Tradition and Modernity in Religion (An Old and Rare Book)

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There can be no gainsaying that sciences together present a formidable alternative to theistic two-world view of the Universe. It is rapidly gaining the upper hand in our thought structure. In the West the scientific education at mass scale has made the Biblical view of supernaturalism of 'God in Heaven' unacceptable. As Bishop Robinson points out that in the present day scientific outlook, a Christian does not feel honest to himself when he prays to the traditionally held view of God as 'Father in Heaven'. Rudolf Bultmann, the great theologian, had shocking experience when he found that the soldiers had no ear for the myths and miracles of the Bible, for these did not tick into their scientific education. So he started the process of demythologizing the Bible. There are evolutionary interpretations of God. Teilhard speaks of God as 'Omega point'. Tillich denies God to be an entity or Being at all, God is no more the highest being, he is not being at all. We cannot assert either that 'God exists' or 'God does not exist'. He is beyond existence.

All these attempts to modernize the traditional religion in the West are absent in our country. It is due to two reasons: There has not been much education in sciences. The ethos of scientific culture is conspicuous by its absence. The development of scientific outlook is too feeble to stimulate theologians and philosophers of India to demythologize their Hindu scriptures and texts.

Again, India became independent very recently. In political context, India had rulers from other countries for eleven centuries. In the newly won freedom, there is attempt to assert national identity through revivalism. Revivalism seeks and glorifies the past and in our case it has been religio-philosophic literature of super-naturalism or Absolute idealism (Vedanta).

In the present mood the question of demythologizing of religious texts does not arise. The best thinkers in India have been anxious and enthusiastic to export Vedantic philosophy and religion as India's highest contribution to the world of religions. One has to read Swami Vivekananda, Dr. S.Radhakrishnan, Dr. P.T.Raju, Dr. S.N.Dass, Dr. Anand Gupta, Dr. K.Coomaraswamy, Sri Aurobindo, Dr. Bhagwan Dass to name just a few from among scores of those who have shown how Vedanta religion of India accomodates all religions in its fold under super-unity. In this mood and attitude one can understand how in India there has been no dissection of religious texts, no demythologizing of them as it has occured in the West. The Indian intelligentia is still too much hand-and-feet-bound to traditional religious culture, to do spring cleaning of its religious inheritance. Prof. Margaret Chatterjee, distinguished professor of Philosophy, truly says in her book The Religious Spectrum: "The Scientific outlook....has scarcely led to revision of Indian religious concepts.

Indeed the tendency among philosophic religious thinkers has been to continue in his exegetic tradition of the past and one looks in vain for a ferment of ideas, parallel to what has been taking place in the West."

The lone Hindu religious genius who has reconstituted religious consciousness which embraces science, secularism and humanism is Shri S.N.Agnihotri who later on gave himself the spiritual name of Devatma. (Dev stands for love for values of truth, goodness, beauty and Devatma means the soul who loves truth, beauty and goodness.) This book presents his naturalistic evolutionary religious reconstruction in different perspectives. The differentia of religious consciousness is to seek interpretation of life and Universe which provides satisfaction of feelings of gratitude, reverence, awe, worship as well as moksha and salvation. The question is how these invaluable feelings and aspirations can find satisfaction in the scientific, secular and humanistic context of modern thought.