Swami Acchutanand & the Adi Hindu Movement

Swami Acchutanand & the Adi Hindu Movement 

Nandini Gooptu is University Lecturer in South Asian Studies at University of Oxford and Fellow of St. Anthony’s College, Oxford.

Extracts from “Swami Achutanand & Adi Hindu Movement”

“Swami Achutanand (!879-1933), one of the most prominent Adi Hindu leaders in the 1920s and 1930s, was brought up at military contonement, where his father worked, and later settled in Kanpur…..The spread of Adi Hindu Movement was not, however, due simply to lure of practical benefits accrued from supporting its leaders or the role of ‘patron’ that the leaders played in the local community…..Adi Hinduism challenged the imposition of specific ‘low’ social roles on untouchables based on their ritual status….Bhakti is based on the idea of direct and personal communion with God, through devotion, meditation and spiritual introspection….Spiritual introspection (atma-anubhav) was accorded supreme importance as the only way to arrive at true knowledge or sadgyan and to evolve one’s own world-view.”