Recent Indian Ethical Thought

ABOUT THE BOOK This work is an attempt to present a systematic amount of the ethical ideas of the prominent modem Indian thinkers. These thinkers have given a new meaning, a new content and new bias to traditional Indian thought Socio-Political and morale several of these thinkers - two of whom, Dr. Radha Krishnan and Vinoba Bhave, are happily still with us have been actively associated with the various movements that have shaped the mind and the spirit or new India.

Ancient Indian literature, including, besides the Dharmasastra and the two Epics, such manuals of virtuous conduct as the Dhammapada are rich both in the enumeration of virtues and in the exhortations to practice them but they are not equally notable for reflections of the type to be met with in the writings of such system thinkers Plato and Aristotle, Kant and Hegel, Bishop butler and John Stuarts hill, (Ethical teaching in India was Isubordinated either to the attainment of the religious goal of monks or to the requirements of social harmony, Ethics in ancient India in other words was not an autonomous discipline, one of the prime needs of modern India is greater emphasis on morality both in thought and conduct. The present work seeks to underline this need by differing an appreciative account of recent Indian ethical thought,)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Name: Dr. Nirmala Tandon

Date of Birth: 05.06.1970

Present Occupation: Assistant Professor Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya P.G. College

Education: M.A., Ph.D.

Interest: Research & Studies

PREFACE This work is an attempt to present a systematic amount of the ethical ideas of the prominent modern Indian thinkers. These thinkers have given a new meaning, a new content and new bias to traditional Indian thought socio-political and morale several of these thinkers two of whom, Dr. Radha Krishnan and Vinoba Bhave, are happily still with us-have been actively associated with the various movements that have shaped the mind and the spirit or new India.

Ancient Indian literature, including, besides the Dharmasastra and the two Epics, such manuals of virtuous conduct as the Dhammapada are rich both in the enumeration of virtues and in the exhortations to practice them but they are not equally notable for reflections of the type to be met with in the writings of such system thinkers Plato and Aristotle, Kant and Hegel, Bishop butler and john Stuarts hill, (Ethical teaching in India was subordinated either to the attainment of the religious goal of monks or to the requirements of social harmony, Ethics in ancient India in other words was not an autonomous discipline, one of the prime needs of modern India is greater emphasis on morality both in thought and conduct. The present work seeks to underline this need by differing an appreciative account of recent Indian ethical thought.).

The thinkers dealt wish here tried not so much to create new ethical concepts as to reinterpret traditional concepts no as to make them workable in modern India, In so doing, these thinkers also incorporated useful elements from western thought, the attempt to accomplish such reinterpretation and synthesis has made modem Indian thought rather complex in presentation and emphasis, This was inevitable, considering the complexities of the modem mind and the modem times. As Prof. V.S. Naravane has noted "the period between the beginning of the 19th century and the middle of the 20th, though much briefer compared to the vast ages with which writers on ancient thought have to devil is one of age when the tempo of life and thought was getting faster and faster with every decade an age pecked with too many influences." (Modem Indian thought, p. 4).

While there are several surveys of modern Indian thought as a whole available for the modern reader, including Prof. Naravane's admirable Modem Indian thought referred to above, I have not come across any Independent work dealing exclusively with recent Indian ethical thought. There is in general paucity of work on Indian ethics. Dr. S.K. Maitra's The Ethics on the Hindus and Dr. Mr. S. Das Gupta's Development of Moral Philosophy in India are the only standard works dealing in detail with the growth of moral thought in ancient times. These works do not prefer at all to the modern times. The present work therefore, which attempts to set forth the ethical ideas and ideals propounded and propagated by modern Indian thinkers and the movements launched by some of them, may be found useful by the students of modern Indian thought end culture.

Attempt has been made here to relate the though in modern Indian to their socio-political background. The cultural history of modern Indian begins with certain movement of reform in the nine tenth century collectively these movements seeks been designated as the Hindu renaissance. The first chapter seeks to analyse the factors that brought about this renaissance, and to assess the contributions made by different Samaj Movements and their founders during the nine tenth century, The subsequent chapters deal with the ethical thought of two chief architects of the new India, namely, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo, S. Radhakrishnan and Vinoba have. In the concluding chapter critical review of recent Indian ethical thought has been presented.

**Contents and Sample Pages**