this Indian political and spiritual leader.
www.miraura.org/bio/sa-bio.html - Cached - Similar
The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
Introductions to Integral Yoga and to the people and centers who aspire to ...
www.miraura.org/ - Cached - Similar
Show more results from miraura.org
Sri Aurobindo
There Sri Aurobindo was a brilliant scholar, winning record marks in the Classical Tripos examination. But he had already been touched by a will for the ...
auroville.org/vision/sriauro.htm - Cached
The mother - Google Books Result
Aurobindo Ghose, Sri Aurobindo - 1995 - Philosophy - 62 pages
Important small work dealing with the action of the Divine powers in the world and practice of yoga of Sri Aurobindo.
books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0941524795...

Videos for Sri Aurobindo

*	Sri Aurobindo -- A Homage 9 min - 5 Jun 2007 Uploaded by ask158 youtube.com

*	Sri Aurobindo And the Descent of Supermind ... 6 min - 28 Mar 2009 Uploaded by SidhartKaul youtube.com

Sri Aurobindo —
Sri Aurobindo spent his formative years in England studying at St Paul's and Trinity College where he excelled in the study of Literature and the Classics. ...
www.writespirit.net/authors/sri_aurobindo - Cached - Similar

News for Sri Aurobindo

60th death anniversary of Sri Aurobindo observed

3 days ago

PTI Devotees from all over the country on Sunday paid homage to revolutionary-turned-spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo at his ashram here on the occasion of ...

Hindustan Times - 2 related articles

Timeline results for Sri Aurobindo

1872	Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15th August, 1872. His father Dr. Krishnadhan Ghosh had a fascination for western education and western life ... books.google.com
1926	The Aurobindo Ashran was founded on 24th November 1926. Sri Aurobindo soon chose to retire from the public view announcing that Mother would hence ... living.oneindia.in

More timeline results »

Searches related to Sri Aurobindo
sri aurobindo quotes
auroville
sri aurobindo college
sri aurobindo seva kendra
sri aurobindo institute of education
sri aurobindo international school
sri aurobindo biography
sri maa sri aurobindo
You have removed results from this search. Hide them
Loading...

Everything
Images
Videos
News
Blogs
Books

MoreFewer

Howrah, West Bengal

Auto-detected

Change locationClose

Search Options

The web
Pages from India
Any time
Latest
All results
Timeline
Sites with images

Fewer search toolsMore search tools

Puducherry chief minister V Vaithilingam today paid homage to Dr BR Ambedkar on the occasion of his 54th death anniversary.Welfare minister M Kandasamy, legislators, PCC leader AV Subramanian and Congress workers also paid tributes to the late leader at the Congress party office.Vaithilingam, his cabinet colleagues and leaders of various political parties also paid floral tributes at the leader`s statue here,braving inclement weather. Meanwhile,with rains abating after more than ten days of battering, Puducherry returned to normalcy today.

It looks Pudducherry beyond the spritualism of Rishi Aurobindo and the French flavour! As Hindutva prevails there in environment and mood.It is quite silence all over beginning from the Samadhi of Aurobindo.We visted the place on 13th November and had our presence felt in the Aurobindo Ashram. Ambedkarite ideolgy may not be traced anywhere. It is the same case in Brahaminical Bengal!

I was rather wondering what led the Ex revolutionary to Escape in sipritual world! Did he betray the Freedom movement or he was disillusioned!

I have visited Lalgola in Murshidabad and saw the Goddess Kali in sickles. Aurobindo is known to visit the place as Bankim wrote Anandmath from there and kazi nazrul Islam composed his Shyama Sangeet staying there.

The sipritual link seems common which makes the Brahaminical Hindu Rashtra Nationality.

Coincidentally, as Aurobindo achieved International recognition based in his spiritual abode in Pudducherry, Swami Vivekanand also created the Image of Hindurashtra Bharat from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, meditating on the Rock in Bay of Bengal in Kanyakumari.

At the same time, Ravindra Nath Tagore, the Bengali Nobel Laureate also converted the Baul and Sufi Spiritualism with a little bit of Buddhist influence into Pure Hindutva.

It was Tagore only who played instrumental to make Vande Mataram national Song, as I have dealt with the subject very often.

Even the academic studies in Bengal dominated by the Brahamins only have done everythig to prove Indigenous Aboriginal Culture as FOLK Lore!

It is ridiculous as Brahaminical Culture was introduced in Eastern India only during the Sen Dynasty and Chaitnya Mahaprabhu established the Baishnav stream of Hindutva replacing aborignal Non Hindu Non aryan Shakto and Shaibo streams.

It seems that the Bengali Intelligentsia right from beginning, from the era of Sen dynasty, since the literary period of Sanskrit classical poet Jaidev of Geet Govindam fame, worked constantly to kill the Aboriginal Indigenous identity.

All Bengali Icons Bankim, Swami Vivekanand, Tagore and even kazi Nazrul Islam played major role to shpae in not only Bengali Brahaminical nationalism but also the India Hindu Nationality.Shantiniketan and Aurobindo ashram are bigger Centres of Brahaminical Hindutva than the RSS Headquarters in Nagpur! So are the Belur Math and Ramkrishna Mission! The Mharaj class emerging from the Ramkrishna Mission are better PRACHARAK than any RSS Pracharak. They brain wash quite systematically and scientifically and leaves NO space forNon Hindu Non aryan Identity or Nationality!

Though Pudducherry remains an aboriginal indigenous Humanscape as the rest of Dravid Nadu, Hindutva overlaps the identity as it is the same case in aboriginal Indigenous Bengal.

Swami Vivekanand spoke on Inclusion and did forcast the Rule of Shudras as he pursued the Human Philosophy of his Guru Ramkrishna Paramhans. But otherBrahaminical Icons rather helped the Mainstream converted Outcaste and Marginalisesd.In Dravidnadu also we may feel presence of Overwhelming Hindu nationality despite its sustaining assertive Aboriginal Indigenous Identity as well as Nationality NonAryan with the continuity of History and Legacy intact!

You may feel it everywhere, in Chennai, Tanjavur, Madurai, kanyakumari, Erode, Tiruneveli and Coimbtore. Everywhere UNTOUCHABILITY is practiced and branded Brahamins have the Previlege in all spheres of life. Shankaracharya Peeth, Meenakshee Temple, Kanchipuram, Chidambaram Temple City, Tanjavur and Tirupati Balji make the hindutva Superstructure in the Non aryan Dravidnadu wherefrom Rama is established as the Super icon of Hindu nationality. One Rameshwaram overlaps entire Dravidnadu!

The feel Untouchability is quite evident in the Aurobindo Ashram as in Puri Jagannath Mandir, Pashupati Temple in Kathmandu and Meenakshi temple and Tirupati Balaji despite its universal appearance. In philosophy, Hindutva seems to be rather Liberal and Democratic as the Vedanta sounds, but the Manusmriti rule and Graded caste system discipline and Untouchablity make it the most Brutal religion, INHUMAN! Which denies justice and Equality. Empowerment and Knowledge! Partcipation and Awakening! It is right and right EXCLUSION!

It also hapened in Bengal after the success of great Chandal movement, the anti Brahamin Aboriginal Indigenous cultural roots were overrooted and the Matua do try to prove harichand and Guruchand Thakur as Maithili brahamin origin! It is official in matua literature!

The transition of revolutionary barindra Nath Ghosh into a spritual Icon is quite intriguing. No body dared to question the role of the spritual leader as Revolutinary! It is strange and as much as betrayal to history and Truth as the Missinglinks of History which are described as dark age!

All schools and colleges which had holidays consecutively for six days since last week reopened today.

Puducherry and Karaikal regions were battered by rains till Monday with total rainfall exceeding the annual average by 25-40%, sources said.

Puducherry administration is yet to come out with a fullfledged report on the havoc the floods had caused in the two regions, although a relief of Rs 1,000 per family had been announced for those affected by the rains.

CPI has criticsied the government`s current move to collect particulars from each of the families in printed form brought out by the revenue department before issuing the money.

CPI MLA R Viswanathan said this was a `time consuming, amusing and impractical approach` and hence should be given up.`Let the money be handed through ration shops on the basis of cards as was done in the past under the supervision of the revenue authorities`, he said.

French minister pays homage at war memorial in Puducherry

Visiting French minister for foreign and European affairs Michelle Alliot Marie today paid homage at the foot of 'Unknown Soldier' at the war memorial maintained by the French government on the Beach Road in Puducherry.

The Memorial is dedicated to the French soldiers who laid down their lives in the first World War (1914-1918).

French consul general in Puducherry Pierre Fournier and two representatives of French nationals Tirou Ramachandran and Shankar Vazhumuni, elected from Puducherry, a former French colony, to the French assembly for Overseas French citizens, office bearers of the retired French military personnel's associations and officials were among those present.

Marie later declared open the renovated block in the precincts in the French government-run higher secondary school (Lycee Francais) and addressed the students and staff.

Cry for a Hindu Nation by V. Sundaram
It is my inalienable, indivisible, inexorable and immutable birth right to demand the creation of aHindu Nation. I am not ashamed or afraid of declaring ...
www.boloji.com/analysis2/0124.htm - Cached - Similar
Hindu nationalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

He saw his effort very much in terms of a revitalization of the Hindu nation, which carried Hindu spirituality and which could counter Western materialism. ...

History - Hindu Renaissance in the late ... - Independence movement
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_nationalism - Cached - Similar
India is a Hindu nation: RSS chief

India is a Hindu nation: RSS chief - The RSS said on Tuesday that Hindutva is the.
www.indianexpress.com/...is-a-hindu-nation.../444216/ - United States - Cached
BBC - BBC Four Documentaries - Hindu Nation

Sir Mark Tully writes about his documentary on the rise of Hindu Nationalism.
www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/.../hindu-nation.shtml - Cached - Similar - Add to iGoogle
Is America a Hindu nation? - Instablogs

22 Aug 2009 ... Lisa Miller writes that recent polls show that conceptually Americans are becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians.
createravi.instablogs.com/entry/is-america-a-hindu-nation/ - Cached - Similar
INDIA IS AN ANTI HINDU NATION !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | Sangh ...

9 Jun 2010 ... Afzal kasab and Afzal Guru is a Patriot. Bhagat Singh, Lt. Col. Purohit, DIG Vanzara, KPS Gill, Sadhvi are Terrorists.
www.sanghparivar.org/blog/the.../india-is-an-anti-hindu-nation - Cached
Ayodhya: Deciding Battle for the Hindu Nation - Cplash, The ...

14 Nov 2010 ... Ayodhya: Deciding Battle for the Hindu Nation - Cplash, Citizen Journalism Site.
cplash.com/.../Ayodhya-Deciding-Battle-for-the-Hindu-Nation484.html - Cached

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) - A movement to unite the ...

Rated 4.7 out of 5.0

- 44 min - 20 May 2005
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) - A movement to unite the Hindu nation. 43:42 - 4 years ago. This video takes the readers from the ...
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9219556788002380042 - more videos »

YouTube - Hindu Nation: India's Religious Cleansing

Rated 5.0 out of 5.0

- 4 min - 16 Jul 2009
CBN News. NEW DELHI, India - February 1, 2008. It was perhaps one of the worst attacks on Christians ever in India's history.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIZM9hAoKfM - more videos »

The Hindu Nation

1 post - Last post: 29 May 2007
I believe in the more civilizational and cultural aspect of our great Hindu/Vedic nation than its rituals or superstitions and I think most ...
blogs.expressindia.com › Blogs - Cached - Similar

Books for Hindu Nation

Hindu Wife Hindu Nation: Community Religion ... - Tanika Sarkar - 2001 - 306 pages

Hindu Nationalism: Origins Ideologies and ... - Chetan Bhatt - 2001 - 244 pages

books.google.co.in

Everything
Images
Videos
Books

Howrah, West Bengal

Change location

Search Options

- The web
- Pages from India
- Any time
- Past 2 months

More search tools

Puducherry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Union Territory. For its capital city, see Pondicherry (city).

புதுச்சேரி État de Poudouchéry Union Territory of Pondicherry
— Union Territory —
Joseph François Dupleix statue in Pondicherry
Pondicherry Location of புதுச்சேரி État de Poudouchéry Union Territory of Pondicherry
Coordinates	11.93°N 79.83°ECoordinates: 11.93°N 79.83°E
Country	India
District(s)	4
Established	1 November 1954
Capital	Pondicherry
Largest city	Pondicherry
Lt. Governor	Iqbal Singh
Chief Minister	V. Vaithilingam
Legislature (seats)	Unicameral (30)
Population • Density	973,829 • 1,979 /km² (5,126 /sq mi)
HDI (2005)	0.748 (medium)
Official languages	Tamil, French
Time zone	IST (UTC+5:30)
Area	492 km² (190 sq mi)
ISO 3166-2	IN-PY
Website	www.pondicherry.gov.in

	This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

Puducherry (Tamil: புதுச்சேரி Putuccēri; French: Poudouchéry), formerly known asPondicherry (and still nicknamed Pondy), is a Union Territory of India. It is a former Frenchcolony, consisting of four non-contiguous enclaves, or regions, and named after the largest region, Pondicherry. The territory was officially known as Pondicherry until 2006 when it wasrenamed Puducherry.^[1]^[2] Of late, Pondicherry is also considered an educational hub of southern India, having 1 national institute of technology, 1 central university, 8 medical colleges, 10 engineering colleges, 3 dental colleges, 2 law colleges, 1 veterinary college, 1 agricultural college, 10 arts and science colleges, and 5 polytechnic colleges functioning within its territory. Many medical and engineering colleges including a state-owned university are also reported to be in queue. People of Pondicherry are demanding statehood for Pondicherry and are also requesting to add neighboring villages from Tamil Nadu to newly form Greater Pondicherry state for better administration and development purposes.^[3]

[hide]

[edit]Etymology

Joseph François Dupleix.

