Page:The Renaissance In India.djvu/62

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THE RENAISSANCE IN INDIA

ence, a strong dose of religious rationalism and intellectualism. It is noteworthy, however, that it started from an endea-vour to restate the Vedanta, and it is curiously significant of the way in which even what might be well called a protes-tant movement follows the curve of the national tradition and temper, that thethree stages of its growth, marked by the three churches or congregations into which it split, correspond to the three eternal motives of the Indian religious mind, Jnana, Bhakti and Karma, the contempla-tive and philosophical, the emotional and fervently devotional and the actively and practically dynamic spiritual mentality. The Aiya Samaj in the Punjab founded itself on a fresh interpretation of the truth of the Veda and an attempt to apply old Vedic principles of life to modem condi-tions. The movement associated with the great names of Ramakrishna and Viveka-nanda has been a very wide synthesis of past religious motives and spiritual ex-

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