A Hindu View of Enlightenment

The European Enlightenment is widely regarded as the philosophical foundation of modern secular values, privileging reason, individual autonomy, scientific rationality, and the desacralization of political and moral authority. These values now shape global norms of governance, education, ethics, and public life. This research undertakes a critical examination of Enlightenment ideals from a Hindu philosophical perspective, envisioned as a civilizational dialogue between two distinct metaphysical worldviews.

From within Hindu thought, the Enlightenment’s elevation of instrumental reason over ontological wisdom is interrogated. While Hindu traditions acknowledge reason and empirical inquiry, they situate them within a broader framework that includes intuition, revelation, and lived realization. The Enlightenment’s secular universalism is thus contrasted with the Hindu worldview, which emerges from metaphysical plurality and graded truths.

Rather than advocating a civilizational reversal or exclusivism, this research proposes a Hindu critique that is diagnostic and complementary. It suggests that Hindu philosophical resources can illuminate the limitations of Enlightenment rationality, offer correctives to its ethical and ecological blind spots, and contribute to a more integrative global philosophy - one that harmonizes reason with transcendence, freedom with obligation, and progress with metaphysical humility.