All About Indian Heritage- A Collection of Articles on Indology

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Contrivance of gods and goddesses was a feature of tribal civilizations throughout the world. Emancipating religion out of the narrowness and blind faith in tribal gods different prophets tried to imbibe spirituality in their religions and universalize the same. In this way the big monotheistic religions have been created in which one almighty god is believed to dispense all benefits to His worshippers who propitiate Him in a prescribed way. This possibly made some advancement in theological speculation but did not free religion from exclusiveness. Brahmanism and its follow up Hinduism passed through the same phases until the philosophy of Vedanta got enshrined in those religions. Vedanta's realization that man and no extra-cosmic god is at the centre of divinity draws reverence of all thoughtful persons and perhaps discloses the highest truth. Unfortunately integration of the philosophy of Vedanta with the ritual system of Hindu Dharma remained obscure for centuries giving scope to Hindu Dharma to accumulate animism and fanaticism under the pressure of Bhakti or devotion of the pre-Aryan people of India.

In the articles of this book it has been tried to penetrate into the forgotten theology of Hindu Dharma removing the conceit and fables and to establish that Hindu Dharma is human-centric where an extra-cosmic god is only superfluous.

Sri Kalyanbrata Chakraborty, an M.A. in Ancient Indian History and Culture from Calcutta University, started his career in the service of the Department of Tourism, Government of West Bengal. Later on while teaching Tourism and Travel Management Course (Vocational) in different colleges under Calcutta University, he developed a keen interest in Indology and felt that many important areas of India's past history and culture, specially relating to religion and philosophy, still remain obscure. This, according to him, dislodged Hinduism from its root and a rational understanding of the essence of this religion as well as of Indian culture in general has been rendered an illusion. With due sagacity Sri Chakraborty has written a number of books on Indology which interpreted the concerned issues of Indian culture in such a way as has opened a new vista of rational thinking which is good enough to over bear the folly, dogma and superstition with which, according to him, the present day notion and practice of Hinduism has been arrayed. His analysis has brought out that the core reality of Brahmanism as well as that of Hinduism is human centric.

In recognition of his works a Central University, Tirupati Rastriya Sanskrit University, has conferred on him Honoris Causa D. Litt with the title Vachaspati and Government of West Bengal has honoured him by giving Bangabhusan award.

The present disquisition containing thirteen assorted essays written independentry over u ,uuro.,rtle length of time primar,y addresses a central theme, i.e. lrdian Heritage. strewn around a sub-theme which is focused on tndology by andlarge. The Asiatic society is known to the world over as the oldest centre of cultivatign of knowledge in this special field. p. J. Marshall exactly reflected on this very subject when he observed, "The society has been given credit for providing the main impetus for the systematic study of ,rdorogy in the wist, initially in Britain and later on the continent of uurope. A case has also been made for seeing the work of the men who joined Society as the stimulus for lrdian interectuars in the nineteenth century of recapture and reinterpret their own tradition" (The Founding Fathers of the Asiatic society, in the rournar of the Asiatic society, Vol. XXV[, No. 2, 1985, p.63). Now, I juxtapose a succinct observation of Shri Viren J. Shah, the then Hon,ble Governor of West Bengal, while he inaugurated the national seminar on Future of Lrdology in the Asiatic Society during January 31st and Lst February, 2000. He remarked, ,,Indoiogy iJrrtt a. archaic subject' A nation that is aware of its heritage can contribute to the development of other civilizations,, (Fiure of lndology, Ed. Biswanath Banerjee,-The Asiatic Society, Kotkata, 208,";. g). Following this rich academic tradition of the Asiatic society, Dr. Kalyanbrata Chakraborty, a life member of the Society, and an eminent scholar of Ancient Indian History and Curturl, had chosen to prepare a discourse on the subject, as mentioned above, and had submitted this manuscript for publication by the sociefy. He claimed to "throw light on different unknown areas of Hinduism in a dialectic manner" (p. 11) while reviewing through the scope of the subject of his study as well as scanning through the already available various source materials. In the Process of indicating certain hitherto unexplored areas in the context of Indological Studies, he has identified a few issues and has attempted to bring some of them into relief by way of critical reflections through the incisive chapters included in the present book. I hope, Dr. Chakraborty's painstaking effort will be appreciated by the scholars in Indology in general and this title will add to the contributions of knowledge, specially for the young researchers in this important academic field.