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Alex Sloan
Professor Spademan
Philosophy 251
24 November 2022
Hinduism
After reading all the modules I decided to do the one I knew the least amount of. I also
wanted to pick one that intrigued me the most as well. I wanted to do this so that I could not only
get a better understanding of the religion but also to give myself a challenge. I decided to do
Hinduism. I chose Hinduism due to how unique I found their culture and religion to be.
Throughout this essay I am going to be focusing on Modern Hinduism and how it came to be
what it is today. I will also talk about who had an impact on modern Hinduism and why they did.
To begin, during the 19th century Indian modernists declared Hinduism to be a major
asset of Indian civilization. During this time, Indian modernists voided Hinduism from its Tantric
elements and validated the Vedic elements. To explain, tantric elements were known as the idea
of connecting to the divine and Vedic elements were known as the idea of connecting with
nature. From here, western stereotypes were reversed, emphasizing the universal aspects, and
introducing modern approaches of social problems (Alivia, 2017.) All in all, this approach had a
great appeal, in India, and also in the west.
Next, there were many people that had an impact on modern Hinduism. These individuals
being Swami Vivekananda, Ram Mohan Roy, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Mahatma Gandhi.
(Rocker, 2016.) Raja Rammohan Roy is known as the father of the Hindu Renaissance.
(Esposito et al., 2015) Roy had a major influence on Swami Vivekananda, who, according to
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Flood, was a feature of great significance in the development of a modern Hindu
self-understanding and in formulating the West's view of Hinduism. (Libretexts, 2021)
According to his philosophy we see that he believes in the idea that the divine exists in all
beings, and that all human beings can achieve union with innate divinity, and that seeing this
divine as the essence of others will advance love and social harmony. (Esposito et al., 2015)
According to Vivekananda, there is an important unity to Hinduism, which guides the diversity
of its many forms. In agreement with Flood, Vivekananda's vision of Hinduism is one generally
welcomed by most English-speaking middle-class Hindus today. (Bhajanananda, 2021)
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan wanted to accommodate western rationalism with Hinduism,
presenting Hinduism as an important rationalistic and humanistic religious experience. (Hawley)
