Abstract
In classical Indian thought, four Ashramas, or stages of life, are enumerated. Ashram communities are described in the Indian epics, as in the legend of Sakuntala, discussed by Romila Thapar, who also proposes in her essay “Exile and Kingdom” that Ashrams evolved on the fringes of emerging urban societies, along pilgrim routes, as places of learning and hospitality. In modern times, Tagore and Gandhi re-interpreted the Ashram model as a centre for an indigenous approach to education, and an experimental lifestyle that offered new paradigms for an emerging social order based on Indian economy and knowledge systems. The Ashram community as it evolved over the centuries around the person of the Guru, or the teacher who represented a wisdom based on lived experience, included the concept of the “Sat Sangh”, which was the coming together of seekers after Truth. This approach to the Ashram community was characteristic of the bhakti movement of devotion, which was egalitarian in its social context. Such experiments in the Ashram ideal stressed the secular aspect of community building, and helped in the formulation of alternative approaches to education based on the Indian tradition.
The editor is grateful to Professor G. Patrick for kindly sharing this article originally published in Indian Journal of Christian Studies edited by him.
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Notes
- 1.
Sudhir Kakar, The Inner World—A Psychoanalytic Study of Childhood and Society in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978, pp. 43–44.
- 2.
Speaking of Siva (translated with an introduction by A. K. Ramanujan), Penguin India, 1973.
- 3.
Cf. Sudhir Kakar, Shamans, Mystics and Doctors, New Delhi: OUP, 1990, pp. 129–130.
- 4.
Cf. Ibid.; also cf. Sudhir Kakar, The Analyst and the Mystic—Psychoanalytic Reflections on Religion and Mysticism, Penguin India, 1991, on the significance of “Darshan” or seeing the Guru.
- 5.
Henry Corbin, The Voyage and the Messenger—Iran and Philosophy, California: North Atlantic Books, 1998, pp. 150–163.
- 6.
Romila Thapar, “Exile and Freedom”, Bangalore Mythic Society, 1978.
- 7.
Cf. Ibid., Sakuntala—Texts, Readings and Histories, Kali for Women, 1999.
- 8.
Ibid., p. 36.
- 9.
Susan Visvanathan, Friendship, Interiority, Mysticism—Essays in Dialogue, Orient Longman, 2007, p. 37.
- 10.
Cf. Erik. H. Erikson, Childhood and Society, New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Inc., 1950.
- 11.
Personal notes collected by Dr Katherine Wharton for meeting with Swamijis at the Ecumenical Centre, Bangalore on Nov. 2010.
- 12.
Cf. Michael Barnes, Traces of the Other—Three Philosophers and Inter-faith Dialogue, Chennai: Sathya Nilayam, 2000 (Chapter I: Emanuel Levinas and Ethical Responsibility).
- 13.
Susan Visvanathan, Friendship, Interiority …, p. 63.
- 14.
Ibid., p. 17.
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Sahi, J. (2018). The Ashram as a Secular Place: An Understanding of the Human as a Spiritual Place. In: Giri, A. (eds) Practical Spirituality and Human Development. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0803-1_7
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