B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 1 General English 2023 Sep Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: his upbringing in a Hindu family and pilgrim towns; twelve years in Christian missionary institutions; the missionaries' criticism of Hinduism; his pride as a Hindu, roused by Vivekananda; his conviction that Hindu saints and ordinary believers were truly religious; the Hindu tradition of tolerance and his dislike of ridicule of faiths; the challenge to find what was living and what was dead in Hinduism; the spirit of the times; the gap in university courses; the thesis on the Ethics of the Vedanta and what followed.

Introduction

In My Search for Truth (1937), Radhakrishnan explains clearly why he turned to the study of Hindu philosophy. He says that the challenge of Christian critics impelled him to make a study of Hinduism. He wanted to find out what was living and what was dead in it. Behind that challenge lay his upbringing, his schooling, and the national awakening of his time.

3. Wounded pride

His pride as a Hindu had been roused by the work and eloquence of Swami Vivekananda. So the treatment of Hinduism in the mission schools hurt him deeply. He found it hard to accept that Hindu ascetics and teachers, who had kept alive the classical culture of India, were not truly religious. Even poor, unlettered villagers seemed to him more aware of the spiritual mystery of life than many comfortable, clever moderns. They had their household traditions and pilgrimages.

4. The Hindu habit of tolerance

His upbringing had taught him never to speak lightly of anything others held sacred. He says this respect for all creeds is bred into the bone by the Hindu tradition. From the Vedic age, that tradition adjusted itself to other faiths. He believed all religions are fellow labourers in the same task. So it annoyed him that sincere missionaries could ridicule doctrines that others held in deepest reverence. He felt such ridicule had little support in the teaching of Jesus.

8. The first result: the Ethics of the Vedanta

For his M.A. he wrote a thesis on the Ethics of the Vedanta. It was meant as a reply to the charge that the Vedanta had no room for ethics. It was published in 1908, when he was twenty. His teacher, Professor A. G. Hogg, praised it in a testimonial. Radhakrishnan later called the book juvenile. But he said it showed the general trend of his thought: religion must establish itself as a rational way of living.

What followed

From 1909, as a teacher at the Madras Presidency College, he made Indian philosophy and religion his serious study. His later works, including the two volumes of Indian Philosophy, grew out of this early decision.

Conclusion. Radhakrishnan took up the study of Hindu philosophy because his years in Christian missionary schools exposed him to sharp criticism of Hinduism. This criticism wounded a pride already stirred by Vivekananda and offended his Hindu sense of tolerance. He resolved to find out what in Hinduism was living and what was dead. The national awakening encouraged him, and a curriculum that ignored Indian thought did not deter him. His thesis on the Ethics of the Vedanta was the first fruit of a study that became his life's work.