The Poet-Creator of Philosophy: To the Methodology of Research in Philosophical Thought by Rabindranath Tagore

Skorokhodova Tatiana G. ORCID: 0000-0001-6481-2567 Professor, Penza State University 440046, Russia, g. Penza, ul. Krasnaya, 40, kab. 12-218 skorokhod71@mail.ru Other publications by this author

In the history of Indian philosophy of the 20th century, there are several figures who, while not being philosophers in the full and strict sense of the word, actually turned out to be the creators of philosophies that make the picture of modern Indian thought complete, and their legacy relevant for the new XXI century. Among the most famous are two politicians (M. K. Gandhi and J. Nehru) and one poet, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941).

"...I am not a scientist or a philosopher. And it is unlikely ... that one should expect from me the fruits gathered from the vast field of research, or the riches provided by a mind that is skilled in the difficult task of obtaining knowledge" ^{[1, p. 76]}, Tagore said in 1927, emphasizing his identity as a poet. Indeed, for a global audience, as well as for India and Bangladesh, Tagore, the Nobel Laureate in Literature in 1913, is first of all a poet, then a writer, and then follows a list of other spheres of culture and social life where he showed his multifaceted genius, including, of course, philosophy. For the historian of Modern Indian philosophy, Rabindranath Tagore represents the phenomenon of the poet who created philosophy; and this philosophy of the artist-thinker requires a comprehensive study. It cannot be said that it has not been studied; there are many works about it — from the book of his contemporary poet S. Radhakrishnan ^[2] to the latest publications [See: 3-5], not to mention the invariably frequent works on certain aspects of his thought: philosophy of education, political philosophy, social thought. However, the study is hampered by a lot, if not by stereotypes about R. Tagore and his work, then by accepted approaches that narrow the perspective of understanding (for example, Marxist in our country) [See: 6-7]. The latter are used by default, whereas the philosophical historian's reflections on the methodology of reconstructing the religious and social thought of the Indian poet remain outside the scope of books and articles. Therefore, the problem of historical and philosophical research of R. Tagore's intellectual heritage is primarily methodological; its essence lies in the question of how to study it.

The logically justified answer is clear: it is necessary to study the texts of R. Tagore, in which philosophical ideas and concepts are hidden (in poetry and fiction) or explicitly (lectures, speeches, articles). Moreover, after 1906 (the conditional time of his distancing from participation in the political movement of Swadeshi) Tagore is increasingly the author of texts that, for a number of reasons, have serious grounds to be classified as a philosophical type (or at least philosophizing), such as Sadhana (1913), Personality (1917), Creative Unity (1922), and Religion of Man (1930) and others, not to mention socio-philosophical texts — "Nationalism" (1916), "Conversations in China" (1924), "Letters about Russia" (1931)... R. Tagore's philosophizing unfolds both in poetry and in prose (especially in novels, novellas and short stories), and in journalism, and in appeals to the audience. I would like to emphasize that since 1913, the addressee of the Bengali writer's philosophizing and philosophy has been not only the Bengali-speaking regional and all-Indian audience, but also the world audience of the West (Europe and America), the East (Japan, China, Iran and other countries). Tagore addresses the latter in English, translating his ideas expressed in his native Bengali; and this is all the more important because the addressee has a lot to tell the world. But such an answer is only one side of the study; the hermeneutics of the text is necessary, but in itself insufficient.

The content of the problem lies in the fact that Rabindranath Tagore completes a number of representatives of the "creative minority" (A. Bergson) of the Bengali Renaissance of the XIX — first third of the XX centuries, the first regional manifestation of the national cultural renaissance in British India [See: 8-9]. Each of the thinkers of the era, starting with Rammohan Rai and ending with R. Tagore himself, "perhaps the most gifted of them all" ^{[10, 432]}, was not a philosopher in the traditional and modern academic sense; more often they are practitioners-reformers, educators, scientists and cultural figures, politicians concerned about the fate of their societies and countries. However, in their various texts, which are not always devoted to philosophical topics, some new Indian philosophy appears, forms and develops, justifying transformations in the field of spirit, thought and social life. The presence of philosophy in the texts of the Bengali Renaissance necessitates its reconstruction on the basis of the hermeneutics of texts, as experience suggests [See: 11]. The reconstruction, in turn, shows that the thinker/intellectual is essentially a philosopher or at least inclined to philosophize, which leads to significant semantic generalizations.

