Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-1894) was, without doubt, the most towering literary figure of India in the nineteenth century. Author of the first Western-style novel of any merit in any Indian language, viz., Durgeshnandini composed when he was only 25 in 1863 and published two years later, he continued to enrich this literary genre in Bengali throughout his rather short life and is even now regarded as second to none in India in this field replete with creative geniuses who drew their inspiration from him. He also excelled as an essayist, critic, satirist and founder-editor of one of the earliest and most influential literary periodicals in Bengali, Bangadarshan (first published in 1872). Bankim Chandra was moreover a profound thinker and in this paper we shall concentrate on his reflections on society and economy, history and culture and lastly on morality and religion. He was one of the two students who graduated from the University of Calcutta in 1858 - the first to do so following the establishment of the University along with those of Bombay and Madras in 1857. He also received his post-gradate degree in law in 1869. A man of vast erudition there existed little either in the Eastern or Western learning that he did not know. The standards expected of the educated men late in the ineteenth century were unusually high and Bankim Chandra has been described by Rabindranath Tagore, himself a versatile genius, as 'the greatest among the educated'. But scholarship sat lightly on him and even his most abstruse pieces are literary gems. The stylistic merit does not constitute, however, the only appeal of such writings which inaugurate a new age in modern Indian thought. They have enduring value and, as we shall see, are of utmost contemporary relevance, Bankim Chandra was not a trained philosopher, but philosophers even of the recent analytical kind have much to learn from him. As is only to be expected we cannot today accept all that he chose to propagate nearly a hundred years ago; sifting what is living in his thought from what is dead, is nevertheless a rewarding experience. As is befitting in an artist, he at times becomes impassioned and sarcastic in his denunciation of social injustices as well as errors of logic, and persons accustomed to cold analyses may raise their philosophical eyebrows, but this perfect blend of the qualities of head and heart captivates his readers with a charm of its own.

Though remembered chiefly as a prose-writer, for his juvenile metrical compositions in immature Bengali were unsuccessful, Bankim Chandra wrote a song entitled Bande Mataiam (Hail, Mother) in C 1875 and incorporated it in his novel Ananda Math (1884). This song is unique in the annals of India not only because it deified the motherland as a godess but also because it is composed in a literally inimitable diction, an elegant harmonisation of Sanskrit and Bengali languages. It resonates like a hymn written in a classical language, but can be appreciated by all Indians versed only in their mother tongues which are progenies of Sanskrit. In the novel it is represented as inspiring a band of friars engaged in figting with alien rulers and it has in reality acted as a morale-booster for generations of believing Hindu freedom fighters in the twenteeth century, the most notable of whom is, of course, Sri Aurobindo.

Bankim Chandra, like other eminent thinkers of his time, was incensed with the appalling conditions prevailing in contemporary Indian society. His was not the now fashionable calm second-order cerebration eschewing the first-order activities of producing in fields and factories or waging a ceaseless battle for social reforms. It is true that as a colonial government official doing mostly subordinate judicial duties and tragically cut off soon after his retirement, he did no direct political or even social work. Yet he was firm in his conviction that the pen was mightier than the sword and education more effective than warfare. He wrote on social philosophy with a view to changing India. Time has now come both to understand and evaluate the changes he intended to bring about and a so to discover the actual changes his thoughts contributed to produce.

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