This April, the OUP Philosophy team honours Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) as its Philosopher of the Month. Tagore was a highly prolific Indian poet, philosopher, writer, and educator who wrote novels, essays, plays, and poetic works in colloquial Bengali. He was a key figure of the Bengal Renaissance, a cultural nationalist movement in the city. In 1913, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his English version of his celebrated poetic collection, Gitanjali.
Tagore also made a significant contribution to the development of Indian philosophy in the early 20th century. His philosophical works have religious and ethical themes. He was also a social critic and an educator who believed that education should encourage creativity, imagination, moral awareness, and sympathy in students.
We have highlighted some of our best resources on Tagore and Indian philosophy below.
For more on our Philosopher of the Month, follow @OUPPhilosophy and the hashtag #philosopherotm on Twitter.
The Oxford India Tagore: Selected Writings on Education and Nationalism by Uma Dasgupta
Rabindranath Tagore: An Illustrated Life by Uma Das Gupta
The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy in the First Millennium CE by Jan Westerhoff
The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy edited by Jonardon Ganeri
Minds Without Fear by Nalini Bhushan and Jay L. Garfield
Hindu Political Philosophy by Dennis Dalton from Oxford Handbooks Online
Tagore, Dewey, and the Imminent Demise of Liberal Education by Martha Nussbaum from Oxford Handbooks Online
On the Very Idea of a Renaissance by Nalini Bhushan from Oxford Scholarship Online
Rabindranath Tagore, “Pathway to Mukti” (1925) by Nalini Bhushan and Jay L. Garfield from Oxford Scholarship Online
Reason and Belief: Richness and Diversity in Indian Thought by Sue Hamilton in Indian Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction from Very Short Introductions
“Natural Supernaturalism?” The Tagore–Gandhi Debate on the Bihar Earthquake
Tracing Vaishnava Strains in Tagore by Makarand R. Paranjape from Journal of Hindu Studies












