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| The Hindu Phenomenon |
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HINDU NATIONALISM : THE FIRST PHASE |
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we need not go into details of the Swami's life, teachings and
activities. Some of the controversies which his teachings and
activities provoked during his lifetime continue to reverberate.
Those too do not belong here. We are concerned primarily with his
place in the story of re- emergence of the Hindu people. That place
cannot be overstated. In Sri Aurobindo's words, it as a master-
glance of practical intuition on his part "to go back
trenchantly to the very root of Indian life and culture (the Veda),
to derive from the flower of its first birth the seed for a radical
new birth. And what an act of grandiose intellectual courage to lay
hold on this scripture defaced by ignorant comment and oblivion of
its spirit, degraded by misunderstanding to the level of an ancient
document of barbarism, and to perceive in it its real worth as a
scripture which conceals in itself the deep and energetic spirit of
the forefathers who made this country and nation... Rammohun Roy,
that other great soul and puissant worker who laid his hand on
Bengal and shook her - to what mighty issues - out of her long,
indolent sleep... stopped short at the Upanishads. Dayanand looked
beyond and perceived that our true original seed was the Veda."24
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| About Hindu Nationalism: The First Phase |