In addition, in a number of cases, the thinkers of the Bengali Renaissance, especially the initiators and participants of religious and social reform movements, in one way or another rely on tradition — texts, philosophical schools, socio-cultural knowledge. It is comprehended, interpreted, updated and developed, as a rule, in a new adogmatic way, and thereby updated. R. Tagore, in comparison with his older contemporaries and predecessors, has a new quality of philosophizing — reliance on the legacy of previous periods of the era, including a rethought spiritual and intellectual tradition; with an intensive adogmatic rethinking of traditions directly dating back to antiquity, or traditions of the unorthodox — as the work of the bauls of Bengal. And at the same time, Tagore is in the field of contemporary problems and discussions, which allows him to comprehend social topics of concern to him, based on the intellectual and spiritual heritage of the West that he perceived and correlating it with the spirit of Indian traditions. These aspects of the problem of the study of Tagore's philosophical thought pose the task of developing a methodology.

The starting point of the methodology of studying the philosophy of personalities like Tagore may be to classify him as a type of cross-cultural thinkers. Intellectuals like him, not only artists, but also politicians, public figures, etc. quite a lot not only in India, but also in the East of Modern Times in general. This conditional type is formed in the historically and geographically localized space of meeting and dialogue of large civilizational areas (eastern and western) in their specific expression. So, in the case of Tagore, as well as other thinkers of the Indian Renaissance, it is a meeting of India and Europe (namely England) in the colonized territories in the space of urban culture. A thinker of this type is a carrier of cross—culturality as a quality of thinking formed, on the one hand, in the reality of a specific native cultural tradition of the region and civilization, and on the other - by the conscious development of knowledge about Another culture and the work of understanding; due to the intersection and meeting of cultures of two or more traditions. This is indicated by R. Tagore himself, saying that the lifestyle of his family was formed from a combination of three cultures — Hindu, Muslim, British, and he himself "came into this world when the spirit of progress born in a modern city had already triumphed over the juicy greenery of our ancient village communities" ^{[12, pp. 289-290]}. Elsewhere, he speaks of an era in which the "streams of three movements" merged — the religious one founded by Rammohan Rai (Brahmo Samaj), the literary revolution led by Bonkimchondro Chottopaddhay, and the national cultural revival movement ^{[13, vol. XI, pp. 343-344]}. A cross-cultural philosopher who has built a dialogue of culture and tradition in his mind usually reflects on his Own — spiritual tradition, society, people, its history and culture, but in relation to Another, and is able to reach broad universal generalizations and interpretations.

Martin Buber's category of "problematic thinker" also provides additional opportunities for understanding: this phenomenon appears in crucial epochs of history (the "era of homelessness") and acutely experiences loneliness in the Universe, "alone with oneself and one's problems." Such a thinker discovers universal problems behind the situations that concern him and, reflecting on it, works to create a new image of the world ^{[14, pp. 210-211, 218-219]}. Practically all thinkers of the Bengali Renaissance can be described productively as "problematic"; they experience the state of society as a decline and crisis and take on the difficult task of responsibly understanding the situation and finding means to overcome it ^{[15, pp. 52-72]}. Attributing them, like Tagore, to this category allows us to see how the Indian philosophy of Modern times is turning to anthropological and social philosophy, its inclusion in the structure of the problem field along with traditional issues. Due to this, a kind of philosophy of crisis is being formed — a set of themes and vectors of reflection in an attempt to answer questions about the real meaning of India's own existence and its history, about the content of tradition, about the causes of the current crisis and the possibility of development, about the prospects for revival and integration into the modern world, about the need to master foreign cultural experience, etc. All this set of vectors is found in R. Tagore in his social thought in the XX century.

