Phase 5: Hindu renaissance

During the British period when the Indians came in contact of new political and religious thoughts contrastingly different from theirs they reacted in several ways. The dominant response was to integrate Western and Indian systems. A feeling grew that India was good in religious thought and spiritualism, and the West was good in science. For the further development of the country there is a need to combine the two. In his famous fictional work Anandamath, Bankim used the terms internal knowledge and external knowledge for Indian spiritualism and Western science. However, this was not the only reaction to British contact. In extreme cases, some people rejected the endogenous religious systems completely (they got converted to Christianity and identified Christianity with modernity); and others became more conservative.

Brahmo Sabha (founded by Raja Rammohun Roy in 1828 in Calcutta), Arya Samaj (founded by Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati in1875 in Bombay) and Satya Sodhak Samaj (founded by Jyotirao Phooley in 1873 in Poona) are three significant religious innovations of this period. While Brahmo Sabha and Arya Samaj stressed going back to Vedas and removal of caste system, Satya Sodhak Samaj opened membership only to non-Brahmins and launched a movement against Brahmin supremacy in religion, politics and society. There were many similarities (and also dissimilarities) between these movements. They were all against the social evils, idol worship and superstitions. They all wanted to revive the lost glory of India, and they all contained egalitarian and humanistic strands. For example, Devendranath Tagore, father of Ravindranath Tagore, who carried forward the ideas of Brahmo Sabha and established Brahma Samaj, maintained that there are four basic principles of Brahmo Samaj:

(a) Initially there was nothing except God who created this universe;

(b) God is the only basis of truth, goodness, wisdom, and power and He is ever present, all pervading and the only existence;

(c) Our freedom in this world as well as the other world is dependent on our faith and worship of that God; and

(d) To love Him and to fulfill His desire is the only true religion (Rolland, 2010).

In this period there is a clear impact of Christianity on Hindu thinkers (Dayanand Saraswati is one of the exceptions). Several of them including Ramakrishna Paramhansa pretended that they were doing the work of Jesus only and identified with Jesus in some or other capacity (incarnation of him, follower of him, messenger of him or as the true spirit of him) and attempted to give a secular, humanistic and universal shape to religion.