Abstract

This volume has grown out of the international East Meets West Conferences established by Dr. Murthy, also the founder of Long Beach Publications. The stated object is “to stimulate a new debate between differing cultures and modes of thinking... [and] cross-cultural thinking which the global civilization now emerging needs”. Ninian Smart contributes the Preface and a short article, “The Comparative View of the Person: East and West,” which serves to set the tone of the volume. Although the article does not attempt any final conclusion regarding the person, it brings to our notice the fact that “there are wildly diverse inner psychological vocabularies” and that the “Hindu views of the person... draw the line in a different place than do Western systems”. These divergences are “challenging and thought provoking,” and failure to consider them is “because of lingering tribalism, pervasively evident in our whole educational system,” says Smart.