Rabindranath Tagore was a great poet and lyricist as well as a prose writer, a dramatist, a painter, a performer, a social reformer, an educationist and what not. But the undertone of all his creations and activities is love for Man. He is a passionate Indian, but his nationalism transcendent into universalism, where one may find out a unique blending of the best of the East and that of the West. This paper is an humble attempt to get a glimpse of Tagore’s philosophy of humanism. On May 7, 1861, Rabindranath was born in an aristocratic, affluent and cultured family of Tagores at Jorasanko in Kolkata. This was the time when India, particularly Bengal was passing through a total cultural revolution known as the Renaissance. It opened the doors which had been closed for centuries. It was to search and cultivate new ideas, new thoughts and new approaches touching almost every aspect that makes human life beautiful and worth living. Jorasanko Thakurbari (Tagore’s House) was the hub of such cultural rejuvenation that fostered the basic values of rationalism, nationalism and humanism. Rabindranath from his very childhood because of both heredity and environment imbibed these values and inculcated them through his lifelong creations. Tagore’s song ‘jana gana mana adhinayaka’ (1911) invoking the same goal of a larger humanity was chosen as our national anthem by Gandhi and Nehru, and remains a symbol of modern India’s legacy of universal humanity. The Constitution of India upholds that legacy.
R.K.Behera, Reader, Department of Philosophy, Patkai Christian College (Autonomous), Nagaland.
First Session of SPPIS, Haryana 
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