Published Online:September 2024
Product Name:The IUP Journal of English Studies
Product Type:Article
Product Code:IJES080924
Author Name:Snigdha Mondal and Anuradha Choudry
Availability:YES
Subject/Domain:Arts and Humanities
Download Format:PDF
Pages:99-111
The concept of a nation is nebulous as a construct to be restricted within the confines of a definition and is relived and revisited through the chronicles of history across time and space (and not only academic spaces). The epistemological and ontological configurations of the construct of a nation depicts it as a liquefied narrative to be construed from diverse angles. In his work, The Renaissance in India and Other Essays on Indian Culture, Sri Aurobindo talks about India as a nation in the face of Western incursions and posits the concept of an Indian renaissance in the mode of a reawakening or revival of the original spirit of the nation along with its ideals. He refers to a new India trying to recover herself to arrive at a healthy revival by returning to the spiritual motif which is the basic foundation of her culture, but she must apply the same procedure to every aspect of the nation’s life—art, literature, poetry, polity, and religion. She is the Bharata Shakti operating on the basis of her spiritual energy, trying to sustain a balance between the mind, body and spirit. This paper explores the diverse interpretations of the concept of nation as represented by Sri Aurobindo (2019).
The term nation has its etymological derivation from the Latin word ‘nasci,’ which indicates a primitive collective of individuals residing in the same nation or territory and where the political context is not imperative (Oommen 2002-2003).