Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi – the Unorthodox “Orthodox”

The reference to the native tradition by thinkers of modernizing societies is a complex, multidimensional process. It includes endeavours of rational recon­sideration of their own religion, which as a rule are accompanied with reformers’ declarations about revival of true ancient essence of faith and about their ortho­doxy. The typical example of the last one is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s ar­ticle “Who is a ‘Sanatani’ Hindu?”. Translation of this text into Russian is pre­sented to the readers. And though the question about consideration Gandhi as а reformer of Hinduism is debatable, his approach to religion has many similar features with reformative practice by Rammohun Roy (1772–1833) and his fol­lowers. Reflection on originality of the Indian civilization and particularly on Hinduism, which is characteristic for the thinkers of that period, can’t be under­stood without analysis of modernization context and especially for Gandhi with­out attention to anti-colonial struggle. The meet with the West divided Indian so­ciety to three parts: those who gladly copied European lifestyle, others who refused all foreign and those for whom the discovery of new culture became the reason for the recognition of the past and the present of their native country. The last thinkers weren’t contented with just safe-keeping of Indian civilization in the situation of the colonial crisis and therefore they defined another aim – to revive its ancient greatness. Every reformer created his own project of religious renaissance based on his own conception of ‘true’ ancient Hinduism, which was corrupted in time. But there is something common in interpretation of Hinduism by different thinkers of that direction, and by Gandhi too. All of them tried to find the essence of Hinduism, which brings it together with other religions and which defines its uniqueness in order to show to the compatriots and to the world the special role which Indian civilization should play in all-human destiny

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