Attributing a thinker to a cross-cultural type raises the question of the contexts of understanding not only his personality, but also the philosophy he creates. When studying the philosophies of specific thinkers of the Indian Renaissance, and perhaps the philosophers of the XX century after them, it is desirable to take into account three broad contexts [See: 11, pp. 11-15]. The first is the external civilizational context of the meeting of the East (represented by India) and the West on the Indian subcontinent and the unfolding of their dialogue during the era of British colonial rule. At first, this dialogue was established in the intellectual space of comprehension of India by European scientists and the development of Western achievements and heritage by Indians, who are simultaneously involved in the process of discovery, cognition and self—disclosure through the interpretation and self-description of Their own - India, themselves and Europeans (West) in dialogue. Under the sign of this dialogue, an era of national and cultural renaissance took place, which created a holistic understanding of India as a civilization with an ancient history. This understanding makes R. Tagore an Indian philosopher, speaking on behalf of the whole of India, representing it to the world. He himself points out this context of his thought in the Sadhana: "... In the forests of India, our civilization was born and acquired its own special appearance due to this source and environment. She was surrounded by the vast life of nature, which fed and clothed her, and existed in close and constant communication with all her various sides" ^{[17, p. 4]}. Along with this, Tagore constantly emphasizes the multicomponent nature of Indian society and culture [See: 13, vol. XI, pp. 243-244] and suggests the concept of Greater India for its description (Greater India, beng. Māhabhāratvarṣa).

Part of the external context is the regional context, where a special region (Bengal) meets with Europe with its strong unorthodox spiritual currents within the traditional brahmanical order, peripheral to traditional India, but as close as possible to its meeting place with the West; a region where the dialogue of cultures began earlier than others. Therefore, the second context is an internal epochal one — the national cultural renaissance in Bengal, the first regional version of the Indian Renaissance. The creative minority of the era, starting with the "troublemaker" ("challenger" in the original by A. J. Toynbee) Rammohan Rai, for about a century solved the problem of the synthesis of Indian and Western in modernizing India, the synthesis of universal and national principles in overcoming the present situation. Tagore, a representative of this creative community, is a Renaissance personality, inheriting what Rammohan Rai and his successors created and already in the twentieth century updating the ideas and heritage of the era for contemporaries. The Renaissance needs a Renaissance man. "The Italians had Leonardo da Vinci. Bengal had Rabindranath,— emphasizes Shubroto Dashgupto...So were Rammohan and Bonkimchondro. But in terms of richness and breadth of vision and absolute productivity in a variety of creative and intellectual spheres, Rabindranath surpassed them all." In this regard, he embodied a new awakening of the Indian mind, and, continuing his works in the XX century, presented the legacy of the Bengali Renaissance for the next era ^{[10, pp. 432, 433]}.

The third context is an internal biographical one, which allows you to advance in understanding ideas and texts through knowledge of the influences, attitudes and practical activities of the thinker. The biography of the thinker shows not only the external "outline" of the evolution of thought and ideas, but also the possibility of explaining the nature of philosophizing and philosophical constructions. Tagore's formation is conditioned by his family and cultural environment. He is the youngest son of the religious reformer Debendronath Tagore (1817-1905) and the grandson of fellow Rammohan Rai, the first industrialist, philanthropist and public figure Darokanath Tagore; he was raised in the Tagore family from the Calcutta district of Jorashanko, who played an outstanding role in the creation of a new culture [See: 17]. Rabindranath was associated with the Brahmo Samaj reform movement, which left an indelible imprint on the culture and social life of Bengal. Epochal disputes of the period of cultural nationalism and the "battle in people's minds" between traditionalism and Westernism passed through his consciousness; it was on the example of R. Tagore's worldview that Shushobhan Shorkar described it in a brilliant article. Otherwise, this "battle in the minds" can be described as going on between liberalism and conservatism ^{[19, pp. 16-17]}. Assessing the significance of Tagore for the country and the era in the "Discovery of India", Jawaharlal Nehru noted: "Contrary to the usual course of development, as he grew older, he became more radical in his views and views" ^{[20, vol. II, p. 94]}. Let me clarify that he did not so much become "radical" as he finally established himself in ideological and philosophical liberalism after moving away from the socio-political movement of the early twentieth century, as Sh. Shorkar pointed out. It was then, having received worldwide recognition, that Tagore became a philosophical poet, creating philosophy for the whole world. And he speaks English, although his contribution to the development of the Bengali language and national literature is invaluable.

