Religious thinkers of India
India has been home to a large number of religious thinkers and spiritualists. A major reason for this has been the tolerant and liberalist traditions inbuilt in ancient Indian society. Another reason is the huge diversity of people found here. A majority of the religious thinkers have advocated themselves as reformers and not as prophets or founders of new religions.
The most important religious figures include Buddha, Mahavira and Guru Nanak Dev. Buddha and Guru Nanak were the founders of the Buddhist and Sikh religions, Mahavira, the last and 24th Jain Tirthankara was the reviver and reformer of the Jain religion propagated by previous 23 Tirthankaras.
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[edit] Buddhism
- Mahakasyapa – patriarch of the Buddhist sangha
- Nagarjuna – Mahayana philosopher, known for sunyata
- Asoka – royal patron
- Bodhidharma – 28th patriarch, founder of Zen, introducing Buddhism to China and East Asia
[edit] Hinduism
- Adi Shankaracharya
- Ramanujacharya
- Madhvacharya
- Vedanta Desika
- Manavala Mamuni
- Ayya Vaikundar – Initiator of Ayyavazhi; Social reformer.
- Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
- Ram Mohan Roy – Initiator of the Brahmo Samaj movement, which aimed at developing a universal religion in the nineteenth century.
- Swami Dayananda – Founder of the Arya Samaj, a version of Hinduism which is opposes the ideologies of polytheism, idolatry, iconolatry, animal sacrifice, ancestor worship, pilgrimage, priestcraft, the belief in avatars or incarnations of God, the hereditary caste system, untouchability and child marriage on the grounds that all these lack Vedic sanction.
- Swami Vivekananda – A disciple of Ramakrishna, he started the Ramakrishna Mission, a monastic movement with great stress on humanitarian work.
- Sri Aurobindo – Yoga guru, who proposed yogic tantras to attain divine bliss.
- Jagadguru Swami Sathyananda Saraswathi–Hindu Spiritual teacher,authentic authority on Hinduism,pioneer in Ram Janmabhumi movement and founder of Hindu Aikya Vedi
- Sri Narayana Guru – Social reformer who worked for the upliftment of people from the lower caste in Kerala.
Other important figures include Basava, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
[edit] Islam
- Moinuddin Chishti – He started the Chishti Order in India.
- Fariduddin Ganjshakar – Another Sufi saint in the Chishti order whose teachings have also been included in Sikhism.
- Amir Khusro – A Sufi poet, and disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya, he is credited with being the founder of both Hindustani classical music and Qawwali (the devotional music of the Sufis).
- Ahmad Sirhindi – He was a prominent propagator of the Naqshbandi Sufi order in India.
- Syed Ahmed Khan
- Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Other important figures include Kabir, Ali Hujwiri and Akbar.
[edit] Other important thinkers
The Sikh Gurus undoubtedly were very important in propounding the tenets of Sikhism. Thomas, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, is believed to have preached and finally died in India. Saint Francis Xavier also developed a Jesuit missionary method that left a significant impression upon the missionary history of India.
Jesus of Nazareth may have had spiritual training or influences from South Asian spiritual thought. A school of thought believes Jesus escaped the Roman empire to Kashmir.[1] [2]
