ABSTRACT
It is important to look back in retrospect upon the career of this remarkable man and put it into a wider perspective. The consciousness which the Acharya wished to instil in the masses, the consciousness of being Hindus first and foremost, hopefully treating one another with equal dignity, was important in the development of modern religious thinking in India. Again, despite regionalism there is no doubt that this sense of ‘Hinduness’ is increasingly important to contemporary Indian followers of that tradition. The Acharya applied the principles of ritual to his own organisation and his own sense of destiny. Consciousness is thus shaped by sacred and historical narrative. To point to the Hindu past was therefore a necessary part of the preaching of the Sangha. The Sangha belied this judgement in a double way.