J. L. Garfield and N. Bhushan specifically highlight the role of language in the creation of a new Indian philosophy and emphasize the fundamental role of English in this process during the Indian Renaissance ^{[21, pp. 7-19]}. Among its creators is Tagore, "whose place in Indian intellectual history emphasizes the central place of language in it." <...> ...Bengali was a regional language, and this meant for Tagore's works to have national as well as international influence, but at all costs he had to turn into what was, ironically, the only national Indian language — English. By translating his own writings into English and creating something originally in English, Tagore transformed this language from lingua franca suitable for the subcontinent into an instrument of Indian self-expression" ^{[21, pp. 9-10]}. At the same time, Tagore knows the language of the philosophical tradition and the sacred text (Sanskrit) and reads the Upanishads in the original. Anyway, knowledge of the subtleties, facts and vicissitudes of the biography of the artist-thinker serves as a serious help in the hermeneutics of texts and the analysis of categories.

It is desirable to precede the understanding of texts by comprehending the personality of the thinker and the peculiarities of his consciousness. Paul Riker's concept of "I am myself as Another" is productively working in this direction: "... The self of oneself implies otherness to such a profound extent that one cannot be thought of without the other, that one rather passes into another, if we speak in the language of Hegel" ^{[23, p. 18]}. In such a person, according to Riker, there are four abilities that, in our case, shed light on actions and intentions in the creation of philosophy: 1) "the ability to speak, to communicate with others through language" ("I can speak"); 2) "the ability to interfere in the course of things through actions, efforts" ("I can act"); 3) "the ability to talk about my life and, consequently, to form my own identity through narration based on my memories" ("I can tell you about myself"); 4) the ability to be me, the subject ^{[23, pp. 15-16]}.

The otherness/otherness of the intellectuals of the Bengali Renaissance in their own, largely traditional and orthodox social environment has already been discussed ^{[15, pp. 57-65]}. Tagore himself was acutely aware of this otherness, emphasizing his indomitable independent subjectivity in speeches and poetry. So, his song "If, having heard your call, no one [will follow you], then go alone" (Jadi tor ḍāk śune keu nā ase tobe eklā calo re), famous, beloved by M. K. Gandhi, almost literally expresses all four dimensions of subjectivity according to Riker. Consistently affirming four thoughts — despite the indifference, passivity and inaction of others - Tagore convinces: go alone, speak alone, act (lit. "move along the thorny path") and illuminate the world with your light ^{[23, pp. 244-245]}. In his own personality, communication with others (with a pronounced intention to offer solutions to problems), social action as an actor (for example, the founding of Vishwabharathi University in Shantiniketon, or speaking out against wars and violence – aggression of Japan in China and other similar situations), self-narration ("Memories", "My childhood years" and others), as well as a pronounced subjectivity in the creation of culture — all this, for the most part, against the background of criticism from all sides, reproduces the best qualities of Bengali reformers-intellectuals, and also indirectly works to create Tagore's philosophy.

