Modern movements and teachers

आधुनिक

Also written: arya samaj · brahmo samaj · vivekananda · ramakrishna · modern hinduism · hindu reform movements

From the early nineteenth century the tradition met colonial rule, missionary criticism and modern science at once. The response was not a single movement but a wave of reformulations, each taking a different part of the corpus as its centre.

Movement or teacher	Founded	Position
Brahmo Samaj — Rammohan Roy	1828	Upaniṣadic monotheism without image worship; campaigned against satī and for women's education
Arya Samaj — Dayānanda Sarasvatī	1875	'Back to the Vedas' — rejection of Purāṇic accretion, image worship and birth-caste; restored upanayana and Vedic study to all, including women
Ramakrishna and Vivekānanda	1897 (Mission)	Direct experience as the test; all paths lead to the same goal; service to human beings as worship of the Divine
Nārāyaṇa Guru	Kerala, early 20th c.	'One caste, one religion, one God for humanity'; consecrated temples open to all
Aurobindo	20th c.	Integral yoga; the evolution of consciousness; the Life Divine
Ramaṇa Maharṣi	20th c.	Self-enquiry — 'who am I?' — reduced to its simplest possible form
Theosophical Society	1875	Brought Indian philosophy to a Western audience; contested, but consequential

What Vivekānanda changed

His address at the Chicago Parliament of Religions in 1893 opened by calling the assembly 'Sisters and Brothers of America', and stated the tradition's position on other religions in a single sentence: it teaches not merely tolerance but acceptance, holding all as true. He also gave the tradition its modern activist form — daridra-nārāyaṇa, the divine in the poor, and service as worship — which reoriented an ascetic vocabulary toward hospitals, schools and famine relief.

Modern movements and teachers

What Vivekānanda changed

The tributaries — traditions born from the same ground

Buddhism

Jainism

Sikhism

The Nātha sampradāya and haṭha yoga

The bhakti movement and the sants