The name Puducherry (புதுச்சேரி) means New Hamlet in Tamil, the local language. During the colonial period the name was changed to Pondicherry. Pondicherry was widely used for a long time to refer to the region. In 2006, the name for the state and the capital city officially reverted to Puducherry.

During ancient times, it is known as Poduke or Podukai. Ancient Greeks referred to this place as Poduke and Aryans referred as Vedapuri.^[4]

[edit]Geography

Pondicherry consists of four non-contiguous regions: Pondicherry, Karaikal, and Yanam on the Bay of Bengal and Mahé on the Arabian Sea. Pondicherry and Karaikal are by far the larger ones, and are both enclaves of Tamil Nadu. Yanam and Mahé are enclaves of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, respectively.

The territory has a total area of 492 km² (190 sq mi): Puducherry 293 km² (113 sq mi),Karaikal 160 km² (62 sq mi), Mahé 9 km² (3.5 sq mi) and Yanam 30 km² (12 sq mi). It has 900,000 inhabitants (2001). Greater Pondicherry Movement which is recently formed is demanding of unification of neighbouring villages from Tamil Nadu to make Pondicherry region contiguous and larger in area to form the Pondicherry State, which would increase the area of the Pondicherry region from 293 km² (113 sq mi) to 510 km² (200 sq mi).

Pondicherry is little away from Chennai in the east coast, and east coast is having continuous stretch of mangroves. The main river in Pondicherry is the Gingee (Sankarabarani river), believed originate from Gingee. It bifurcates into the Ariyankuppam and Chunnambar rivers. Maximum mangrove vegetation is found in Ariyankuppam river banks toward the estuary. In the Karaikal region, the mangrove vegetation is found distributed in Kizhvanjur estuary and Arasalaar estuary near the lighthouse. Most of the plants growing in the lighthouse region backwaters were planted by artificial plantation.^[5]

[edit]History

Main article: History of Pondicherry

Pondicherry was mentioned in thePeriplus of the Erythraean Sea, 1st century CE.

There are various references to the word Poduke, a port town on the Coromandal Coast, in history. The identification of a Roman trading centre in the immediate vicinity of Pondicherry adds weight to the equation of Poduke with Pondicherry. Although this has been suggested by more than one writer, the equation of Poduke with Puduvai the name by which the town was known in the early days, seems to be more acceptable. According to tradition, the town was once upon a time an abode of scholars well versed in the Vedas and hence came to be known as Vedapuri. During the days of Ottakoothar and Kambar in the 11th and 12th centuries, Pondicherry was known in its shortened form as Puthuvai.

Joseph François Dupleix became the Governor of the French Territory in India on 15 January 1742 and brought Madras also under French control in September 1746; Madras continued under French rule for 3 years. An attack on Pondicherry by the British in 1748 failed. Dupleix's help to Chanda Sahib and Musafer Jung in 1750 added Villianur and Bahour, a group of 36 villages, to French control. This was the peak period of the French regime; thereafter there was a decline in their sovereignty.

Despite the Treaty of Pondicherry, internal disturbances in Pondicherry gave the British the opportunity, in August 1793, to gain control of Pondicherry; it was administered as part of Madras until 1815. However, after the Treaty of Paris in 1814, the British restored the settlements, which the French had possessed on 1 January 1792, back to the French in 1816. French rule continued until 31 October 1954^[6].

Pondicherry helped in the freedom movement in British India since 1910. Sri Aurobindo of Bengal came to Pondicherry in 1910 followed by patriots like Poet Subramanya Bharathi, V.V.C Iyer and others. In 1918, the British demanded the extradition of Sri Aurobindo and other freedom fighters. The French government did not comply with this. Gandhi visited Pondicherry in 1934 and Jawaharlal Nehru in 1939.

Following the understanding reached between the Governments of India and France, the question of the merger of Pondicherry with the Indian Union was referred to the elected representatives of the people for decision in a secret ballot on 18 October 1954; 170 out of 178 elected representatives favored the merger. The de facto transfer of power took place on 1 November 1954; the de jure transfer on 16 August 1962.

[edit]French influence

Street signs in French

Pondicherry still retains much evidence of its history as a French colony. The design of the city was based on the French (originally Dutch, the plans of Pondicherry dating from the end of the 17th century (1693–1694) are preserved in the National Archives at The Hague) grid pattern and features neat sectors and perpendicular streets. The entire town is divided into two sections, the French Quarter ('Ville Blanche' or 'White Town') and the Indian Quarter ('Ville Noire' or 'Black Town'). The history of French India is led by Joseph François Dupleix, governor general of the French establishment in India, and rival of Robert Clive. Dupleix was primarily responsible for theCarnatic Wars. At first Dupleix was successful in resisting the attacks of the English East India Company, but he lost in the later battles.

There is also French influence in the layout of the city. The numbering of the houses is unique compared to other cities in Tamil Nadu, in that the even numbers are on one side and the odd numbers are on the opposite side of the road.

[edit]Official languages of Government

The official languages of Pondicherry are Tamil and French. Telugu, Malayalam are official language of Yanam and Mahe enclaves respectively. English is used for administrative convenience. The status of each language varies with respect to each district. English is lingua franca between the enclaves.

Tamil: Language used by the people in the Tamil majority districts of Pondicherry and Karikal. Also the official language in neighbouringTamil Nadu state.

French: Also the official language of Pondicherry Union Territory. It was the official language of French India (1673–1954) and its official language status was preserved by the Traité de Cession signed by India and France on 28 May 1956.

French remained as the de jure official language of Pondicherry U.T. by the Article XXVIII of Traité de Cession which states that:

"Le français restera langue officielle des Établissements aussi longtemps que les représentants élus de la population n'auront pas pris une décision différente" (French version)

"The French language will remain the official language of the Establishments as long as the elected representatives of the people do not take a different decision" (English version)

[edit]Languages spoken

Languages (2008)
Languages	Percentage
Tamil	89.18 %
Others	10.82
Total	100

As of 1981, number of people speaking in each official languages are,

Tamil: 89.18 % (868,461)^[7]
Other Languages (Includes French, Telugu, English and Malayalam) : 10.82 %^[7]

[edit]Tourism

Main article: Tourism in Pondicherry

Pondicherry is one of the most popular tourist destinations in South India. The city has many colonial buildings, churches, temples, and statues, which, combined with the systematic town planning and the well planned French style avenues, still preserve much of the colonial ambience. Pondicherry is also known as La Côte d'Azur de l'Est meaning "The French Riviera of the East".

Map of Pondicherry Region, Union Territory of Pondicherry, India

The most popular tourist destinations are the four beaches in Pondicherry, which are Promenade Beach, Paradise Beach, The Auroville Beach and Serenity Beach^[8]. Sri Aurobindo Ashramlocated on rue de la Marine, is one of the best-known and wealthiest ashrams in India. Auroville(City of Dawn) is an "experimental" township located 8 km North-West of Pondicherry. Auroville is meant to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities^[9].

There are a number of 18th and 19th century churches in Pondicherry as well as a number of heritage buildings and monuments are present around the Promenade beach such as the Children's Park and Dupleix Statue, Gandhi statue, Nehru Statue, Le Café, French War Memorial, 19th Century Light House, Bharathi Park, Governors Palace, Romain Rolland Library, Legislative Assembly, Pondicherry Museum, and the French Institute of Pondicherry at Saint-Louis Street.

Joyful boat rides at Chunnambar boat house (Pondicherry-Cuddalore Road) and at Osutari lake, Botanical Garden for joyful train ride and for unseen natures beauty.

Thirukaameeswarar Temple is one of the ancient, beautiful, and huge temples that is located in a beautiful rural town called "Villianur" (the ancient name was Vilvanallur, which means "vilva marangal niraindha nalla vur"), which is located about 10 km away (towards Villupuram) from Pondicherry town. This temple is renowned as "Periya Koil", which means "Big Temple" in Pondicherry locality. The prime god is Lord Shiva and the prime goddess is Goddess Kokilambigai. In addition, there are also other Hindu gods such as Murugan, Vinayagar, ThakshanamoorthY, Perumal, Bhramah, Chandikeshwarar, Natarajar, Navagrahah, and 63 Naayanmaars. The pioneers in this temple say that the age of this temple is about 1000+ years. This seemed to be constructed by one of the Chola Kings. There is also a huge "temple pond". One of the famous festival of this temple is "Ther Thiruvizha" (Car Festival).

The other important temple is "Sri Manakula Vinayagar Temple" located within the Pondicherry town.

[edit]Government and administration

Main articles: Pondicherry Legislative Assembly, Municipalities of Pondicherry, and Pondicherry Municipal Council

[edit]Sub-divisions

Pondicherry is divided into two districts and each district is divided into sub divisions, taluks and sub-taluks:

Pondicherry
Districts	Sub Divisions	Taluks	Sub-Taluk
Pondicherry	Pondicherry – North	Pondicherry Ozhukarai
	Pondicherry – South	Villianur Bahour
Yanam	Yanam		Yanam
Mahé	Mahé		Mahé
Karaikal	Karaikal	Karaikal Thirunallar

[edit]Special administration status

According to the 1956 Traité de cession, the four former French colonies were assured of maintaining their special administrative status. That is why Pondicherry is the only Union Territory with some special provisions like Legislative Assembly, French as official language, etc. Article II of Traité de Cession states:

"The Establishments will keep the benefit of the special administrative status which was in force prior to 1 November 1954. Any constitutional changes in this status which may be made subsequently shall be made after ascertaining the wishes of the people."

[edit]Statehood

Special Statehood for Pondicherry sought by people and government of Pondicherry to empower the Chief Minister, his Cabinet colleagues and the Assembly to implement legislation.^[10] People of Karaikal and Yanam region strongly opposing to merger with proposed Pondicherry state.^[11] Group of protestors hailing from Pondicherry region demanding to add neighbouring villages from Tamil Nadu to merger with Pondicherry state for better administration and have a contiguous boundary.^[3].

[edit]Economy

[show]Pondicherry population

[edit]Macro-economic trend

This is a chart of trend of gross state domestic product of Pondicherry at market prices estimated byMinistry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

Year	Gross State Domestic Product (In Millions of )
1980	1,840
1985	3,420
1990	6,030
1995	13,200
2000	37,810

Puducherry's gross state domestic product for 2008 is estimated at 64,570 million, and a per capita income of 66,478, one of the highest in India. The literacy rate of the U.T. is 81.49%, much higher than the national average of 64.8%^[13]. Puducherry is growing as a destination to hardware units, having subsidiaries of few multinational giants like Wipro, HCL and IBM. The U.T. also has manufacturing units of Hindustan Unilever Limited, Suzlon etc. The potential for fisheries is substantial in the Union Territory. The four regions of the Union Territory have a coastline of 45 km (28 mi) with 675 km² (261 sq mi) of inshore waters, 1.347 ha of inland water and 800 ha of brackish water. There are 27 marine fishing villages and 23 inland fishing villages with fishermen population of about 65,000 of which 13,000 are actively engaged in fishing. Irrigation tanks and ponds are also tapped for commercial fish rearing. The railways play a vital role for speedy economic growth. The entire cost towards execution of the new broad gauge line for 10.7 km (6.6 mi) from Karaikal to Nagore will be funded by the Ministry of Railways and work has already been awarded on a turn-key basis for laying the new railway line in a period of 18 months. The present availability of power is about 400 MW. The demand is likely to increase with the development of the Port, Special Economic Zone, other industrial development, trade and commerce etc. It has been decided to expand Puducherry Airport so that air services can improve gradually over time, to land ATR to Boeing aircraft to meet the growing demand for air travel. A Memorandum of understanding has already been signed with the Airports Authority of India for expansion of Puducherry Airport in two phases.

Auroville

[edit]Important personalities

Sri Aurobindo - British India freedom fighter and religious reformer
The Mother-Sri Aurobindo's close spiritual collaborator, born in Paris, France.
Joseph François Dupleix - French Governor General (Rival of Robert Clive )
Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau - French Governor General
Maire de Yanaon Samatam Kistaya - Pro-French Telugu poet & the last don Coup d'État de Yanaon
Edouard Goubert - First Chief minister of free Puducherry
Ananda Ranga Pillai - French Indian leader dubash'
Bharathidasan - Tamil poet and social activist, follower of Bharathiyar
Ganapathi Thanikaimoni - Botanist and palynologist
M. Night Shyamalan - Hollywood movies producer, Padma Shri awardee
Dilip Kapur - Founder and President of the lifestyle brand Hidesign

[edit]Puducherry in literature

Ananda Ranga Pillai (1709–1761), a dubash and famous writer.
Puducherry was the setting for the first third of the Booker prize-winning novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel.
Lee Langley's novel A house in Pondicherry was likewise set there.
In Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Prince Pondicherry has Willy Wonka build him a castle made entirely of chocolate, which quickly melts.
In the Sherlock Holmes adventure, The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the family of a murder victim resides at Pondicherry Lodge. In the adventure of The Five Orange Pips a frightening letter is postmarked from Pondicherry, India seven weeks before the death of Colonel Openshaw.
Some Novels of M. Mukundan, Mahe former employee of French Embassy and famous Malayalam Writer.
Mr. R. Manavazhagan, Well known Management Faculty, Bangalore.
Master Ashwath, A Star Research Attachment Scholar, Temasek Secondary School, Singapore.

[edit]See also

[edit]References

^ BBC: "New name for old French territory"
^ "Pondicherry reverts to Puducherry". The Times of India. 26 May 2006. Retrieved 23 March 2010.
^ ^a ^b http://greaterpuducherry.blogspot.com/
^ http://tourism.puducherry.gov.in/musuem.html
^ http://forest.puducherry.gov.in/
^ "The history of Pondicherry". Pondichery.com. Retrieved 2010-07-26.
^ ^a ^b www.education.nic.in/cd50years/g/t/V/0T0V0D01.htm
^ Pondicherry.org [1].
^ Official website of Auroville [2].
^ http://news.oneindia.in/2008/05/17/legislators-to-press-for-statehood-for-puducherry-1211150574.html
^ http://nandhivarman.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/karaikal-delegation-reports-to-home-ministry/
^ "Population Analysis and Projections". Census of India. www.pon.nic.in. Retrieved 2008-06-04.^{[dead link]}
^ "BRIEF ANALYSIS OF THE PROVISIONAL RESULTS OF 2001 CENSUS". Pon.nic.in. 2001-03-01. Retrieved 2010-07-26.

