Abstract: A development of ethical thought by Neo-Hindu philosophers in Nineteenth– early Twentieth century Bengal is depicted in the article based on hermeneutic readings of the texts by Bankimchandra Chattopaddhyay, Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh. From the one hand, Neo-Hindu philosophers continue Rammohun Roy’s line of criticism of Indian society’s moral condition, consciousness and conduct. From the other hand, they formed their own ethical conceptions to present Hindu normative ethics. The research demonstrated for the first time the becoming of Modern Indian ethics in the conceptions of Bengal Neo-Hindu thinkers who are the real founders of ethics as philosophical discipline in India. Growing up from indigenous ancient tradition of exegesis of scriptures, Neo-Hindu conceptions of ethics are the new adogmatic interpretation of the native religious ethics in broad context of Modernity. The Bengal Renaissance thinkers had made an intellectual breakthrough in Indian philosophy. The result of intellectual works are following: 1) bringing morality to the fore in dharma to differentiate ethical issue-area as meaningful in thought and practice; 2) definition of universality of Hinduism’ s moral consciousness in the core; 3) normative ethics along with its imperatives and rules had presented as established and fixed in ancient Hindu scriptures; 4) the ethical ideal was found in images of sages and epic heroes as well as in their teachings; 5) ethical norms and ideal are practically oriented for the criticism of society’s morals and future development.

Abstract: The origin of Modern Indian ethical thought is described in the article. The author depicts the genesis of ethics as originated from the works by key personalities of the Bengal Renaissance XIX – early XX century. The juxtaposition with traditional Indian thought permits to present the intellectual process in Modern Bengal elite minds as ‘discovery of morality’. Based on hermeneutic analysis of the texts on moral problematics from Rammohun Roy and the Brahmo Samaj thinkers to Krishnamohun Banerjea, the author reconstructs the becoming of Indian ethical thought in the context of their striving for the moral regeneration of traditional society. For the first time the genesis and becoming of thinking of Indian intellectuals about morality in its connections with the present condition of social decline in colonial India are disclosed in the research. The experience of Bengal thinkers of 1815–1870th demonstrates the solution of super-task to find ethics in ancient sacred texts and next to build religiously based ethics. The super-task had been settled by the method of interpretation that permits to see high moral precepts in high faith in One God of original religion as it opposed to polytheistic Hinduism. The result of applying the method was embodied in the creative and high conception of Hindu morality based on ethical God Creator. The Bengal thinkers are firmly convinced that displaced into periphery of Hindus’ consciousness morality as a code of normative ethics must be revived and turned into leading imperatives of consciousness of people.

Abstract: Among the key ideas of the Bengal Renaissance (XIX–early XX century) was one of a future India considered from the point of view of India's weal. An creative embodiment of the idea in Rabindranath Tagore’s poem ‘Where the Mind is Without Fear’ (1901) is analyzed in the article. Based on hermeneutical approach, the author traces an origin of the idea, its evolution in creative thought of the national-cultural renaissance in Modern India and its content in Tagore’s thought. The application of a principle of historicism helped to trace the emergence of ‘dreamland’ idea in Michael Madhusudan Dutta’s poetry, then its ‘antithesis’ in philosophy by Swami Vivekananda and next transformation into the image of future free India in Rabindranath Tagore’s poem. For the first time ‘Where the Mind is Without Fear’ has been philosophically considered in the broad context of the history of thought and culture in India from Rammohun Roy to Rabindranath Tagore. The poem is an application of social ideal of free society to future perspective of India; its practical embodiment is possible, but it depends from positive activity of Indian people. The poem represents a set of key ideas of the epoch such as renovation of spiritual life, overcoming of the dead rules, rational thinking of all life spheres, human liberation from traditional dependencies, finding of dignity and discovery of new ways of development. Moreover, Tagore maintains universal human problematic of freedom and circumstances of its embodiment in peoples’ life.

