Theorizing Religion and Dharma: Towards a Conceptual Configuration

(Abstract of the Paper to be presented in the 11th IASR National Conference on ‘Religion and Society:
Reflections on the Indic Paradigm’ to be held at St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Mumbai, on March 14-15,
2020)

Devasia M Antony, PhD

Assistant Professor, Research Supervisor & IASR President
Department of Philosophy, Hindu College, University of Delhi
Email: devasiamantony@hinducollege.ac.in

Abstract
In this paper my aim is to engage the problematic of theorizing religion in relation to the
civilizational matrix called dharma. Undoubtedly this question can be located in the larger
canvas of appropriating and comprehending what one might call the vast aranyaka (forest) of
the Indian intellectual traditions. Taking recourse to a chosen corpus of writings of thinkers
like Vivekananda, M.K. Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar, S. Radhakrishnan, A.K. Ramanujan, K.C.
Bhattacharyya, Raimundo Panikkar and Ramchandra Gandhi, I raise some questions such as
these: Is there something amiss when one considers, as mostly practiced in the Western
academia, the critical study of religions as an intellectually neutral, secular enterprise where
one brackets out one’ own and other’s practice of religious faith? Does the ascription of the
Judaeo-Christian word ‘religion’ to ‘Hinduism’ with its angst of colonialism leaves out what
one might call ‘the civilizational surplus’? Does the use of the polyvalent matrix called
‘dharma’ gives one a possibility of re-visioning the multifaceted reality called ‘religion’ in
the Indic civilizational paradigm? This paper does not pretend to give an answer in a binary
manner to these questions but then attempts at configuring the art of the conceptual enmeshed
in theorizing religion and dharma.