[edit]External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Puducherry

[show] v • d • e States and territories of India

[show] v • d • e Union Territory of Puducherry

[show] v • d • e French overseas empire

Sri Aurobindo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo (Aurobindo Ghosh) in 1916.
Date of birth	15 August 1872
Place of birth	Calcutta (now Kolkata), India
Birth name	Aurobindo Akroyd Ghosh
Date of death	5 December 1950 (aged 78)
Place of death	Pondicherry (now Puducherry),French India
Quotation	The Spirit shall look out through Matter's gaze. And Matter shall reveal the Spirit's face.^[1]
v • d • e

Sri Aurobindo (Bengali: শ্রী অরবিন্দ (অরবিন্দ ঘোষ) Sri Ôrobindo) (born Aurobindo Ghose, inCalcutta 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter,philosopher, yogi, and poet.^[2]^[3] He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders,^[4] before developing his own vision of human progress and spiritual evolution.

The central theme of Sri Aurobindo's vision is the evolution of life into a "life divine":

Man is a transitional being. He is not final. The step from man to superman is the next approaching achievement in the earth evolution. It is inevitable because it is at once the intention of the inner spirit and the logic of Nature's process.

The principal writings of Sri Aurobindo include The Life Divine, considered his greatest work ofmetaphysics, and The Synthesis of Yoga. In poetry, his principal work is Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol in blank verse.

[hide]

[edit]Biography

[edit]Early life

Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta, India to Dr. Krishna Dhan Ghose, District Surgeon of Rangapur, Bengal and Swarnalata Devi, the daughter of Brahmo religious and social reformer, Rajnarayan Basu.^[5] Dr. Ghose chose the middle name Akroyd to honour his friend Annette Akroyd.^[6]

Aurobindo spent his first five years at Rangapur, where his father had been posted since October 1871. Dr. Ghose, who had previously lived inBritain and studied medicine at King's College, Aberdeen, was determined that his children should have an English education and upbringing free of any Indian influences. In 1877, he therefore sent the young Aurobindo and two elder siblings - Manmohan and Benoybhusan - to theLoreto Convent school in Darjeeling.

[edit]England

Aurobindo spent two years at Loreto convent. In 1879, Aurobindo and his two elder brothers were taken to Manchester, England for a European education. The brothers were placed in the care of a Rev. and Mrs. Drewett. Rev. Drewett was an Anglican clergyman whom Dr. Ghose knew through his British friends at Rangapur. The Drewetts tutored the Ghose brothers privately. The Drewitts had been asked to keep the tuitions completely secular and to make no mention of India or its culture.

In 1884, Aurobindo joined St Paul's School. Here he learned Greek and Latin, spending the last three years reading literature, especially English poetry. Dr. K.D. Ghose had aspired that his sons should pass the prestigious Indian Civil Service, but in 1889 it appeared that of the three brothers, only young Aurobindo had the chance of fulfilling his father's aspirations, his brothers having already decided their future careers. To become an ICS official, students were required to pass the difficult competitive examination, as well as study at an English university for two years under probation. With his limited financial resources, the only option Aurobindo had was to secure a scholarship at an English university, which he did by passing the scholarship examinations of King's College, Cambridge University. He stood first at the examination.^[7]. He also passed the written examination of ICS after a few months, where he was ranked 11th out of 250 competitors^[8]. He spent the next two years at the King's College.^[9]

By the end of two years of probation, Aurobindo became convinced that he did not want to serve the British, he therefore failed to present himself at the horse riding examination for ICS, and was disqualified for the Service. At this time, the Maharaja of Baroda, Sayajirao Gaekwad III was travelling England. James Cotton, brother of Sir Henry Cotton, for some time Lt. Governor of Bengal and Secretary of the South Kensington Liberal Club, who knew Sri Aurobindo and his father secured for him a service in Baroda State Service and arranged a meeting between him and the prince. He left England for India, arriving there in February, 1893.^[10]. In India Aurobindo's father who was waiting to receive his son was misinformed by his agents from Mumbai (Bombay) that the ship on which Aurobindo had been travelling had sunk off the coast of Portugal. Dr. Ghose who was by this time frail due to ill-health could not bear this shock and died.^[11]

[edit]Baroda

In Baroda, Aurobindo joined the state service, working first in the Survey and Settlements department, later moving to the Department of Revenue and then to the Secretariat, writing speeches for the Gaekwad.^[12] At Baroda, Aurobindo engaged in a deep study of Indian culture, teaching himself Sanskrit, Hindi and Bengali, all things that his education in England had withheld from him. Because of the lack of punctuality at work resulting from his preoccupation with these other pursuits, Aurobindo was transferred to the Baroda College as a teacher of French, where he became popular because of his unconventional teaching style. He was later promoted to the post of Vice-Principal.^[12]He published the first of his collections of poetry, The Rishi from Baroda.^[13] He also started taking active interest in the politics of India's freedom struggle against British rule, working behind the scenes as his position at the Baroda State barred him from overt political activity. He linked up with resistance groups in Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, while travelling to these states. He established contact with Lokmanya Tilak and Sister Nivedita. He also arranged for the military training of Jatindra Nath Banerjee (Niralamba Swami) in the Baroda army and then dispatched him to organise the resistance groups in Bengal. He was invited by K.G. Deshpande who was in charge of the weeklyInduprakash and a friend from his days in Cambridge to write about the political situation. Aurobindo started writing a series of impassioned articles under the title New Lamps for the Old pouring vitriol on the Congress for its moderate policy^[14]. He wrote:

"Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our purblind sentimentalism"

further adding:

"I say, of the Congress, then, this, - that its aims are mistaken, that the spirit in which it proceeds towards their accomplishment is not a spirit of sincerity and whole-heartedness, and that the methods it has chosen are not the right methods, and the leaders in whom it trusts, not the right sort of men to be leaders; - in brief, that we are at present the blind led, if not by the blind, at any rate by the one-eyed."

The Congress which practised more mild and moderate criticism itself, reacted in a way which frightened the editors of the paper who asked Aurobindo to write about cultural themes instead of Politics. Aurobindo lost interest in these writings and the series was discontinued.^[12]Aurobindo's activities in Baroda also included a regimen of yogic exercises and meditation, but these were minor in comparison to the work he would take up in his later life. By 1904 he was doing yogic practices for five-six hours everyday ^[11]

[edit]Kolkata

Aurobindo used to take many excursions to Bengal, at first in a bid to re-establish links with his parents' families and his other Bengali relatives, including his cousin Sarojini and brother Barin, and later increasingly in a bid to establish resistance groups across Bengal. But he formally shifted to Kolkata (Calcutta) only in 1906 after the announcement of Partition of Bengal. During his visit to Calcutta in 1901 he married Mrinalini, daughter of Bhupal Chandra Bose, a senior official in Government service. Sri Aurobindo was then 28; the bride Mrinalini, 14. Marrying off daughters at a very young age was very common in 19th century Bengali families.^[15]

In Bengal with Barin's help he established contacts with revolutionaries, inspiring radicals like Bagha Jatin, Jatin Banerjee, Surendranath Tagore. He helped establish a series of youth clubs with the aim of imparting a martial and spiritual training to the youth of Bengal. He helped found the Anushilan Samiti of Calcutta in 1902. When the Partition of Bengal was announced, there was a public outpouring against the British rule in India. Aurobindo attended the Benares session of Congress in December 1905 as an observer, and witnessing the intensity of people's feelings decided to throw himself into the thick of politics.^[11] He joined the National Council of Education and met Subodh Chandra Mullick who quickly became a supporter of Aurobindo's views. Mullick donated a large sum to found a National College and stipulated that Aurobindo should become its first principal. Aurobindo also started writing for Bande Mataram, as a consequence of which, his popularity as a leading voice of the hardline group soared. His arrest and acquittal for printing seditious material in Bande Mataram consolidated his position as the leader of aggressive nationalists. His call for complete political independence was considered extremely radical at the time and frequently caused friction in Congress. In 1907 at Surat session of Congress where moderates and hardliners had a major showdown, he led the hardliners along with Bal Gangadhar Tilak. The Congress split after this session.^[16] In 1907–1908 Aurobindo travelled extensively toPune, Mumbai and Baroda to firm up support for the nationalist cause, giving speeches and meeting various groups. He was arrested again in May 1908 in connection with the Alipore Bomb Case. He was acquitted in the ensuing trial and released after a year of isolated incarceration. Once out of the prison he started two new publications, Karmayogin in English and Dharma in Bengali. He also delivered the Uttarpara Speech s:Uttarpara Speech hinting at the transformation of his focus to spiritual matters . The British persecution continued because of his writings in his new journals and in April 1910 Aurobindo signalling his retirement from politics, moved to Pondicherry.

[edit]Conversion from politics to spirituality

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother
Books
Collected Works · Life Divine · Synthesis of Yoga · Savitri · Agenda ·
Teachings
Involution/Involution · Evolution · Integral education · Integral psychology · Integral yoga · Intermediate zone · Supermind
Places
Matrimandir · Pondicherry
Communities
Sri Aurobindo Ashram · Auroville
Disciples
Champaklal · N.K.Gupta · Amal Kiran ·Nirodbaran · Pavitra · M.P.Pandit · Pranab ·A.B.Purani · D.K.Roy · Satprem · Indra Sen ·Kapali Shastri
Journals and Forums
Arya · Mother India · Collaboration

Aurobindo's conversion from political action to spirituality occurred gradually. Aurobindo had been influenced by Bankim's Anandamath. In this novel, the story follows a monk who fights the soldiers of the British East India Company. When in Baroda, Aurobindo and Barin had considered the plan of a national uprising of nationalist sannyasis against the empire ^[17]. Later when Aurobindo got involved with Congress and Bande Mataram, Barin had continued to meet spiritualists for recruitment for such a plan. In 1907, Barin introduced Aurobindo to Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, a Maharashtrian yogi.
Aurobindo had been engaged in yogic discipline for years, but disturbances to his progress following the recent events surrounding the Congress had put him in the need of consulting a yogi. After attending the Surat session of the Congress in 1907, Aurobindo met Lele in Baroda. This meeting led him to retire for three days in seclusion where, following Lele's instruction, Aurobindo had his first major experience, called nirvana - a state of complete mental silence free of any thought or mental activity.^[18] Later, while awaiting trial as a prisoner in Alipore Central Jail in Kolkata Aurobindo had a number of mystical experiences. In his letters, Sri Aurobindo mentions that while in jail as under-trial, spirit of Swami Vivekananda visited him for two weeks and spoke about the higher planes of consciousness leading to supermind^{[citation needed]}. Sri Aurobindo later said that while imprisoned he saw the convicts, jailers, policemen, the prison bars, the trees, the judge, the lawyers as different forms of one godhead, Krishna^{[citation needed]}.

The trial ("Alipore Bomb Case, 1908") lasted for one full year, but eventually Sri Aurobindo was acquitted. On acquittal, Sri Aurobindo was invited to deliver a speech at Uttarpara where he first spoke of some of his experiences in jail. Afterwards Aurobindo started two new weekly papers: the Karmayogin in English and the Dharma in Bengali. However, it appeared that the British government would not tolerate his nationalist program as then Viceroy and Governor-General of India Lord Minto wrote about him: "I can only repeat that he is the most dangerous man we have to reckon with." The British considered the possibilities of a retrial or deportation, but objections from Lord Minto, or the Bengal government at different instances prevented immediate execution of such plans.

When informed that he was sought again by the Indian police, he was guided to the French territory Chandernagore where he halted for a few days. On April 4, 1910 he finally landed in the French colony of Pondicherry. At Pondicherry he dedicated himself completely to his spiritual pursuits.

[edit]Pondicherry

In Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo completely dedicated himself to his spiritual and philosophical pursuits. In 1914, after four years of concentrated yoga, Sri Aurobindo was proposed to express his vision in intellectual terms. This resulted in the launch of Arya, a 64 page monthly review. For the next six and a half years this became the vehicle for most of his most important writings, which appeared in serialised form. These included The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on The Gita, The Secret of The Veda, Hymns to the Mystic Fire, The Upanishads, The Renaissance in India, War and Self-determination, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, and The Future Poetry. Many years later, Sri Aurobindo revised some of these works before they were published in book form. It was about his prose writing of this period that Times Literary Supplement, London wrote on 8 July 1944, "Sri Aurobindo is the most significant and perhaps the most interesting.... He is a new type of thinker, one who combines in his vision the alacrity of the West with the illumination of the East.He is a yogi who writes as though he were standing among the stars, with the constellations for his companions."

For some time afterwards, Sri Aurobindo's main literary output was his voluminous correspondence with his disciples. His letters, most of which were written in the 1930s, numbered in the several thousands. Many were brief comments made in the margins of his disciple's notebooks in answer to their questions and reports of their spiritual practice—others extended to several pages of carefully composed explanations of practical aspects of his teachings. These were later collected and published in book form in three volumes of Letters on Yoga.In the late 1930s, Sri Aurobindo resumed work on a poem he had started earlier—he continued to expand and revise this poem for the rest of his life. It became perhaps his greatest literary achievement, Savitri, an epic spiritual poem in blank verse of approximately 24,000 lines. During the World War II, he supported the allies, even donating money to the British Government, describing Hitler as a dark and oppressive force.

On August 15, 1947, on his 75th birthday, when India achieved political independence, a message was asked from Sri Aurobindo. In his message, which was read out on the All India Radio, Sri Aurobindo dwelt briefly on the five dreams he has cherished all his life and which, he noted, were on the way to being fulfilled. Sri Aurobindo died on December 5, 1950 after a short illness.