Abstract: Used by the Bengal Renaissance thinkers in the process of understanding of Other, a method of dialogical hermeneutics is reconstructed in the article. The method is described as a mental phenomenon and general way of understanding the Other, the latter is being represented by the Western culture and its representatives. The generality of the method depends on both circumstances of colonial urban society and educational and scientific development in India and general aspiration to revive as well as general aspiration of Bengal intellectuals to revive and develop India. Admitting the presence of some general method of understanding, the author reconstructs the method based on the phenomenological approach and analysis of texts created by the key persons of the epoch. The methodology helps to present a structure and peculiarities of the process of understaning as well as working of dialogic hermeneutics. Dialogic hermeneutics is described as a trajectory of the thought moving that proceeds from the aspiration to find universal grounds behind differences of cultures and points of contacts and similarity of traditions, and then it moves from an exposing the deep similarity to an understanding of differences as a result of many-sides of life. This method opened new ways of self-cognition for Indian culture and created “understanding as an event” (M. Buber) owing to which India opened herself to interaction with the modern world.

Abstract: This article examines the formation process of Neo-Hindu thought in Bengal at the end of the 19th century on the basis of the religious and philosophical material from the works of the author, publicist, and public figure Bankimchandra Chattopaddhyay. The interpretation of Hinduism in his works of 1880–1892 presents the creation of a positive image of his native religion, directed at exonerating it from the criticism of Hindu Religious reformers and Christian missionaries. In creating an image of Hinduism Bankimchandra proceeds from recognising it as a multifaceted whole (the metaphor of the tree) tied by fundamental principles. For the description of the image of Hinduism in Bankimchandra’s works the author used the method of reconstruction, which is based on the hermeneutical analysis of the texts of the corresponding period, as well as taking into account the socio-cultural context of the time. For the first time in Russian Indology the author describes the complete image of Hinduism resulting from the reflections of one of the founders of Neo-Hinduism as a direction of social thought. Bankimchandra’s version of Hinduism was the worldview justification of this religion as a comprehensive spiritual tradition rooted in deep antiquity. Having appeared as a religion of nature, Hinduism evolved from the original form of the Vedic religion to the enlightened and good religion founded on the interpretations of the Dharma in the “Bhagavad Gita”.

Abstract: In this article Skorokhodova describes pedagogical experiment of the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore as a successful attempt of practical implementation of the main principles of educational school philosophy founded by the poet. He based on his own critics of actual school in colonial India and the idea of understanding of children. The key principles of Tagore’s educational philosophy include respect for children’s freedom, training in the dialogue of equals – teacher and pupils – and focus of education on the development of creative personality as an active member of the society. Philosophy and practice of school education are reconstructed based on the phenomenological approach and hermeneutical analysis of Rabindranath Tagore's lectures. The main aspects of Tagore' pedagogical experience are philosophical, theoretical and practical. The philosophical aspect is represented in the humanist content of the ducational model. The theoretical aspect is the creation of the basis for the dialogical model of the subject–subject training. The practical aspect is the combination of national traditions and universal contents of education for the needs of development in the society.

Abstract: The process of Hinduism’s universalization is depicted in the article as re-interpretation of Hindu tradition by intellectuals of the Indian Renaissance XIX– early XXth century. Author considers the interpretations by Rammohun Roy and his Brahmo Samaj, Prarthana Samaj, Swami Dayananda and his Arya Samaj, and also by Neo-Hindu thinkers Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, Swami Vivekananda and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, as different variants of answers to key question of spiritual-intellectual searching on real essence of Hinduism.
Based on phenomenological approach, the process is represented as dialogue of Hinduism and other religious – before all Christianity and Islam – and creating a concrete image of Hinduism as universal religion in Indian intellectual’s mind. The variants of the interpretations underlie the religious movements – reformist and neo-Hinduist.
Author suggests, that in Bengal, Maharashtra and Punjab intellectual universalization of Hinduism had helped to ground the world status of the religion. The universalization had two variants. First was negative universalization from sharp critics of religious forms to grounding high monotheism and humanist ethics. Second was positive universalization based on accepting of all worship forms as different paths to Divine Absolute. Hinduism was symbolically depicted by intellectuals as universal world religion, the repository of highest truth for all humanity.