Religion and Rabindranath Tagore

This work focuses exclusively on Rabindranath Tagore's sermons/addresses and miscellaneous prose writings in Bengali. With a substantive introduction by Amiya P. Sen identifying various stages in the evolution of Tagore's religious thoughts, beginning from about the 1880s, the book includes representative writings from each of the stage so identified. It brings to light some of Tagore's speeches and writings on religion in the pre-Gitanjali phase, which are largely unknown and un-appreciated. The sermons collectively known as Santiniketan (delivered between 1908 and 1914) and which perhaps carry his deepest spiritual insights is a case in this point. Among other important essays of this genre yet un-translated and relatively unknown are those included in the collections Dharma (Religion), Alochana (Criticism), Parichay(Introduction), and Sanchay (Collection). This volume intends to recover them in translation.

Amiya P. Sen is Professor and Head, Department of History and Culture, Jamia Millia Islamia. He has been Agatha Harrison Fellow at the University of Oxford and Visiting Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and the Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi.