India, after a thousand years of slavery and onslaught by Western contact, has come of age: its dormant soul has broken the shackles and it is now reawakening. In this Indian Renaissance, its essential and eternal spirit will remain the same but its new body will be unrecognisable and beautiful. “The shaping for itself of a new body,” writes Sri Aurobindo, “of new philosophical, artistic, literary, cultural, political, social forms by the same soul rejuvenescent will, I should think, be the type of the Indian renascence, — forms not contradictory of the truths of life which the old expressed, but rather expressive of those truths restated, cured of defect, completed.” (CWSA 20: 5)
The world has come to recognize that spirituality runs through the very marrow of Indian Culture. It is this engrained tendency of her spirituality and “her powerful psychic tendency, her great yearning to grapple with the infinite and possess it”(Ibid: 7) which has been the constant effort all “her ineradicable religious stream, her idealism, her yoga, “… her art and philosophy” (Ibid)
To keep alive this stream of spiritual life through all expressions of life, many saints, sages, poets, devotees, philosophers, kings, queens and warriors took birth in this soil of Bharat. Even through the long periods of torture and slavery, the great souls of India kept alive India’s Sanatana dharma.
Modern Indians, however, blind with the dust of materialistic culture are ignorant of these great lamp-souls to whom we at present owe our Bharatiya cultural richness. Hence, we at SACAR, would like to rekindle the memory of our great luminaries and pay our respects and gratitude.
It is perhaps difficult to select the great and luminous souls who have taken forward India’s spiritual march towards its glorious future. Fortunately for us, Sri Aurobindo himself, who, having read and scanned through all Indian literature – from the Vedic times to the contemporary period – has breathed life into the source of the luminaries and has made easier our task of selecting them.
Sri Aurobindo himself a grand flame of light and truth has shown us the way to proceed on our project of “Luminaries of India”. He has given his comments and observations of selected souls and our research scholars have only to expand and explore further what light he has thrown on the life, work, and character of the pathfinders of India’s spiritual growth through the ages.
Remuneration would be deposited in the candidates’ bank account upon the successful completion of the project, approved by the research committee, and after all the suggestions given by the experts are incorporated into the research project.
Outcome of the entire Research Project:
A Research paper of About 40-50 A4 pages with space 1.5 font size 12 Font Style: Times New Roman based on the readings from Sri Aurobindo.
Intellectual Property
The paper produced through this research will be published as a Monograph with due credit to the researcher when the funds are available. After submitting the paper, the candidate will have no right to the paper. He/she cannot republish the paper anywhere without the permission of the publisher and SACAR. The time taken to publish the research will be a matter of discretion of the SACAR Board.
After submitting the first project the candidate can reapply for the next project if he/she wishes to do so.