[edit]Freedom struggles and politics

Aurobindo's observable political career lasted only four years, from 1906 to 1910. Though he had been active behind the scene surveying, organizing and supporting the nationalist cause, ever since his return to India, especially during his excursions to Bengal. This period of his activity from 1906-1910 saw a complete transformation of India's political scene. Before Aurobindo began publishing his views, the Congresswas an annual debating society whose rare victories had been instances of the empire taking a favourable view to its petitions. By the time Aurobindo left the field, the ideal of political independence had been firmly ingrained into the minds of people, and nineteen years later, it became the official raison d'etre of the Congress.^[19]

This change was affected by the advent of the aggressive nationalist thought of Lokmanya Tilak who declared that swaraj was his birthright and Bipin Chandra Pal who demanded "complete autonomy" from Britain. However none went as far as Aurobindo in articulating the legitimacy and necessity of complete independence. He "based his claim for freedom for India on the inherent right to freedom, not on any charge of misgovernment or oppression". He wrote :

"Political freedom is the life-breath of a nation. To attempt social reform, educational reform, industrial expansion, the moral improvement of the race without aiming first and foremost at political freedom, is the very height of ignorance and futility. The primary requisite for national progress, national reform, is the habit of free and healthy national thought and action which is impossible in a state of servitude."^[19]

[edit]Beginnings

Aurobindo had become contemptuous of the British rule in India since his days as a student in England. While at the beginning of Aurobindo's educational career, his father had been a believer in the superiority of the British People, by the time Aurobindo was nearing the end of his education in England, Dr. Ghose started mailing Aurobindo newspaper clips of atrocities unleashed by the British on the Indian people. While at King's college, Aurobindo was drawn to Irish nationalists such as Charles Stewart Parnell. He wrote, in praise of Parnell :

"Patriots, behold your guerdon! This man found
Erin, his Mother, beaten, chastised, bound,
Naked to imputation poor, denied,
While alien masters held her house of pride"

This personification of the subjugated nation as the Mother in chains, was a recurring theme in Aurobindo's writings and would later come to galvanize a generation of Indian revolutionaries. From his observations of the British Politics, Aurobindo became convinced that India had little hope from the British Parliament. While in London he joined up with a society of revolutionaries called "Lotus and Dagger" who were committed to overthrowing the British. His activities in England though, were inconsequential. After his return to India, he started working to bring about a revolutionary change in the political situation in India.

He came to believe that the only way to free India from the British yoke was that the common people and not just the elite that composed the erstwhile Congress, should embark upon a total revolution. Aurobindo espoused a threefold approach to this end :

To conduct secret revolutionary propaganda and develop organizations to prepare for an armed revolution.
To spread the idea of revolution and prepare the entire nation for independence.
To organise the people for non-cooperation and passive resistance against foreign rule.^[20]

[edit]Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar Party

Main article: Anushilan Samiti

Main article: Jugantar

At the beginning of 20th century Bengal had become the central hub for voices against the British Rule and during his vacations to meet his family in Bengal, Aurobindo came in contact with many who shared his views. Aurobindo became inspired by the story of Bankim's novelAnandamath. Aurobindo frequently shared with his younger brother Barin his ideas of imparting martial and intellectual training to the youth of Bengal for the coming revolution; loosely like the sannyais of Anandamath who stir a rebellion agains the British. This concept is rooted inShakta philosophy.

Anushilan Samiti was founded as an attempt to organize Bengali youth through a program of physical fitness and spiritual training for a nationalist program. By 1902, Calcutta had three societies working under the umbrella of Anushilan Samity, a society earlier founded by a Calcutta barrister by the name of Pramatha Mitra. These included Mitra's own group, another led by a Bengali lady by the name of Sarala Devi, and a third one led by Aurobindo Ghosh. The Anushilan Samiti had Aurobindo and Deshabandhu Chittaranjan Das as the vice-presidents, Suren Tagore the treasurer. Jatindra Nath Banerjee (Niralamba Swami), Bagha Jatin, Bhupendra Nath Datta (Swami Vivekananda's brother), Barindra Ghosh were among other initial leaders. By 1905, the work of Aurobindo and his brother Barin Ghosh allowed Anushilan Samity to spread through Bengal.^[21]
When the first Partition of Bengal was announced in 1905, Aurobindo took an extended leave from the college in Baroda and dedicated himself to participate in anti-British activities in Bengal.

Barin who was an aggressive revolutionary in his own right prodded Aurobindo to write about a plan for a Monks' rebellion. In August 1905 Aurobindo published a blueprint for such a training facility called "Bhawani Mandir" (or Bhawani's temple) [3]. This plan and its logistics were later taken over by Barin when Aurobindo devoted himself to the mainstream of Politics.

Aurobindo provided the ideological foundation to the ultra-radical Jugantar party, as an offshoot of the Anushilan Samiti. The party was founded by Barin and Bhupendra Nath Dutta. Among the operational aims of this society was to sensitize and stimulate the disaffected youth of Bengal to the nationalist cause.^[22]

[edit]Bande Mataram

Main article: Bande Mataram (publication)

The views of Tilak, Aurobindo and other aggressive nationalists, being radically different from those of the moderates, created fissures in the Congress and the debate for its future direction and control spilled into the public domain. To take the extremists' view to the public, Bipin Chandra Pal had founded the nationalist Bengali newspaper Bande Mataram (written Vande Maataram while being pronounced Bônde Matôrom in the Bengali language in the Bangla way, although the original words are Sanskrt and are pronounced Vande Maataram in most other Indian languages including Sanskrt). Pal invited Aurobindo to become its editor along with Pal. Pal after a few issues discontinued contributing to the paper. The paper rapidly became a major success.^[23] and the radical views finally found a popular voice. But as a result of its popularity and open espousal of aggressive methods, the paper came into frequent confrontation with the Raj.
In 1907 the British Government decided to prosecute the group behind Bande Mataram, for its constant propaganda against British rule. Notices were served for using language which was a "direct incentive to violence and lawlessness." ^[24]
On August 16, Aurobindo was sought for arrested by the Police. Aurobindo courted arrest and was released on monetary sureties. The sensational act and the events surrounding the arrest were seen as an episode of defiance against the empire and turned him into a national celebrity. Provincial and National press showered lavish praise on Aurobindo.Tagore wrote: "Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee! O friend, my country's friend, O Voice incarnate, free, Of India's soul....The fiery messenger that with the lamp of God hath come...Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee".^[25]

The prosecution was unable to establish that Sri Aurobindo was the editor of the paper and he was acquitted. Pal was sentenced to six months in prison for declining to depose. After the Bande Mataram Case, Sri Aurobindo became the recognised leader of aggressive nationalism in Bengal.^[26]

[edit]National education

Aurobindo was a strong proponent of an indigenous system of national education. His experiences at Baroda university had convinced him about the shortcomings of the education system of the time. His views on national education frequently brought him in conflict with the moderates of Congress. When the Risley Circular banned the study or mention of politics from government aided educational institutes, Aurobindo along with others saw this as a direct challenge to his program of youth nationalism. He campaigned extensively to gain self-reliance on the front of education, writing articles about the circular and its implications. He, along with Rabindranath Tagore, Raja Subodh Chandra Mullick and Brajendra Kishore Roychowdhury decided that they would protest the partition of Bengal by setting up an institution that would challenge British rule by offering education to the masses "on national lines and under national control". The Bengal National Collegewas set up with Aurobindo as its first principal.

Later, when he founded the newspaper Karmayogin, he expounded in detail his philosophy on education in the series titled A System of National Education.

[edit]Alipore bomb case

Main article: Alipore bomb case

The British had been keeping tabs on activities of Barin and Aurobindo since the Bande Mataram episode. On 30 April 1908, Khudiram Boseand Prafulla Chaki, members of Barin's group, attempted to bomb Magistrate Kingsford's carriage in Alipore. They failed to discern between the identical carriages of the party and the bombs instead landed in the wrong carriage, killing two British women, the wife and daughter of another barrister. The British reaction was swift, with 33 suspects being rounded up within the next two days. Barin and Aurobindo were also arrested and put into prison. The ensuing trial lasted for a year. Aurobindo was acquitted. Khudiram Bose was found guilty and later hanged. Barin was sentenced to death, but this sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment (He was released in 1920).^{[citation needed]}Aurobindo came out of prison and delivered the famous Uttarpara Speech. A few months after the end of his incarceration, and few other anti-British activities, Aurobindo retired from active politics and sailed to Pondicherry, where he would spend the rest of his life.

[edit]The Mother

Main article: Mirra Alfassa

Sri Aurobindo's close spiritual collaborator, Mirra Richard (b. Alfassa), came to be known as The Mother simply because Sri Aurobindo started to call her by this name. On being inquired by why he called her the Mother, Sri Aurobindo wrote an essay called The Mother by way of shedding light on the person of Mirra.

Mirra was born in Paris on February 21, 1878, to Turkish and Egyptian parents. Involved in the cultural and spiritual life of Paris, she counted among her friends Alexandra David-Neel. She went to Pondicherry on March 29, 1914, finally settling there in 1920. Sri Aurobindo considered her his spiritual equal and collaborator. After November 24, 1926, when Sri Aurobindo retired into seclusion, he left it to her to plan, run and build the growing Sri Aurobindo Ashram, the community of disciples that had gathered around them. Some time later when families with children joined the ashram, she established and supervised the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (which, with its pilot experiments in the field of education, impressed observers like Jawaharlal Nehru). When Sri Aurobindo died in 1950, the Mother continued their spiritual work and directed the Ashram and guided their disciples. In the mid 1960s she personally guided the founding of Auroville, an international township endorsed by UNESCO to further human unity near the town of Pondicherry, which was to be a place "where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities." It was inaugurated in 1968 in a ceremony in which representatives of 121 nations and all the states of India placed a handful of their soil in an urn near the center of the city. Auroville continues to develop and currently has approximately 2100 members from 43 countries, though the majority consists of Indians, French, and Germans. The Mother also played an active role in the merger of the French pockets in India and, according to Sri Aurobindo's wish, helped to make Pondicherry a seat of cultural exchange between India and France. The Mother stayed in Pondicherry until her death on November 17, 1973. Her later years, including her myriad of metaphysical and occult experiences, and her attempt at the transformation at the cellular level of her body, are captured in her 13 volume personal log known as Mother's Agenda.

[edit]Philosophy and spiritual vision

Main article: Philosophy and Spiritualism of Sri Aurobindo

One of Sri Aurobindo's main philosophical achievements was to introduce the concept of evolution into Vedantic thought. Samkhyaphilosophy had already proposed such a notion centuries earlier, but Aurobindo rejected the materialistic tendencies of both Darwinism and Samkhya, and proposed an evolution of spirit along with that of matter, and that the evolution of matter was a result of the former.

He describes the limitation of the Mayavada of Advaita Vedanta, and solves the problem of the linkage between the ineffable Brahman orAbsolute and the world of multiplicity by positing a hitherto unknown and unexplored level of consciousness, which he called The Supermind. The supermind is the active principle present in the transcendent Satchidananda as well in the roots of evolution: a unitary level of which our individual minds and bodies are minuscule subdivisions.

Sri Aurobindo rejected a major conception of Indian philosophy that says that the World is a Maya (illusion) and that living as a renunciate was the only way out. He says that it is possible, not only to transcend human nature but also to transform it and to live in the world as a free and evolved human being with a new consciousness and a new nature which could spontaneously perceive truth of things, and proceed in all matters on the basis of inner oneness, love and light.

[edit]Evolutionary philosophy

Sri Aurobindo argues that humankind is not the last rung in the evolutionary scale, but can evolve spiritually beyond its current limitations to a state of spiritual and supramental existence. This evolutionary existence he called a "Divine life on Earth", characterized by a spiritualized, supramental, truth-consciousness-oriented humanity.^[27]

[edit]Process of creation and evolution

He speaks of two central movements in the process of creation: an involution of consciousness from an original omnipresent Reality, manifesting a universe of forms, including matter; and an evolution of those material forms in creation upward toward life, mind, and spirit, reconnecting to their spiritual source. It is also a process of evolution.

[edit]Involution

The process by which the Energy of creation emerged from a timeless, spaceless, ineffable, immutable Reality, Sri Aurobindo refers to as the Involution. In that process the Reality extended itself to Being/Existence (Sat), Consciousness, that generated a Force - (Chit); and Bliss (Ananda)-- self enjoyment in existing and being conscious. Through the action of a fourth dimension, Supermind (i.e. Truth Consciousness), the Force (Chit) of Sat-Chit-Ananda was divided into Knowledge and Will, eventually formulating as an invisible Energy that would become the source of creation. Through its own willful self-absorption of consciousness, the universe would begin as Inconscient material existence from out of that Energy.

[edit]Evolution

The process of existence emerging out of the Inconscient is referred as evolution. Initially, it emerges gradually in the stages of matter, life, and mind. First matter evolves from simple to complex forms, then life emerges in matter and evolves from simple to complex forms, finally mind emerges in life and evolves from rudimentary to higher forms of thought and reason. As each new principle emerges, the previous stages remain but are integrated into the higher principle. Humanity represents the stage of development of mind in complex material forms of life.
The higher development of mind in the mass of humanity is not yet a secure possession. Reason and intellect still do not dominate the life of most human beings; rather, mind tends to be turned to the purposes of the life principle, which is focused on self-preservation, self-assertion, and satisfaction of personal need and desire. But evolution does not cease with the establishment of reason and intellect; beyond mind are higher levels of a spiritual and supramental consciousness which in the nature of things must also emerge. This higher evolution is described as a dual movement; inward, away from the surface consciousness and into the depths, culminating in the realization of the Psychic Being (the personal evolving soul); and then upward to higher levels of spiritual mind Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive Mind, and Overmind), culminating in the final stage of supramentalisation. Whereas these higher levels of consciousness have been attained in particular individuals, they must eventually emerge more universally as general stages in the evolution. When they do emerge, there will come the embodiment of a new species on earth that will be once again united in consciousness with Sachchidananda.

