THE MASTER : Sri Auriobinodo and the Quest For National Education

Much has been written on Sri Aurobindo the revolutionary nationalist and on Sri Aurobindo the revolutionary philosopher. The present volume has taken a different line of exploration. The approach may be termed as an intellectual history approach to Sri Aurobindo, who during the period covered here (1893-1910) was still the controversial Aurobindo Ghose – the firebrand political ideologue who had not yet metamorphosed into the unconventional philosopher-seer. The work attempts to explore Sri Aurobindo or Professor Aurobindo Ghose the educationist, the educationist politician, and the revolutionary educational seer. Much has also been written on and commented upon Sri Aurobindo’s theory, vision, and philosophy of education; the present work tries to revisit and meditate upon his educational activism as it began immediately after his return from the West (1893), continuing throughout his nationalist phase and ending only with his retirement from active politics. Keeping Sri Aurobindo as the central figure, the book also examines the educational thought and vision of a number of his nationalist and intellectual contemporaries. It revisits the educational ideas that these thought-leaders presented before the people – then in their first visible stirring for self-determination – in their quest of trying to formulate a philosophy and a system of national education. The work achieves this through a narrative of their ideas and of the age in which they evolved. This is where one sees this approach as an intellectual history approach. It attempts to draw, through an exploration of ideas, a canvas of the age when Sri Aurobindo actively championed the cause of national education and emerged as one of its advanced thought leaders and articulators. By putting forward the thoughts of these savants on education in general and Indian education in particular, the book has laid open the vast canvas in which the thoughts of Sri Aurobindo assume their rightful place.