Preface
Man-woman has been the central subject of literature. religion, philosophy and social sciences, especially sociology and anthropology. The Human Rights Movement has also contributed to the increasing centrality of the Human Person in all schemes of life. In view of the importance of the subject Dr. M. Manzoor Alam, Chairman of the Institute of Objective Studies, conceived of a seminar on "The Concept of Man in Comparative Perspective" focusing though mainly on man-woman as presented by major religions of the world in its scriptures. It is under his inspiration that I planned and organised the seminar in November 1995.
In the note defining the scope of the seminar I expanded the scope to include the secular view of man as well. We could not get papers representing some religions like Jainism, in spite of our best efforts. Religions like Judaism, Bahaism etc. got excluded both because of time constraint of two days schedule and their relative low numerical presence in India. Similarly we wanted to have some papers on post-Renaissance philosophical ideological views of man including Marxist and Existentialist. I succeeded only in getting positive response from a Renaissance English scholar, Prof. Masoodul Hasan and an authentic exponent of Radical Humanism, Justice (Retd.) V. M. Tarkunde.
I am thankful to all contributors of papers who on our invitation wrote scholarly papers mostly based on original religious texts. Thanks are specially due to Prof. Asloob A. Ansari, who, in spite of the fact that he could not participate in the seminar, subsequently contributed a significant paper on Islamic view of man as exemplified by its Prophet's life.
I ara thankful to Dr. M. Manzoor Alam for taking interest and extending support at all stages of the seminar. Thanks are also due to the Prof. Rahmat Ali, Director (Academic) and Mr. S. Mahmood Ali, Director (Administration) and the staff of the I.O.S., especially Mr. Iqbal Husain for extending their full cooperation at every stage of the seminar. Special thanks are due to Prof. Sangha Sen Singh of the Department of Pali & Sanskrit, Delhi University, who helped me in making some scholars of Indian religions and philosophy participate in the seminar.
I am thankful to Dr. F. R. Faridi for serving as the rapporteur, who presented salient features of papers and points raised on them in the concluding session.
This volume on the subject is being offered with the hope that it may stimulate further discussion and more comprehensive and deep interaction among exponents of religions and secular scholars in the future, not only on the Concept of Man but on the Concept of God, justice and similar subjects.
Foreword
The Institute in its ten years of existence has organised a number of seminars in most disciplines of social sciences, humanities and law. But the seminar on 'The Concept of Man in Comparative Perspective' stands out as a special one where exponents of various faiths and ideologies met and exchanged scholarly opinion on the vital issue of how religious and secular ideologies conceive of man, his nature, capabilities and destiny. The scholarly papers presented in the seminar have been collected in this volume by the Convenor (Committee on Interaction) Prof. Iqbal A. Ansari.
Let us hope that this will stimulate further discussion on not only this topic but also on other topics in a comparative perspective of religious faith and secular ideologies. The Institute proposes to hold more such seminars and dialogues.
Introduction
When during the heyday of neo-classicism in the eighteenth Century, the English poet Alexander Pope proclaimed that 'proper study of mankind is man' it was a reassertion of European Renaissance humanists' view that 'man is the measure of all things'. The centrality that man acquired in the scheme of things from the early Italian Renaissance beginning with the fourteenth century to its later flowering in England during sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, marked point of departure from the medieval European scheme of things in the domain of theology, learning, literature and social and political organization of life. However, the indicated simple scheme of developments in life and literature from the Church dominated European Dark Ages to the Secular Age of Enlightenment is rather misleading.
It is true, as pointed out by Prof. Masoodul Hasan, that humanists like Pico and Castiglione, Erasmus, Bacon, Moore Rabelais all laid the foundations of the ideas of human freedom and dignity and his capacity and potentiality to shape his own destiny to the extent of achieving perfectibility through education and application of knowleage to public good. But it is also true that what Martin Luther said in "Freedom of the Christian Man" (1520) and in his "Twelve Articles of the Peasants" (1526) and his proclamation that "there shall be no serfs as Christ has made all men free" and also his emphasis on worker's right to wages and common man's right to forest products and later Milton championing right to freedom of expression - are all indicative of the fact that the 'new spirit' that was abroad during the time had not only secular origins but had a parallel manifestation in the sacred domain of religion. It shared, strengthened and promoted freedom of the individual in seeking his own salvation through faith and good works and righteousness. Even if we confined ourselves to time-space of about two hundred years of Europe from the beginning to the full flowering of humanism of both secular and sacred varieties we do not really meet a picture of total darkness of the Middle Ages contrasted by total sunshine and enlightenment of the Renaissance. As Prof. Masoodul Hasan has pointed out the period was not free from its own pervading sense of melancholy, doom, death and even sin and human corruptibility. Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, as a prototype of renaissance insatiable thirst for knowledge and power directed to ignoble even trivial ends, anticipates the later criticism of what 'science' divorced from moral purpose could do to man - to the extent that the sections among Christians have characterized Renaissance as the Second Fall of Man.
It is however Shakespeare's Prince Hamlet who gives full-blooded expression to the bafflement at the polarities observable not only in man's godlike nobility and yet being quintessence of dust but in all the created world appearing to share this dual nature of 'goodly frame' and 'sterile promontory' and the 'majestical roof (of heaven) fretted with golden fire', appearing as no more than 'foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
Hindu (943)
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Biography (736)
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Cookery (168)
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Literary (888)
Mahatma Gandhi (396)
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