S086919080000027-6-1

Article

Published

Issue 2

71-82

The paper examines the sources on history of the Bengal Renaissance thought dated from the nineteenth– early twentieth century, to understand Buddhism by the Bengal thinkers. The understanding of Buddhism was a part of a discovery and understanding of Indian religious tradition by Bengal thinkers through arranging in their own consciousness a dialogue with others religions, first of all Christianity and Islam. In the dialogue background, Bengal intellectual’s appeal to Buddhism is exclusion from the general trends, because the closer the other religion to intellectual-subject of understanding, the less his interest to it. The author interprets Bengal thinkers’ relation to Buddhism as the hermeneutical problem. The problem includes conventional questions on Buddha’s personality, meanings of his creed, the relations of Buddhism and Hinduism, and the role of Buddhism in Indian history. The interpretations of Buddhism by Krishnamohan Banerjea, Surendranath Banerjea, Romeshchandra Dutt, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore were the attempts to solve these problems. Bengal intellectuals have created their own general image of Buddhism, inscribed in their general understanding on India. General result of their understanding are the inclusion of Buddhism into intellectual tradition of India and a discovery of social, ethical and political meanings of the religion for Modern India and the world. A positive image of Buddhism created by Bengal thinkers describes it as a religion of compassion, charity, and love, as well as one of spiritual messages if India to the world for a solution of Modern problems.

09.01.2018

29.04.2018

14

1674