T. G. Skorokhodova The Ramakrishna Paramahamsa phenomenon and the formation  of neo-Hinduism in Bengal

Abstract: The article presents the Bengali prophet Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–1886) as a phenomenon of a religiously gifted personality, which from his faith and unique mystical experience came to found a particularly heterodox and contemporary reinterpretation of Hinduism. The phenomenon of Ramakrishna is accordingly placed in its context of the transformation of the traditional society in colonial India, and in the peripheries – Bengal, where existed for centuries an heterodox interpretation of dharma and thus concurrently formed a space of dialogue between the West and India in Calcutta. The research is based on the hermeneutical analysis method of the sayings of and conversations with Ramakrishna in a general cultural context of the intellectual pursuits during the period of the Bengal Renaissance. The article shows that the image of Hinduism as a religion by Ramakrishna, leading all followers on different paths towards the single God, reconciles orthodox and heterodox, Brahmanic and “popular” beliefs and becomes the basis for the development of neo- Hinduism as a way of thinking and a religious practice at the turn of the XXth century.

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