With a pronounced difference in relation to both society and cultural tradition, the thinker retains a connection with it, which must be revealed. In the case of Tagore, there is a special Varnovo-Jat origin — the Tagore family belongs to the Brahmins, but with an unfavorable reputation of the caste desecrated even under Muslim rule (pirali-Brahmins) ^{[24, p. 18]}. She retains a deeply respectful attitude towards knowledge and the ability to study and interpret sacred texts (Upanishads) ^{[16, p. 1]}, but at the same time is open to knowledge of other philosophical and religious traditions and cultures. Tagore, who follows the vocation of a poet and prose writer, like his father is inclined to meditate on the texts of the Upanishads, and also continues the tradition of neo—Vedanta, although with a share of serious criticism of classical darshana, so Vedanta is primarily not a school of philosophy, but the "completion of the Vedas", that is, the Upanishads. Another line of succession lies in the field of heterodox religious movements in Bengal — the traditions of Vishnu poetry of Bhakti and wandering baul singers; being a kind of sources of Tagore's poetic creativity [See: 25], they contributed a lot to the formation of his concept of religious philosophy.

Special mention should be made of the phenomena of consciousness, which mutually condition each other and turn into creative discoveries of the thinker. Let's call them the terms "Pilgrimage to the land of the West" (after the inversion of the title of the novel by Hermann Hesse) and "The Discovery of India" (after the title of the book by Jawaharlal Nehru); that is, phenomena, on the one hand, comprehension of the West, intellectual and/or real immersion in the space of another civilization and understanding of its culture and sociality, and on the other on the other hand, an understanding of the native country in its entirety [See: 11]. In the case of R. Tagore, the researcher deals with real repeated trips not only to Europe and later the USA, but subsequently around the world, reflecting on his experience in texts. Trips to India and his native Bengal are just as familiar and important for building in his mind a dialogue between India not only with the West, but also with the East and the whole world, which unfolds in social thought.

The unconditional core of Tagore's philosophy is his poetry, as the core of his personality is his vocation and the genius of the poet. E. B. Rashkovsky connects both poetry and philosophy with the phenomenon of surprise, which was noted by Aristotle, — it encourages philosophizing and creating, being realized in different ways in the poet's experience and philosophy. In poetry, it is expressed "as a spontaneous expression of our surprise before God, before the world, before another person, before ourselves"; in a rhythmically organized stream of images and words ^{[26, pp. 5-6]}. In a special work "The Rediscovery of man, or the Praise of lyrical poetry", Rashkovsky justified the concept of poetry as knowledge, and knowledge in a continuous dialogue with Another, in a sudden correlation of language, the inner world of man and the universal intuition of beauty ^{[26, pp. 24, 28-30]}. R. Tagore, first of all, was originally a poet of self-understanding and self-perception, which he spoke about, in particular, in his Nobel speech: "In that solitude, I ... absorbed the open spaces flooded with the radiance of the sun, and the murmur of the river seemed to speak to me, revealed the secrets of nature. And I spent my lonely days in daydreams and shaped these dreams in poetry and reflection, sending my thoughts to the Calcutta audience... ^{[27, p. 69]}. It was only many years later that he felt the need and the need to "go out and meet the heart of the big world, to interact with humanity in the West," which he did in the English version of "Gitanjali" ("Sacrificial Songs") ^{[27, pp. 71-72]}. Tagore the poet overshadows Tagore the philosopher, especially the social philosopher; therefore, many works have been written about his poetry, and philosophy requires special hermeneutics, taking into account the poetic component in it as philosophizing in a figurative form, and poetic language as a collection/dictionary of categories (idiolect). At the same time, an important principle that helps to always see a philosopher in Tagore the poet, and in his poetry - a manifestation of philosophy, in my opinion, is constant attention to the biographical context of specific works of art, including prose. In particular, poetry surrounded by a biographical context — events, relationships, communication — can affirm and preserve Tagore's most significant and dear ideas and beliefs, which often come into conflict with the outside world and even sometimes with his own actions.