[edit]Omnipresent reality (Brahman)

A central tenet of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy is that the Truth of existence is an omnipresent Reality that both transcends the manifested universe and is inherent in it. This Reality, referred to as Brahman, is an Absolute: it is not limited by any mental conception or duality, whether personal or impersonal, existent or nonexistent, formless or manifested in form, timeless or extended in time, spaceless or extended in space. It is simultaneously all of these but is bound by none of them. It is at once the universe, each individual being and thing in the universe, and the Transcendent beyond the universe. In its highest manifested poise, its nature may be described as Sachchidananda—infinite existence, infinite consciousness, and infinite delight or bliss; a triune principle in which the three are united in a single Reality. In other words, it is a fully conscious and blissful infinite existence. The importance of this concept for humanity lies in its implication that Brahman is the deepest and secret Reality of humans, it is their true Self, and it is possible to recover this Reality of their being by removing the veil of ignorance that hides it from them and imprisons them in a false identification with an apparently divided and limited egoistic movement on the surface of the being. This is the metaphysical basis for Sri Aurobindo's yoga, the discipline given to consciously unite humans' life with their essential Reality.

[edit]Triple transformation of the individual

Sri Aurobindo's argues that Man is born an ignorant, divided, conflicted being; a product of the original inconscience (i.e. unconsciousness,) inherent in Matter that he evolved out of. As a result, he does not know the nature of Reality, including its source and purpose; his own nature, including the parts and integration of his being; what purpose he serves, and what his individual and spiritual potential is, amongst others. In addition, man experiences life through division and conflict, including his relationship with others, and his divided view of spirit and life.

To overcome these limitations, Man must embark on a process of self-discovery in which he uncovers his Divine nature. To that end, he undertakes a three-step process, which he calls the Triple Transformation.^[28].

(1) Psychic Transformation -- The first of the three stages is a movement within, away from the surface of life, to the depths, culminating in the discovery of his psychic being (the evolving soul). From that experience, he sees the oneness and unity of creation, and the harmony of all opposites experienced in life.

(2) Spiritual Transformation -- As a result of making the psychic change, his mind expands and he experiences knowledge not through the hard churning of thought, but through light, intuition, and revelation of knowledge, culminating in supramental perception. Light enters from the heights and begins to transmute various parts of his being.

(3) Supramental transformation -- After making the psychic and spiritual change, he makes the supramental and most radical change. It is basically a complete transformation of the mind, the heart, the emotions, and the physical body.

[edit]Evolving soul (psychic being)

Sri Aurobindo laid utmost stress on finding and living in the psychic being (i.e. an evolving soul) within which is the essence of our individual being. If we forge our way into the deepest parts of our being, we will come upon a personal evolving soul. From this psychic being we can overcome the limits of consciousness of the individual human. From there we perceive our true nature and essence; we become more aware of our surroundings; we become one with others and life; we experience an inner Guide that influences us to move in the right direction and catches our negative propensities as they arise on the surface; we come in touch with our universal nature; we come in touch with the transcendent reality and spiritual Force; we overcome the limits of time, bringing timelessness into time; and evoke the powers of the Infinite into this finite existence, to name several. Also when we plunge within and touch the evolving soul, it becomes easy to move up in consciousness above mind to spiritual mind of illumination, intuition, revelation, and (supramental) truth consciousness. It should also be noted that this psychic entity is itself evolving, as it enters the person's whose experience it believes it can benefit from, extracts the essence of that person's experience, and then moves on to the next birth until it is fulfilled in its journey through space and time. The connection to the evolving soul is thus the key to the evolution from this the human side, as from there we overcome the inherent Ignorance, division, dualities, and suffering of Man, enabling him to fulfill his human aspiration of God, freedom, joy, and immortality. (From the spiritual side, it is the descending Supramental Force that enables the progress of life to its ultimate capacity. The two together, the connection to the psychic being and the surrender to the descending (supramental) Force are the keys to the evolution and transformation of the individual, humanity, and life in the universe.)

[edit]Supramental existence

Main article: Supermind

Sri Aurobindo's vision of the future includes the appearance of what may be called a new species, the supramental being, a divine being which would be as different and superior to present humanity as humanity is to the animal. It would have a consciousness different in kind than the mind of the human, a different status and quality and functioning. Even the physical form of this being would be different, more luminous and flexible and adaptable, entirely conscious and harmonious. Between this supramental being and humanity, there would be transitional beings, who would be human in birth and form, but whose consciousness would approach that of the supramental being. These transitional beings would appear prior to that of the full supramental being, and would constitute an intermediate stage in the Earth's evolution, through which the soul would pass in its growth towards its divine manifestation as the supramental being in the earth nature.

[edit]Philosophy of social evolution

Sri Aurobindo's spiritual vision extended beyond the perfection and transformation of the individual; it included within its scope the evolution and transformation of human soripudica society. In both the individual and in society, the soul and spirit is at first hidden and occult. This, he argues, influences the direction and course of development from behind, but allowing nature to follow its gradual, zigzagging, and conflict-ridden course. Afterwards, as mind develops and becomes more dominant over obscure impulses, the ego-centered drives of vital nature. This results in a more objective, enlightened perception and approach towards human existence and the potential developments that become possible. At the highest stage of mental development he argues that a greater possibility and principle becomes apparent, which is spiritual and supramental in nature. At this point a true solution to humanity's problems becomes visible in the context of a radical transformation of human life, into a form of divine existence.

[edit]Integral Yoga

Main article: Integral Yoga

In The Synthesis of Yoga, and in his voluminous correspondence with his disciples collected under the title Letters on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo laid out the psychological principles and practices of the Integral Yoga or Poorna Yoga. The aim of Integral yoga is to enable the individual who undertakes it the attainment of a conscious identity with the Divine, the true Self, and to transform the mind, life, and body so they would become fit instruments for a divine life on earth^[29].

[edit]Analysis of Indian culture

In Renaissance in India (earlier called The Foundations of Indian Culture),^{[citation needed]} Sri Aurobindo examines the nature of Indian civilization and culture. He looked at its central motivating tendencies and how these are expressed in its religion, spirituality, art, literature, and politics. The first section of the book provides a general defense of Indian culture from disparaging criticism due to the misunderstanding of a foreign perspective, and its possible destruction due to the aggressive expansion and infiltration of Western culture. This section is interesting in the light it sheds on the nature of both Eastern and Western civilizations, how they have developed over the centuries, how they have influenced each other throughout the ages, and the nature and significance of these exchanges in the recent period. The principle tenet of the exposition is that India has been and is one of the greatest civilizations of the world, one that stands apart from all others in its central emphasis, or rather its whole foundation, based on spirituality, and that on its survival depends the future of the human race—whether it shall be a spiritual outflowering of the divine in man, or a rational, economically driven, and mechanized association of peoples.

[edit]Interpretation of the Vedas

One of the most significant contributions of Sri Aurobindo was his setting forth an esoteric meaning of the Vedas. The Vedas were considered by some to be composed by a barbaric culture worshiping violent Gods. Sri Aurobindo felt that this was due to non-grasping of vedic symbolism, both by Occidental and Oriental scholars.

Sri Aurobindo believed there was a hidden spiritual meaning in the Vedas. He viewed the Rig Veda as a spiritual text written in a symbolic language in which the outer meaning was concerned with ritualistic sacrifices to the gods, and the inner meaning, which was revealed only to initiates, was concerned with an inner spiritual knowledge and practice, the aim of which was to unite in consciousness with the Divine.

In this conception, Indra is the God of Mind lording over the Indriyas, that is, the senses (sight, touch, hearing, taste etc.). Vayu represents air, but in its esoteric sense means Prana, or the life force. So when the Rig Veda says "Call Indra and Vayu to drink Soma Rasa" the inner meaning is to use mind through the senses and life force to receive divine bliss (Soma means wine of Gods, but in several texts also means divine bliss, as in Right-handed Tantra). Agni, the God of the sacrificial fire in the outer sense, is the flame of the spiritual will to overcome the obstacles to unite with the Divine. So the sacrifice of the Vedas could mean sacrificing ones ego to the internal Agni, the spiritual fire.

Sri Aurobindo's theory of the inner spiritual significance of the Vedas originally appeared serially in the journal Arya between 1914 and 1920, but was later published in book form as "The Secret of the Veda." Another book, "Hymns to the Mystic Fire", is Sri Aurobindo's translation of the spiritual sense of many of the verses of the Rig Veda.

[edit]Poetry

Sri Aurobindo, not only expressed his spiritual thought and vision in intricate metaphysical reasoning and in phenomenological terms, but also in poetry. He started writing poetry as a young student, and continued until late in his life. The theme of his poetry changed with the projects that he undertook. It ranged from revolutionary homages to mystic philosophy. Sri Aurobindo wrote in classical style.

[edit]Savitri

'Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol' is Sri Aurobindo's epic poem of 12 books, 24000 lines about an individual who overcomes the Ignorance, suffering, and death in the world through Her spiritual quest, setting the stage for the emergence of a new, Divine life on earth. It is loosely based on the ancient Indian tale of 'Savitri and Satyavan' from the Mahabharata.

"Savitri" is the longest poem of English Literature written outside English speaking countries of Europe & America.

The Mother said of Savitri:

... everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily.

[edit]The Future Poetry

In Sri Aurobindo's theory of poetry, written under the title The Future Poetry, he writes about the significance that art and culture have for the spiritual evolution of mankind. He believed that a new, deep, and intuitive poetry could be a powerful aid to the change of consciousness and the life required to achieve the spiritual destiny of mankind which he envisioned. Unlike philosophy or psychology, poetry could make the reality of the Spirit living to the imagination and reveal its beauty and delight and captivate the deeper soul of humanity to its acceptance. It is perhaps in Sri Aurobindo's own poetry, particularly in his epic poem Savitri, that we find the fullest and most powerful statement of his spiritual thought and vision.

[edit]Followers of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother

The following authors/ organizations trace their intellectual heritage back to, or have in some measure been influenced by, The Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

Sisir Kumar Maitra (1887-1963) was an academic philosopher who wrote widely on Sri Aurobindo and Western philosophy. He wrote the essay 'Sri Aurobindo and Spengler: Comparison between the Integral and the Pluralistic Philosophy of History' in the 1958 symposium compendium, 'The Integral Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo.'

Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007) was an Indian spiritual teacher and philosopher who emigrated to the U.S. in 1964. An author, composer, artist and athlete, he was perhaps best known for holding public events on the theme of inner peace and world harmony (such as concerts, meditations, and races). In 1944, he joined his brothers and sisters at Sri Aurobindo's ashram. He has written many books about Sri Aurobindo.

Nolini Kanta Gupta (1889 - 1983) was one of Sri Aurobindo's senior disciples, and wrote extensively on philosophy, mysticism, and spiritual evolution in the light of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother's teachings.

Indra Sen (1903-1994) was another disciple of Sri Aurobindo who, although little-known in the West, was the first to articulate integral psychology and integral philosophy, in the 1940s and 1950s. A compilation of his papers came out under the title, Integral Psychology in 1986.

Ram Shankar Misra was a scholar of Indian religious and philosophical thought and author of The Integral Advaitism of Sri Aurobindo(publ. 1957), a philosophical commentary on Sri Aurobindo's work.

Sri Anirvan (1896-1978) translated "The Life Divine" in Bengali and "Savitri" into Bengali in "Divya Jeevan Prasanga", published by Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir,1948-51.

Satprem (1923 - 2007) was a French author and an important disciple of The Mother who published Mother's Agenda (ed.1982), Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness (2000), On the Way to Supermanhood (2002) and more.

Pavitra (1894 - 1969) was one of the very early disciples of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. Born as Philippe Barbier Saint-Hilaire in Paris. Pavitra left some very interesting memoirs of his conversations with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in 1925 and 1926, which were published as Conversations avec Pavitra.

[edit]Organisations and institutes

Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research, located in Pondicherry, India, provides online advanced degree programmes (e.g., MA, M.Phil., and Ph.D.) in Sri Aurobindo Studies. It works in collaboration with Indira Gandhi National Open University which grants the degrees. It also publishes books related to the thought and vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, holds conferences, and sells CDs of talks by Ananda Reddy, its Director, on Sri Aurobindo's various major works.

World Union - A non-profit, non-political organisation founded on 26 November 1958 in Pondicherry, fired by the Third Dream of Sri Aurobindo; also publishes a quarterly journal with the same title. A.B. Patel was the driving force and for many years, M.P. Panditwas the leading light.

The Integral Life Foundation P.O.Box 239 Waterford CT. 06385 USA has published several books by Amal Kiran.

[edit]Journals

Mother India is the Sri Aurobindo Ashram's originally fortnightly, now monthly, cultural review. It was started in 1949, the founding editor being K. D. Sethna (Amal Kiran), who continues as editor for over fifty years.

Collaboration is a journal dedicated to the spiritual and evolutionary vision of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. Content includes articles, essays, poetry, and art. Topics range across the theory and practice of Integral Yoga, Sri Aurobindo's philosophy and metaphysics, developments in the international township of Auroville, activities of various centers and announcements and reports about various conferences related to the Integral Yoga.

[edit]Influence

Sri Aurobindo's influence has been wide-ranging.

In India, S. K. Maitra, Anilbaran Roy and D. P. Chattopadhyaya commented on Sri Aurobindo's work.

Writers on esotericism and traditional wisdom, such as Mircea Eliade, Paul Brunton, and Rene Guenon, all saw him as an authentic representative of the Indian spiritual tradition^[30].

Haridas Chaudhuri and Frederic Spiegelberg^[31] were among those who were inspired by Sri Aurobindo, who worked on the newly formed American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco. Soon after, Chaudhuri and his wife Bina established the Cultural Integration Fellowship, from which later emerged the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007) became heavily inspired by the writings of Satprem about Sri Aurobindo during a week in May 1968, a time of which the composer was undergoing a personal crisis and had found Aurobindos philosophies were relevant to his feelings at the time. After this experience, Stockhausen's music took a completely different turn, focusing on mysticism, that was to continue right up until the end of his career.

