Biography
Born in 1901 into an orthodox Brahmin family, Joshi left home at age 14 after studying to be a priest. Finally settling in Wai, a temple town on the banks of the Krishna river, he became a Sanskrit, Hindu dharma and Indian philosophy pundit, earning the degree “Tarkateertha”, or literally, "Master of logic". Around the time India gained independence, he came under the influence of many reformist intellectuals including M. N. Roy and quickly assimilated and embraced western philosophical systems. He questioned whether those that had the knowledge had wisdom to lead, and recognized those that followed had inadequate knowledge, and he wrote Vaidik Sankriti-cha Vikas in 1951. This treatise was based on six lectures he delivered at the University of Pune, where he traced the evolution of "Vedic" culture and its influence on modern India. He wrote a critique arguing that modern Indians became conflicted between meeting material needs and attaining spiritual enlightenment, thus fostering a collective weakness, disharmony and allowing caste differences to prevail. For his outstanding contribution, he received the Sahitya Akademi award from India's National Academy of Letters in 1955. This and other critical inquiries into India’s Hindu religious traditions drew the ire of the contemporary Hindu orthodoxy.
Read more about this topic: Lakshman Shastri Joshi
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