Taking into account several of the above-mentioned contexts, I propose to study the texts of R. Tagore, comprehending, firstly, the personality of the poet-the creator of philosophy, sometimes relying on the authority of tradition, but Different in relation to it, located in the Indian intellectual space and culture. It is equally important to identify, secondly, a variety of foreign cultural influences on Tagore's personality, to take into account his experience of understanding the Other and the influence of this experience on the emergence of a number of topics, including traditional ones atypical for India, but which grew up on the fertile soil of the Bengali Renaissance.

The influence of poetry on Tagore's philosophizing and his philosophy on poetic thought turns out to be a kind of hermeneutical circle for the historian of philosophy. Here it is worth not so much looking for an entrance to it (or an exit — probably to put poetry out of brackets), as to find what E. B. Rashkovsky proposed to call the "hermeneutic key" in the study of self–awareness and self-knowledge of the poet (in his article - B. Pasternak) ^{[26, p. 66]}. Understanding by the hermeneutic key a certain text that reveals with the utmost transparency the meaning around which the thinking and ideas of the person being studied, her legacy, are gathered, one of the famous poems of the collection "Gifts" (No. 72 in Bengali), which is also known by the conditional name "Prayer", can be taken for it (as a conditional starting point of reconstruction)." (beng. Prārthana). Subsequently, R. Tagore translated it into English and included it (No. 35, 'Where the mind is without fear') in the English-language collection Gitanjali (1912). Since the poem expresses the poet's dream of the future of India in a meaningful way and describes its most important human and social dimensions, it can be considered the key to the hermeneutic circle: the poet philosophizes about the future, and thus sets the ideal and goals of human life and society, and the philosopher within the poet discovers the universal meaning of being (not only for his country) in dialogue With God.

The text of the poem shows that Tagore's philosophy is the philosophy of freedom in all its senses and manifestations ^{[27, p. 20]}. In the Bengali text of 1901, this meaning is expressed terminologically only once ("free knowledge"), then in the English version the former swarga (Bengali "blessed heaven") Tagore replaced it with "heaven of freedom". In each line there are themes and categories that are expanded and discussed in poetic, prosaic and philosophical aspects: fearless reason, human dignity, free knowledge, freedom of society from separation and artificial restrictions, from the power of traditions and rituals, freedom of thought and creativity, constant correlation of the individual, his thoughts and deeds with God, the desire to to perfection, courage. Everything is united by a social meaning — the awakening and liberation of Indian society [See: 28]. This key poem also points to the religious philosophy of R. Tagore, which grows on the dialogue between the personality of man and the personality of God, a multifaceted, multi-vector and continuous dialogue; this philosophy forms a powerful vector and direction of the poet's thinking. Tagore's social philosophy is derived from religious philosophy; on the one hand, and this is evident from the key text; and at the same time it is quite independent as a vector of his thinking, brought to life initially by his artistic creativity in prose - novels and short stories. But these latter were also prepared by the development of 19th-century social thought in Bengal, and socio-philosophical themes are not typical for the traditional philosophy of India at all.

Accordingly, Tagore's philosophy defines ontology and anthropology (suitable under the heading of religious humanism), to which the philosophy of personality, philosophy of religion, philosophy of creativity and aesthetics are adjacent — within the conditional framework of religious philosophy and relevant texts. In social philosophy, which is united by the cross—cutting theme of understanding the Other and dialogue (and more broadly, polylogue), the following headings are defined: social development, the content of India's social life in its correlation with other countries and peoples, the meaning of its existence in time, space and history, the philosophy of Indian history, the East—West problem, axiology and ethics, philosophy of education, socio-political philosophy (with themes of political dependence, nationalism, social liberation and criticism of totalitarianism and violence in politics). Applied largely to the realities of Indian life, Tagore's social philosophy constantly addresses the general problems of social development in non—Western modernizing countries and, more broadly, the universal problems of human existence in society.

