What can be learnt from the tradition?

Tradition is not a monolithic thing, certainly not in the Indian context. The pre-colonial India passed on a number of things to colonial India, and colonial India to the post-colonial India. They are (often contradictory and internally inconsistent):

• Religious pluralism and a desire to search for a common core of all religious thinking.

• Religious pluralism associated at a fundamental level with some variety of cultural relativism.

• A belief that both knowledge of and activities oriented towards this world and knowledge of and activities oriented towards the other world are important goals of life and extremism of any one kind is bound to fail. Ishavasyopanishad clearly says that following vidya alone can have more disastrous effect than following avidya; devotion to sambhut is as perilous as devotion to asambhut. One needs the material achievements for living in this world comfortably, and one also needs religion for peace and happiness. Where is the conflict?

• Belief that the other worldly reality is non-rational and this worldly reality is rational, implying that there is no conflict in them. One does not apply the rational framework to religious matters and the non-rational to secular matters. Moreover, in some religions of India the distinction between religious and sacred does not exist in the Western sense, they do not see an essential conflict between the two.

• The institutions of caste and joint family along with a belief that institutional practices are fluid; they are part of conditions of space and time. The pursuance of the ultimate values of life is not dependent on specific social formations.