Sri Aurobindo's ideas about the further evolution of human capabilities influenced the thinking of Michael Murphy ^[32] – and indirectly, thehuman potential movement, through Murphy's writings. The American philosopher Ken Wilber, has been strongly influenced by Sri Aurobindo's thought, but has integrated some of its key ideas with other spiritual traditions and modern intellectual trends^[33] (Wilber's interpretation has been criticised by Rod Hemsell^[34] and others). New Age writer Andrew Harvey also looks to Sri Aurobindo as a major inspiration. Cultural historian William Irwin Thompson is also heavily influenced by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

The Sri Aurobindo Ashram, the spiritual community that grew up around him and was organized and directed by the Mother, continues to operate with slightly more than 2000 members and a similar number of nonmembers who live nearby and are associated with the Ashram's activities. The experimental international city of Auroville, founded by the Mother and based on Sri Aurobindo's ideals, is located about 10 km from the Ashram; it has approximately 2000 members from around the world, and an international base of support groups called Auroville International.

Based on the teaching of Sri Aurobindo and his Divine Mother, the school based in Bangalore called Sri Aurobindo Memorial School was set up. The day over there begins with prayer, meditation and yoga. The children are also served Ladoo on their birthday and poems of Sri Aurobindo are recited in class everyday.

[edit]Quotes

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sri Aurobindo

"	The one aim of [my] yoga is an inner self-development by which each one who follows it can in time discover the One Self in all and evolve a higher consciousness than the mental, a spiritual and supramental consciousness which will transform and divinize human nature	"
—Sri Aurobindo On Himself

[edit]Partial bibliography

Bases of Yoga, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-941524-77-9
Bhagavad Gita and Its Message, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-941524-78-7
Dictionary of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, (compiled by M.P. Pandit), Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-941524-74-4
Essays on the Gita, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-18-7
The Future Evolution of Man, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-940985-55-1
The Human Cycle: The Psychology of Social Development, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-44-6
Hymns to the Mystic Fire, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-22-5
The Ideal of Human Unity, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-43-8
The Integral Yoga: Sri Aurobindo's Teaching and Method of Practice, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-941524-76-0
The Life Divine, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-941524-61-2
The Mind of Light, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-940985-70-5
The Mother, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-941524-79-5
Rebirth and Karma, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-941524-63-9
Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-941524-80-9
Secret of the Veda, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-19-5
Sri Aurobindo Primary Works Set 12 vol. US Edition, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-941524-93-0
Sri Aurobindo Selected Writings Software CD ROM, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-88-8
The Synthesis of Yoga, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-941524-65-5
The Upanishads, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-23-3
Vedic Symbolism, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-941524-30-2
The Essential Aurobindo - Writings of Sri Aurobindo ISBN 978-0-9701097-2-9
The Powers Within, Lotus Press. ISBN 978-0-941524-96-4
Human Cycle, Ideal of Human Unity, War and Self Determination by Aurobindo, Lotus Press. ISBN 81-7058-014-5
Hour of God by Sri Aurobindo, Lotus Press. ISBN 81-7058-217-2

[edit]See also

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Sri Aurobindo

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sri Aurobindo

[edit]References

^ Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, Book XI: The Book of Everlasting Day, Canto I: The Eternal Day: The Soul's Choice and The Supreme Consummation, p 709
^ Ghose A., McDermott, R.A. - Essential Aurobindo, SteinerBooks (1994) ISBN 0-940262-22-3.
^ Heehs, P., The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, 2008, New York: Columbia University Press ISBN 978-0-231-14098-0
^ The lives of Sri Aurobindo, Peter Heehs, ISBN 0-231-14098-3, Introduction
^ Aravinda means "lotus" in Sanskrit. Aurobindo spelled his nameAravinda while in England, as Aravind or Arvind while in Baroda, and as Aurobindo when he moved to Bengal. Ghose is pronounced and often written as "Ghosh", and Aurobindo's name often appears as "Arabindo Ghosh" in British records).
^ The lives of Sri Aurobindo, Peter Heehs, Page 3
^ The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, Peter Heehs. Page 19
^ The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, Peter Heehs. Page 20
^ Ghose, Aravinda Acroyd in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
^ [1]
^ ^a ^b ^c Sri Aurobindo for all ages. Nirodbaran
^ ^a ^b ^c http://www.sriaurobindosociety.org.in/sriauro/aurolife.htm#1893
^ http://intyoga.online.fr/rishi.htm
^ http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/sa/01/0002_e.htm
^ The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. Peter Heehs. Page 53
^ "The great ideological split" The Hindu]
^ Bhawani Mandir, Sri Aurobindo
^ Peter Heehs. The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. Pg 143
^ ^a ^b Peter Heehs. Idea of India
^ Banglapediahttp://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/G_0119.htm
^ http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/A_0270.htm
^ http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/J_0130.htm
^ http://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/research/show.php?set=doclife&id=9
^ http://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/research/show.php?set=doclife&id=10
^ Peter Heehs. The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. Pg127
^ Orrissa Review.[2], 2005
^ The Life Divine bk II, ch 27-8
^ Book II, Chapter 25, The Life Divine
^ Letters on Yoga, p. 505
^ Peter Heehs, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo p.381
^ Haridas Chaudhuri and Frederic Spiegelberg, The integral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo: a commemorative symposium, Allen & Unwin, 1960
^ Jeffrey John Kripal, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, University of Chicago Press, 2007 ISBN 0-226-45369-3,ISBN 978-0-226-45369-9 575 pages pp.61ff.
^ References to Sri Aurobindo are widely scattered throughout Wilber's works, beginning with The Atman Project, but there is no systematic coverage. The tables at the back of The Atman Projectand Integral Psychology, and in Integral Spirituality correlate stages of consciousness according to many different psychologies and spiritual teachings, including Sri Aurobindo's (image)
^ Rod Hemsell, "Ken Wilber and Sri Aurobindo: A Critical Perspective" Jan. 2002. This essay has been reproduced a number of times.

[edit]Further reading

Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar', Sri Aurobindo: Meri Drishti Mein, Lokbharti Prakashan, New Delhi, 2008.
Heehs, Peter, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo p. 381, Columbia University Press, 2008
Kumari, Shyam, How they came to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother (4 volumes), Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. Stories and experiences of Sri Aurobindo's and Mother's disciples.^{[Full citation needed]}
____________ Vignettes of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother (3 volumes), Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. Hundreds of brief stories of the Masters' interactions with their disciples in each volume.^{[Full citation needed]}
____________ Musings on the Mother's Prayers and Meditations (3 volumes), Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. The author's reflections on each of the Mother's published "Prayers and Meditations."^{[Full citation needed]}
Nahar, Sujata (Ed.) India's rebirth - A selection from Sri Aurobindo's writings, talks and speeches, 3rd edition, 2000, Hermanville, France: Institut de Recherches Évolutives. (http://www.voi.org/books).
Satprem, Sri Aurobindo, or the Adventure of Consciousness 1968, Pondicherry, India: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press. Exposition of the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the techniques of Integral Yoga.
van Vrekhem, Georges: Beyond Man - The Life and Work of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, HarperCollins Publishers India, New Delhi 1999, ISBN 81-7223-327-2.
_________ Hitler and his God - The Background to the Hitler phenomenon, Rupa & Co, New Delhi 2006.
_________The Mother - The Story of Her Life, HarperCollins Publishers India, New Delhi 2000, ISBN 81-7223-416-3
_________ Overman – The intermediary between the human and the supramental being, Rupa & Co, New Delhi 2001, ISBN 81-7167-594-8.
_________ Patterns of the Present – From The perspective of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Rupa & Co, New Delhi 2001, ISBN 81-7167-768-1.
Prithwindra Mukherjee, Sri Aurobindo, "Biographies", Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 2000
Richard Kitaeff, "Sri Aurobindo", in Nouvelles Clés, n°62, pp. 58–61.

[edit]External links

Find more about Sri Aurobindo on Wikipedia'ssister projects:
	Definitions from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

[show] v • d • e Hindu reform movements

[show] v • d • e Modern Dharma/Dhamma writers (1875 to date)

[show] v • d • e Indian independence movement

[show] v • d • e Indian philosophy

[show] v • d • e Bengal Renaissance

Hindu nationalism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hindu politics
Part of a series on

Concepts[show]
Freedom Fighters[show]
Political leaders[show]
Major political parties[show]
Authors on Hindu politics[show]

Politics portal Portal:Himalaya region Government of India portal
v • d • e

Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to the expressions of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of historical India. Some scholars have argued that the term 'Hindu nationalism' which refers to the concept of 'Hindu Rashtra' is a simplistic translation and is better described by the term 'Hindu polity'^[1].

The native thought streams became highly relevant in the Indian history when they helped form a distinctive identity to the Indian polity^[2] and provided a basis for questioning colonialism^[3]. They inspired the freedom movements against the British rule based on armed struggle^[4], coercive politics^[5] and non-violent protests^[6]. They also influenced social reform movements and economic thinking in India ^[5].

In India, the term 'nationalism' doesn't have the negative connotations which it has in Western intellectual circles of post-Marxist orientation. On the contrary, the term is hallowed by its association with the freedom movement against British colonialism and the establishment of democracy^[7].

[edit]History

Emperor Krishnadevaraya, one of the greatest emperors of India was hailed as "Hinduraya Suratrana"

Shivaji's rule was hailed as 'Hindavi Swarajya' (Self rule of the natives)

The term Hinduism derives from a Persian word that refers to the Sindhu (or Indus) river in northwest India; "Hindu" was first used in the 14th century by Arabs, Persians, and Afghans to describe the peoples of the region.^[8] The usage of the word 'Hindu' to describe the native polity of India have been found in the historical accounts of medieval India. These usages show that the word Hindu, until the early nineteenth century was emphasized by nativity rather than by religion^[9].

Prominent among the South Indian rulers of the fourteenth century were the Sangama rulers of Vijayanagara empire who were hailed as 'Hinduraya suratana', the best among the Hindu rulers.^[10] The Sangama rulers were in constant conflict with the Sultanate of Bijapur, and this usage of the word 'Hindu' in the title, was obviously to distinguish them as native rulers as against the Sultans who were "perceived to be foreign in origin". It has been noted by Historians that "Hindus" did not conceive themselves as a religious unity in any sense except in opposition to foreign rule. For example, the early seventeenth-century Telugu work, 'Rayavachakamu', condemns the Muslim rulers for being foreign and barbarian and only rarely for specifically religious traits.^[11]

The other references include the glorification of the Chauhana heroes of Jalor as 'Hindu' byPadmanabha in his epic poem, Kanhadade-prabandha, which he composed in AD 1455. The Rajput ruler, Maha Rana Pratap became renowned with the title of 'Hindu-kula-kamala-divakara' for his relentless fight against the Moghuls^[12]. 'Hindavi Swarajya' (self rule of the natives) was how the rule of Shivaji, the most notable of the rulers of the seventeenth century was described. The usage of 'Hindavi' (translated as 'of Hindus' in Marathi) in 'Hindavi Swarajya' is considered to mean Indian Independence rather than the rule by a religious sect or a community^[9].

[edit]Hindu Renaissance in the late 19th century

Raja Ram Mohan Royendeavored to create from the ancient Upanishadic texts a vision of rationalist modernIndia.

Many Hindu reform movements originated in the late nineteenth century. These movements led to the fresh interpretations of the ancient scriptures of Upanishads and Vedanta and also emphasized on social reform^[5]. The marked feature of these movements was that they countered the notion of western superiority and white supremacy propounded by the colonizers as a justification for British colonialism in India. This led to the upsurge of patriotic ideas that formed the cultural and an ideological basis for the freedom struggle in India^[3].

[edit]Brahmo Samaj

The Brahmo Samaj was one of the earliest Hindu renaissance movements in India under the British rule. It was started by a Bengali scholar, Ram Mohan Roy in 1828. Ram Mohan Roy endeavored to create from the ancient Upanishadic texts, a vision of rationalist 'modern' India. Religiously he criticized idolatry and believed in a monotheistic religion devoid of any idolatry and religious customs. His major emphasis was social reform. He fought against caste discrimination and advocated equal rights for women^[13]. Although the Brahmos found favorable response from the British Government and the Westernized Indians, they were largely isolated from the larger Hindu society due to their intellectual Vedantic and Unitarian views. But their efforts to systematize Hindu spirituality based on rational and logical interpretation of the ancient Indian texts would be carried forward by other movements in Bengal and across India^[3].

[edit]Arya Samaj

Arya Samaj is considered one of the overarching Hindu renaissance movements of the late nineteenth century.Swami Dayananda, the founder of Arya Samaj, rejected idolatry, caste restriction and untouchability, child marriage and advocated equal status and opportunities for women. He opposed "Brahmanism" (which he believed had led to the corruption of the knowledge of Vedas) as much as he opposed Christianity and Islam.^[5]. Although Arya Samaj was a social movement, many revolutionaries and political leaders of the Indian Independence movement like Ramprasad Bismil,^[14] Shyamji Krishnavarma, Bhai Paramanand and Lala Lajpat Rai were to be inspired by it.^[15]

[edit]Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda on the Platform of the Parliament of World Religions.

Another 19th century Hindu reformer was Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda as a student was educated in contemporary Western thought^[3]. He joined Brahmo Samaj briefly before meeting Ramakrishna, who was a priest in the temple of the mother goddess Kali in Calcutta and who was to become his Guru^[3]. Vivekananda's major achievement was to ground Hindu spirituality in a systematic interpretation of Vedanta. This project started with Ram Mohan Roy of Brahmo Samaj and which had produced rational Hinduism was now combined with disciplines such as yoga and the concept of social service to attain perfection from the ascetic traditions in what Vivekananda called the "practical Vedanta". The practical side essentially included participation in social reform^[3].

He made Hindu spirituality, intellectually available to the Westernized audience. His famous speech at the World Parliament of religions at Chicago on September 11, 1893, followed huge reception of his thought in the West and made him a celebrity in the West and subsequently in India too^[3].