A special place in the reconstruction of Tagore's philosophy can and should be occupied by the analysis of categories — the benefit of the poet-philosopher's idiolect is rich in them, starting from the ontological category jīvandevatā ("The Lord of my life" is the Eternal Personality and the Supreme Man, that is, the Creator); anthropological categories surplus (Beng. atirikta, i.e. excess, the essence of man, his dignity and the condition of freedom) and personality (beng. vyaktigat, – personality), and continuing with a number of socio-philosophical categories. Here, the very fact of the transition and translation of meaning from Bengali, in which the poet creates, into English, which he speaks to foreign-speaking audiences, wanting to convey his ideas and reflections, is interesting. Tagore makes such translations of terms, being well aware that languages are "jealous lords, and rarely issue passports to travelers crossing the strictly guarded borders of their possessions" ^{[29, p. 13]}.

Finally, I will list the principles of hermeneutics of texts arising from the circumstances noted above.

1. Phenomenological reduction is extremely useful when studying Tagore's texts, as it allows you to distance yourself from the diverse interpretations of the poet's legacy, put them out of brackets on the advice of the classic of phenomenology, and immerse yourself in reading and understanding texts that continue, according to an important remark by E. B. Rashkovsky, to live in history, and they are characterized by "that openness, that the ability to build up experience, associations and meanings that outgrow the subjective concepts and personal experience of the author" ^{[26, p. 235]}.

2. The principle of slow reading, proposed by M. O. Gershenson ^{[30, pp. 116-119]}, works not only when reading an artistic, but also a philosophical text. The principle resonates with the tradition of his Rabindrasangīt music (Beng. "Rabindranath's Music"), in which the performance of Tagore's songs (and many poems are created as songs) involves repetitions of phrases and lines for gazing and penetrating into the text and its meanings. The fact of the imagery of the poet's philosophizing, the special clarity in the unfolding of the idea in lectures only confirms the importance of this principle.

3. The principle of close attention to the dialogical side and the content of Tagore's texts, to his addressees, that is, the audience of Bengali, Indian, Eastern, Western and world universal.

4. The principle of correlating themes, ideas and concepts with contexts — not only those mentioned above, but also with the context of the historical reality of the XX century, its first half, which, among other things, appeared with undying relevance at the beginning of the XXI century.

An approach that defines the meaning of the poet's philosophizing as the creation of a religious philosophy of freedom, which finds continuation and completion in the philosophy of social liberation and development, can combine all the contexts, directions of reconstruction and principles of the methodological model. To a certain extent, the approach turns out to be phenomenological in terms of the possibility to explore the consciousness of the poet-creator of philosophy in close interaction with the life world around him.

The developed and presented methodological model opens up the following possibilities and prospects for the reconstruction of Tagore's philosophical thought and concept. First, to describe the phenomenon of a poet and writer creating a philosophy in which the experience of artistic creation generates a universal religious and social meaning and actualizes humanistic issues, which are attacked from different sides by the reality of the twentieth century. Secondly, to see the process of formation of cross-cultural philosophy and the prerequisites for the emergence of intercultural philosophy of the 20th century on the material of a specific problematic thinker. Thirdly, the analysis of the contexts of the unfolding of philosophy helps to trace, on the one hand, the continuity of the thinker and his ideas with the Indian philosophical tradition in a broad sense, and on the other hand, the innovation of R. Tagore, not least due to his dialogue with Western culture and modernity. Fourthly, seeing Tagore's philosophy as a kind of quintessence of the Bengali Renaissance heritage, it is not difficult to notice its significance and relevance for India and the whole world in the first quarter of the XXI century. Fifthly, reconstruction along the proposed methodological path will open up not only a direct, but also a comparative perspective on the study of Tagore's philosophical thought: a number of socio-cultural and religious-philosophical problems raised by him are comparable to the reflections and ideas of philosophers from different cultural areas, primarily peripheral to the West and non-Western ones.