RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS AND TRUTH IN THE GANDHIAN WAY

Abstract

The decade of the seventies provides us with a fassinatingly rich panorama of religious faith and its importance in the geography of human behaviour. This decade could be characterized as the decade of religious emergence and, more importantly, as the decade of the religious leader. Unfortunately, the picture that emerges is fluid but flawed. Parts of the religious canvas are naive, fanatical, shallow and cruel; others are subtle, saintly, noble and ecumenical. On the one hand, religion is suffused with overpowering love which is melting down ancient hatreds, while on the other hand we are faced with a phenomenon that can only be qualified as a regression to a period of religious fanaticism and of religious wars. On the one hand, religion appears to be archaic and arcane to some, on the other hand, others are rushing to join the "new religions" which are blossoming all over.