A major element of Vivekananda's message was nationalist. He saw his effort very much in terms of a revitalization of the Hindu nation, which carried Hindu spirituality and which could counter Western materialism. The notions of White supremacy and Western superiority, strongly believed by the colonizers, were to be questioned based on Hindu spirituality. This kind of spiritual Hinduism was later carried forward byMahatma Gandhi and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. It also became a main inspiration for the current brand of Hindu nationalism today^[3]. Historians have observed that this helped the nascent Independence movement with a distinct national identity and kept it from being the simple derivative function of European nationalisms^[2].

[edit]Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo was a nationalist and one of the first to embrace the idea of complete political independence for India. He was inspired by the writings of Swami Vivekananda and the novels of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.^[16]. He "based his claim for freedom for India on the inherent right to freedom, not on any charge of misgovernment or oppression". He believed that the primary requisite for national progress, national reform, is the free habit of free and healthy national thought and action and that it was impossible in a state of servitude^[17]. He was part of the revolutionary groupAnushilan Samiti and was involved in armed struggle against the British^[18] In his brief political career spanning only four years, he led a delegation from Bengal to the Indian National Congress session of 1907 ^[17] and contributed to the revolutionary newspaper Bande Mataram.

In 1910, he withdrew from political life and spent his remaining life doing spiritual exercises and writing^[16]. But his works kept inspiring revolutionaries and struggles for freedom, including the famous Chittagong Uprising^[19]. Both Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo are credited with having found the basis for a vision of freedom and glory for India in the spiritual richness and heritage of Hinduism.

[edit]Independence movement

The influence of the Hindu renaissance movements was such that by the turn of the century, there was a confluence of ideas of the Hindu cultural nationalism with the ideas of Indian nationalism^[5]. Both could be spoken synonymous even by tendencies that were seemingly opposed to sectarian communalism and Hindu majoritism^[5].The Hindu renaissance movements held considerable influence over the revolutionary movements against the British rule and formed the philosophical basis for the struggles and political movements that originated in the first decade of the twentieth century.

[edit]Revolutionary Movements

[edit]Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar

Anushilan Samiti was one of the prominent revolutionary movements in India in the early part of twentieth century. It was started as a cultural society in 1902, by Aurobindo and the followers of Bankim Chandra to propagate the teachings of the Bhagavad-Gita. But soon the Samiti had its goal to overthrow the British rule in India^[4]. Various branches of the Samiti sprung across India in the guise of suburban fitness clubs but secretly imparted arms training to its members with the implicit aim of using them against the British administration^[20] On April 30, 1908 at Muzaffarpur, two revolutionaries, Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki threw bombs at a British convoy aimed at British officer Kingsford. Both were arrested trying to flee. Aurobindo was also arrested on 2 May, 1908 and sent to Alipore jail. The report sent from Andrew Fraser, the then Lt Governor of Bengal to Lord Minto in England declared that although Sri Aurobindo came to Calcutta in 1906 as a Professor at the National College, "he has ever since been the principal advisor of the revolutionary party. It is of utmost importance to arrest his potential for mischief, for he is the prime mover and can easily set tools, one to replace another." But charges against Aurobindo were never proved and he was acquitted. Many members of the group faced charges and were transported and imprisoned for life. Others went into hiding.^[21]

In 1910, when, Aurobindo withdrew from political life and decided to live a life of renounciate^[16], the Anushilan Samiti declined. One of the revolutionaries, Jatindra Das Mukherjee, who managed to escape the trial started a group which would be called Jugantar. Jugantar continued with its armed struggle with the British, but the arrests of its key members and subsequent trials weakened its influence. Many of its members were imprisoned for life in the notorious Andaman Cellular jail ^[21].

Savarkar (above) and Gandhi politely agreed to disagree on whetherRamayana justified the use of violence in freedom struggle.

[edit]India House

A revolutionary movement was started by Shyamji Krishnavarma, a Sanskritist and an Arya Samajist, in London, under the name of India House in 1905. The brain behind this movement was said to be V D Savarkar. Krishnaverma also published a monthly "Indian Sociologist", where the idea of an armed struggle against the British was openly espoused.^[22]. The movement had become well known for its activities in the Indian expatriates in London. When Gandhi visited London in 1909, he shared a platform with the revolutionaries where both the parties politely agreed to disagree, on the question of violent struggle against British and whether Ramayana justified such violence. Gandhi, while admiring the "patriotism" of the young revolutionaries, had dissented vociferously from their violent blueprints for social change. In turn the revolutionaries disliked his adherence to constitutionalism and his close contacts with moderate leaders of Indian National Congress. Moreover they considered his method of "passive resistance" effeminate and humiliating.^[23].

The India House had soon to face a closure following the assassination of Sir Curzon-Wyllie by the revolutionary Madan lal Dhingra, who was close to India House. Savarkar also faced charges and was transported. Shyamji Krishnaverma fled to Paris^[22]. India House gave formative support to ideas that were later formulated by Savarkar in his book named 'Hindutva'. Hindutva was to gain relevance in the run up to the Indian Independence and would also form the core to the political party named Hindu Mahasabha started by Savarkar^[5].

[edit]Indian National Congress

[edit]"Lal-Bal-Pal"

"Lal-Bal-Pal" is the phrase that is used to refer to the three nationalist leaders Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal who held the sway over the Indian Nationalist movement and the freedom struggle in the early parts of twentieth century.

A rare photograph of the three leaders who changed the political discourse of the Independence movement

Lala Lajpat Rai belonged to the northern province of Punjab. He was influenced greatly by the Arya Samaj and was part of the Hindu reform movement ^[5]. He joined the Indian National Congress in 1888 and became a prominent figure in the Indian Independence Movement.^[24]. He started numerous educational institutions. The National College at Lahore started by him became the centre for revolutionary ideas and was the college where revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh studied ^[25]. While leading a procession against the Simon Commission, he was fatally injured in the lathi charge by the British police. His death led the revolutionaries like Chandrashekar Azad and Bhagat Singh to kill the British officer J.P. Saunders, who they believed was responsible for the death of Lala Lajpat Rai.^[24]

Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a nationalist leader from the Central Indian province of Maharashtra. He has been widely acclaimed the "Father of Indian unrest" who used the press and Hindu occasions likeGanesh Chaturthi and symbols like the Cow to create unrest against the British administration in India^[26]. Tilak joined the Indian National Congress in 1890. Under the influence of such leaders, the political discourse of the Congress moved from polite accusation that imperial rule was "un-British" to the forthright claim of Tilak that "Swaraj is my birthright and I will have it"^[27].

Bipin Chandra Pal of Bengal was another prominent figure of the Indian nationalist movement, who is considered a modern Hindu reformer, who stood for Hindu cultural nationalism and was opposed to sectarian communalism and Hindu majoritism ^[5]. He joined the Indian National Congress in 1886 and was also one of the key members of revolutionary India House.^[28]

[edit]Gandhi and Ramarajya

Gandhi never called himself a Hindu nationalist, but he always was a big preacher of the softer side of Hindu Dharma.

Though Gandhi never called himself a "Hindu nationalist", he believed in and propagated concepts like Dharma and "Rama Rajya" (Rule of Lord Rama) as part of his social and political philosophy. Gandhiji said "By political independence I do not mean an imitation to the British House of commons, or the soviet rule of Russia or the Fascist rule of Italy or the Nazi rule of Germany. They have systems suited to their genius. We must have ours suited to ours. What that can be is more than I can tell. I have described it as Ramarajya i.e., sovereignty of the people based on pure moral authority.^[29]. He emphasized that "Rama Rajya" to him meant peace and justice. "Whether Rama of my imagination ever lived or not on this earth, the ancient ideal of Ramarajya is undoubtedly one of true democracy in which the meanest citizen could be sure of swift justice without an elaborate and costly procedure."^[30]. He also emphasized that it meant respect for all religions " My Hinduism teaches me to respect all religions. In this lies the secret of Ramarajya." ^[31]

Madan Mohan Malviya, an educationist and a politician with the Indian National Congresswas also a vociferous proponent of the philosophy of Bhagavad-Gita. He was the president of the Indian National Congress in the year 1909 and 1918^[6]. He was seen as a 'moderate' in the Congress and was also considered very close to Gandhi. He popularized the Sanskrit phrase "Satyameva Jayate" (Truth alone wins), which today is the national emblem of the Republic of India^[32]. He founded the Benaras Hindu University in 1919 and became its first Vice-Chancellor^[33].

[edit]Subhas Bose

Apart from Gandhi, revolutionary leader Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose referred to Vedanta and the Bhagavad-Gita as sources of inspiration for the struggle against the British ^[34].

Subhas Chandra Bosewho called himself a socialist, believed that socialism in India owed its origins to Swami Vivekananda.

Swami Vivekananda's teachings on universalism, his nationalist thoughts and his emphasis on social service and reform had all inspired Subhas Chandra Bose from his very young days. The fresh interpretation of the India's ancient scriptures appealed immensely to Subhas^[35]. Hindu spirituality formed the essential part of his political and social thought through his adult life, although there was no sense of bigotry or orthodoxy in it^[36].Subhas who called himself a socialist, believed that socialism in India owed its origins to Swami Vivekananda^[37]. As historian Leonard Gordan explains "Inner religious explorations continued to be a part of his adult life. This set him apart from the slowly growing number of atheistic socialists and communists who dotted the Indian landscape." "Hinduism was an essential part of his Indianess"^[38]. His strategy against the British also included the use of Hindu symbols and festivals. In 1925, while in Mandalay jail, he went on a hunger strike when Durga puja was not supported by prison authorities^[39].

Another leader of prime importance in the ascent of Hindu nationalism was Dr K. B. Hedgewar of Nagpur. Hedgewar as a medical student in Calcutta had been part of the revolutionary activities of the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar^[40]. He was charged with sedition in 1921 by the British Administration and served a year in prison. He was briefly a member of Indian National Congress^[40]. In 1925, he left the Congress to form theRashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which would become the focal point of Hindu movements in Independent India. After the formation of the RSS too, Hedgewar was to take part in the Indian National Congress led movements against the British rule. He joined the Jungle Satyagraha agitation in 1931 and served a second term in prison^[40]. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh started by him became one of the most prominent Hindu organization with its influence ranging in the social and political spheres of India.

[edit]Partition of India

Main article: Partition of India

The Partition of India outraged many majority Hindu nationalist politicians and social groups.^[41] Savarkar and members of the Hindu Mahasabha were extremely critical of Gandhi's leadership^[42]. They accused him of appeasing the Muslims to preserve a unity that in their opinion, did not exist; Savarkar endorsed the concept of the Two-nation theory while disagreeing with it in practice^[43]. Some Hindu nationalists also blamed Gandhi for conceding Pakistan to the Muslim League via appeasement^[44]. And they were further inflamed when Gandhi conducted a fast-unto-death for the Indian government to give Rs. 55 crores which were due to the Pakistan government, but were being held back due to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947^[45].

After the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse, the Sangh Parivar was plunged into distress when the RSS was accused of involvement in his murder. Along with the conspirators and the assassin, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was also arrested. The Court acquitted Savarkar, and the RSS was found be to completely unlinked with the conspirators^[46]. The Hindu Mahasabha, of which Godse was a member, lost membership and popularity. The effects of public outrage had a permanent effect on the Hindu Mahasabha, which is now a defunct Hindutva party.

[edit]Evolution of ideological terminology

The word 'Hindu', throughout the history, had been used as an inclusive description which lacked a definition and was used to refer to the native traditions and people of India. It was only in late eighteenth century that the word 'Hindu' came to be used extensively with religious connotation, while still being used as a synecdoche describing the indigenuous traditions^[9].

[edit]Hindutva and Hindu Rashtra

Main article: Hindutva

[edit]Savarkar

Main article: Veer Savarkar

Savarkar was one of the first in the twentieth century to attempt a definitive description of the term 'Hindu' in terms of what he called Hindutvameaning Hinduness^[47]. The coinage of the term 'Hindutva' was an attempt by Savarkar who was an atheist and a rationalist, to delink it from any religious connotations that had become attached to it. He defined the word Hindu as "He who considers India as both his Fatherland and Holyland". He thus defined Hindutva ("Hindu-ness") or Hindu as different from Hinduism^[47]. This definition kept the Abrahamic religions (Christianity and Islam) outside its ambit and considered only native religious denominations as Hindu.^[48].

This distinction was emphasized on the basis of territorial loyalty rather than on the religious practices. In this book that was written in the backdrop of the Khilafat Movement and the subsequent Moplah riots, Savarkar wrote "Their (Muslims' and Christians') holy land is far off in Arabia or Palestine. Their mythology and Godmen, ideas and heroes are not the children of this soil. Consequently their names and their outlook smack of foreign origin. Their love is divided"^[47].

Savarkar, also defined the concept of Hindu Rashtra (translated as "Hindu polity")^[1]. The concept of Hindu Polity called for the protection of Hindu people and their culture and emphasized that political and economic systems should be based on native thought rather than on the concepts borrowed from the West.

[edit]Golwalkar

Main article: Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar

M S Golwalkar, the second head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, was to further this non-religious, territorial loyalty based definition of 'Hindu' in his book 'Bunch of thoughts'. 'Hindutva' and 'Hindu Rashtra' would form the basis of Golwalkar's ideology and that of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. While emphasizing on religious pluralism, Golwalkar believed that Semitic monotheism and exclusivism were incompatible with and against the native Hindu culture. He wrote "Those creeds (Islam and Christianity) have but one prophet, one scripture and one God, other than whom there is no path of salvation for the human soul. It requires no great intelligence to see the absurdity of such a proposition". He added "As far as the national tradition of this land is concerned, it never considers that with a change in the method of worship, an individual ceases to be the son of the soil and should be treated as an alien. Here, in this land, there can be no objection to God being called by any name whatever. Ingrained in this soil is love and respect for all faiths and religious beliefs. He cannot be a son of this soil at all who is intolerant of other faiths." ^[49]

He further would echo the views of Savarkar on territorial loyalty, but with a degree of inclusiveness, when he wrote "So, all that is expected of our Muslim and Christen co-citizens is the shedding of the notions of their being 'religious minorities' as also their foreign mental complexion and merging themselves in the common national stream of this soil."^[49]

[edit]Contemporary descriptions

Later thinkers of the RSS, like H V Sheshadri and K S Rao, were to emphasize on the non theocratic nature of the word "Hindu Rashtra", which they believed was often inadequately translated, ill interpreted and wrongly stereotyped as a theocratic state. In a book by H.V. Sheshadri, the senior leader of the RSS writes "As Hindu Rashtra is not a religious concept, it is also not a political concept. It is generally misinterpreted as a theocratic state or a religious Hindu state. Nation (Rashtra) and State (Rajya) are entirely different and should never be mixed up. State is purely a political concept. ... The State changes as the political authority shifts from person to person or party to party. But the people in the Nation remain the same.^[50]. They would maintain that the concept of Hindu Rashtra is in complete agreement with the principles of secularism and democracy.^[51]

The concept of 'Hindutva' is continued to be espoused by the organizations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and political parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party. But the definition, does not have the same rigidity with respect to the concept of 'holy land' laid down by Savarkar, and stresses on inclusivism and patriotism. BJP leader and the then leader of opposition, Atal Behari Vajpayee, in 1998, articulated the concept of 'holy land' in Hindutva as follows "Mecca can continue to be holy for the Muslims but India should be holier than the holy for them. You can go to a mosque and offer namaz, you can keep the roza. We have no problem. But if you have to choose between Mecca or Islam and India you must choose India. All the Muslims should have this feeling: we will live and die only for this country."^[52].

In 1995, in a landmark judgment the Supreme Court of India observed that "Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu and since the Hindu is disposed to think synthetically and to regard other forms of worship, strange gods and divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest divine powers complement each other for the well-being of the world and mankind."^[53]

[edit]Post Independence Movements

[edit]Somnath temple movement

Sardar Patel ordered Somnath templereconstructed in 1948.

The Somnath temple is an ancient temple at Prabhas Patan in the coastal Indian province ofGujarat, which had been destroyed several times by the Muslim foreign invaders, starting with Mahmood Ghaznavi in 1025 AD. The last of such destructions took place in 1706 AD when Prince Mohammad Azam carried out the orders of Moghul ruler Aurangzeb to destroy the temple of Somnath beyond possible repair. A small mosque was put in its place^[54].

Before Independence, Prabhas Pattan where Somnath is located was part of the JunagarhState, ruled by the Nawab of Junagarh. On the eve of Independence the Nawab announced the accession of Junagarh, which had over 80% Hindu population, to Pakistan. The people of Junagarh rose in revolt and set up a parallel government under Gandhian leader and freedom fighter, Shri Samaldas Gandhi. The Nawab, unable to resist the popular pressure, bowed out and escaped to Pakistan. The provincial government under Samaldas Gandhi formally asked Government of India to take over.^[55]. The Deputy Prime Minister of India, Sardar Patel came to Junagadh on November 12, 1947 to direct the occupation of the state by the Indian army and at the same time ordered the reconstruction of the Somanath temple^[56]

When Sardar Patel, K M Munshi and other leaders of the Congress went to Gandhiji with the proposal of reconstructing the Somnath temple, Gandhiji blessed the move, but suggested that the funds for the construction should be collected from the public and the temple should not be funded by the state. He expressed that he was proud to associate himself to the project of renovation of the temple^[57] But soon both Gandhiji and Sardar Patel died and the task of reconstruction of the temple was now continued under the leadership of K M Munshi, who was the Minister for Food and Civil, supplies in the Nehru Government^[57].

The ruins were pulled down in October 1950 and the mosque was moved to a different location. In May 1951, Rajendra Prasad, the first President of the Republic of India, invited by K M Munshi, performed the installation ceremony for the temple^[58] Rajendra Prasad said in his address "It is my view that the reconstruction of the Somnath Temple will be complete on that day when not only a magnificent edifice will arise on this foundation, but the mansion of India's prosperity will be really that prosperity of which the ancient temple of Somnath was a symbol.".^[59]. He added "The Somnath temple signifies that the power of reconstruction is always greater than the power of destruction"^[59]

This episode created a serious rift between the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who saw in movement for reconstruction of the temple an attempt at Hindu revivalism and the President Rajendra Prasad and Union Minister K M Munshi, saw in its reconstruction, the fruits of freedom and the reversal of injustice done to Hindus^[59].

[edit]The Emergence of the Sangh Parivar

Main article: Sangh Parivar

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which was started in 1925, had grown as a huge organisation by the end of British rule in India. But the assassination of Gandhi and a subsequent ban on the organisation plunged it into distress. The ban was revoked when it was absolved of the charges and it led to the resumtion of its activities^[46].

The 1960s saw the volunteers of the RSS join the different social and political movements. Movements that saw a large presence of volunteers included the Bhoodan, a land reform movement led by prominent Gandhian Vinoba Bhave^[60] and the Sarvoday led by another Gandhian Jayaprakash Narayan^[61]. RSS supported trade union, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh also grew into considerable prominence by the end of the decade.

Another prominent development was the formation of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an organisation of Hindu religious leaders, supported by the RSS, with the aim of uniting the various Hindu religious denominations and to usher social reform. The first VHP meet at Mumbai was attended among others by all the Shankaracharyas, Jain leaders, Sikh leader Master Tara Singh Malhotra, the Dalai Lama and contemporary Hindu leaders like Swami Chinmayananda. From its initial years, the VHP led a concerted attack on the social evils of untouchability and casteism while launching social welfare programmes in the areas of education and health care, especially for the Scheduled Castes, backward classes and the tribals^[62].

The organisations started and supported by the RSS volunteers came to be known collectively as the Sangh Parivar. Next few decades saw a steady growth of the influence of the Sangh Parivar in the social and political space of India^[62].

[edit]See also

[edit]Notes

^ ^a ^b The Hindu Phenomenon by Girilal Jain, ISBN no. 81-86112-32-4
^ ^a ^b Chatterjee Partha (1986)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Peter van der Veer, Hartmut Lehmann, Nation and religion: perspectives on Europe and Asia, Princeton University Press, 1999
^ ^a ^b Li Narangoa, R. B. Cribb Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895-1945, Published by Routledge, 2003
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Chetan Bhatt (2001)
^ ^a ^b Vidya Dhar Mahajan, Constitutional history of India, including the nationalist movement, Published by S. Chand, 1971
^ page 21, Elst Koenraad, Decolonizing the Hindu mind, Rupa Co 2001
^ "Hinduism Beginnings". Patheos Library. Retrieved 2010-08-19.
^ ^a ^b ^c On Understanding Islam: Selected Studies, By Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Published by Walter de Gruyter, 1981, ISBN 9027934487, 9789027934482
^ Carla M. Sinopoli, The political economy of craft production: crafting empire in South India, c. 1350-1650, Published by Cambridge University Press, 2003
^ Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez, Hinduism Modern, Encyclopedia of religion and war
^ M. G. Chitkara, Hindutva, Published by APH Publishing, 1997, ISBN 8170247985, 9788170247982
^ Thomas R. Metcalf, A Concise History of India, Cambridge University Press, 2002
^ Bhagat Singh, Why I am an atheist, Selected Writings of Shaheed Bhagat Singh by Bhagat Singh, Shiv Verma, National Book Centre, 1986
^ Michael Francis O'Dwyer, India as I knew it, 1885-1925, Published by Constable, 1926
^ ^a ^b ^c William Theodore De Bary, Stephen N Hay, Sources of Indian Tradition, Published by Motilal Banarsidass Publisher, 1988, ISBN 8120804678
^ ^a ^b Peter Heehs, Religious nationalism and beyond, August 2004
^ Elleke Boehmer, Empire, the National, and the Postcolonial, 1890-1920: Resistance in Interaction Published by Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 019818445X, 9780198184454
^ Manini Chatterjee, Do and Die: The Chittagong Uprising, 1930-34, Published by Penguin Books, 1999
^ By J. C. Johari, Voices of Indian Freedom Movement, Published by Akashdeep Pub. House
^ ^a ^b Arun Chandra Guha Aurobindo and Jugantar, Published by Sahitya Sansad, 1970
^ ^a ^b Anthony Parel, Hind Swaraj and other writings By Gandhi, Published by Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0521574315, 9780521574310
^ Manfred B. Steger, Gandhi's dilemma: nonviolent principles and nationalist power, Published by Macmillan, 2000, ISBN 0312221770, 9780312221775
^ ^a ^b Lajpat Rai, Bal Ram Nanda, The collected works of Lala Lajpat Rai, Published by Manohar, 2005, ISBN 8173046603, 9788173046605
^ Haṃsarāja Rahabara, Bhagat Singh and His Thought. Published by Manak Publications, 1990, ISBN 8185445079, 9788185445076
^ Donald Mackenzie Brown, The Nationalist movement: Indian political thought from Ranade to Bhave, Published by University of California Press, 1965
^ Gail Omvedt, Reinventing revolution: new social movements and the socialist tradition in India, Published by M.E. Sharpe, 1993
^ Saral Kumar Chatterji , Bipin Chandra Pal, Published by Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1984
^ Harijan, 2-1-1937
^ Young India, 19-9-1929
^ Harijan 19-10-1947
^ Ranganathan Magadi, India Rises in the West, Published by Lulu.com, 2006 ISBN 1430301058, 9781430301059
^ Aparna Basu, The Growth of Education and Political Development in India, 1898-1920, Published by Oxford University Press, 1974
^ Li Narangoa, R. B. Cribb, Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895-1945, Published by Routledge, 2003
^ Sisir Kumar Bose, Aleander Werth, Narayan Gopal Jog, Subbier Appadurai Ayer, Beacon Across Asia: A Biography of Subhas Chandra Bose, Published by Orient Blackswan, 1996
^ Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Thy Hand, Great Anarch!: India, 1921-1952, Published by Chatto & Windus, 1987
^ P. R. Bhuyan, Swami Vivekananda, Published by Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2003
^ Leonard A. Gordon, Brothers Against The Raj:A Biography of Indian Nationalist Leaders Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose, Published by Columbia University Press, 1990
^ S.K. Bose, Subhas Chandra Bose, Eds. Sisir Kumar Bose And Sugata Bose, The Alternative Leadership: Speeches, Articles, Statements and Letters June 1939–1941, Published by Orient Blackswan, 2004
^ ^a ^b ^c Chitkara M G, Hindutva, Published by APH Publishing, 1997 ISBN 8170247985, 9788170247982
^ http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Part.html
^ http://www.boloji.com/opinion/0022.htm
^ http://www.sacw.net/partition/IshtiaqAhmed2002.html
^ http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/itihas/partition.htm
^ http://san.beck.org/20-5-GandhiandIndia1919-33.html
^ ^a ^b Report of Commission of Inquiry into Conspiracy to Murder Mahatma Gandhi, By India (Republic). Commission of Inquiry into Conspiracy to Murder Mahatma Gandhi, Jeevan Lal Kapur, Published by Ministry of Home affairs, 1970,page 165
^ ^a ^b ^c Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar: Hindutva, Bharati Sahitya Sadan, Delhi 1989 (1923)
^ Elst, Koenraad (2005). Decolonizing the Hindu mind. India: Rupa. pp. 21. ISBN 81-7167-519-0.
^ ^a ^b MS Golwalkar, Bunch of thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu Prakashan, 19262
^ K.S. Rao in H. V. Seshadri, ed.:Why Hindu Rashtra?, p.24
^ Elst, Koenraad (2005). Decolonizing the Hindu mind. India: Rupa. pp. 480–486. ISBN 81-7167-519-0.
^ The Nation, January 24, 1998
^ Supreme Court on Hindu Hindutva and Hinduism
^ Ram Gopal, Hindu culture during and after Muslim rule: survival and subsequent challenges, Published by M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd., 1994,ISBN 8185880263, 9788185880266
^ Vapal Pangunni Menon, The Story of the Integration of the Indian States, Published by Macmillan, 1956
^ Hindustan Times, 15 Nov, 1947
^ ^a ^b Marie Cruz Gabriel, Rediscovery of India, A silence in the city and other stories, Published by Orient Blackswan, 1996, ISBN 8125008284, 9788125008286
^ Peter Van der Veer, Ayodhya and Somnath, eternal shrines, contested histories, 1992
^ ^a ^b ^c Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi, Indian constitutional documents,Published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1967
^ Suresh Ramabhai, Vinoba and his mission, Published by Akhil Bharat Sarv Seva Sangh, 1954
^ Martha Craven Nussbaum, The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future, Published by Harvard University Press, 2007 ISBN 0674024826, 9780674024823
^ ^a ^b Smith, David James, Hinduism and Modernity P189, Blackwell Publishing ISBN 0-631-20862-3

[edit]References

Walter K. Andersen. 'Bharatiya Janata Party: Searching for the Hindu Nationalist Face', In The New Politics of the Right: Neo–Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies, ed. Hans–Georg Betz and Stefan Immerfall (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), pp. 219–232. (ISBN 0-312-21134-1 or ISBN 0-312-21338-7)
Partha Banerjee, In the Belly of the Beast: The Hindu Supremacist RSS and BJP of India (Delhi: Ajanta, 1998). OCLC 43318775
Bhatt, Chetan, Hindu Nationalism: Origins, Ideologies and Modern Myths, Berg Publishers (2001), ISBN 9781859733486.
Blank, Jonah. Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God.
Elst, Koenraad (2005). Decolonizing the Hindu mind. India: Rupa. ISBN 81-7167-519-0.
Ainslie T. Embree, 'The Function of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: To Define the Hindu Nation', in Accounting for Fundamentalisms, The Fundamentalism Project 4, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 617–652. (ISBN 0-226-50885-4)
Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life.
Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar (1923). Hindutva. Delhi, India: Bharati Sahitya Sadan.
Balbir K, Punj, "Hindu Rashtra" South Asian Journal