BORN TO BE REMEMBER AFTER 150 YEARS...SIR BRAJENDRA NATH SEAL .... WATERCOLOUR...A4 ...2014 .... Sir Brajendra Nath Seal (Bengali: ব্রজেন্দ্রনাথ শীল) (1864–1938) was a renowned Bengali Indian humanist philosopher. He was one of the greatest original thinkers of the Brahmo Samaj and did work in comparative religion and on the philosophy of science. He systematized the humanism of the Brahmo philosophical thought. In his work, he underscored the tectonic shift in Brahmo theology in the late eighteenth century from liberal theism to secular humanism. Like his better known ideological precursor Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Seal was an educator, a firm believer in the cause of rationalism and scientific enquiry, a polymath in his own right and yet at the same time a preacher of humanism as a religious doctrine (as opposed to organized religion). He was born in Calcutta in 1864. His father Mohendranath Seal was one of the earliest followers of Comtean positivism in Bengal. As a student of philosophy at the General Assemblys Institution (now Scottish Church College, Calcutta), he became attracted to Brahmo theology. And along with his better known classmate and friend Narendranath Dutta, the future Swami Vivekananda, he regularly attended meetings of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj. Later they would part ways with Dutta aligning himself with Keshub Chunder Sens New Dispensation (and later on to found his own religious movement, the Ramakrishna Mission) and Seal staying on as an initiated member. During this time spent together, both Seal and Dutta sought to understand the intricacies of faith, progress and spiritual insight into the works of John Stuart Mill, Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer and G.W.F. Hegel. Seal had a natural aptitude for mathematics and logic. He earned his M.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Calcutta in 1884 and started out as a lecturer at the City College, Calcutta. He helped Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in founding the Visva-Bharati University on December 22, 1921. By virtue of being Indias leading scholar on philosophy and comparative-historical studies and its first Western visiting scholar, Seal was honored as the first Chancellor of that university. During the same time, he was also appointed the Vice Chancellor of the University of Mysore, a position he held till 1930, when ill health forced him to retire. In 1926, the government of British India knighted him. During his stay in Mysore, he authored a textbook of Indian philosophy and a biography of Raja Rammohun Roy. His belief in the religion of universal humanity found parallel reflection in Rabindranath Tagores concept of the Vishwa Manav of the Universal Man, who would rise from the ashes like a phoenix to redeem the depravities of humanity. And yet like Prometheus, he would be eternally trapped by the vicissitudes of existence. [INFO : WIKIPEDIA]
Posted on: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 05:16:32 +0000
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