Although there are various studies comparing Greek and Indian philosophy and religion, and Chinese and Western philosophy and religion, Brahman and Dao: Comparatives Studies in Indian and Chinese Philosophy and Religion is a first of its kind that brings together Indian and Chinese philosophies and religions. Brahman and Dao helps close the gap on a much needed examination on the rich history of Buddhist transmission to China, and the many generations of Indian Buddhist missionaries to China and Chinese (...) Buddhist pilgrims to India, including the legendary Bodhidharma, and Faxian and Xuanzang. (shrink)

Although there are various studies comparing Greek and Indian philosophy and religion, and Chinese and Western philosophy and religion, Brahman and Dao: Comparatives Studies in Indian and Chinese Philosophy and Religion is a first of its kind that brings together Indian and Chinese philosophies and religions. Brahman and Dao helps close the gap on a much needed examination on the rich history of Buddhist transmission to China, and the many generations of Indian Buddhist missionaries to China and Chinese (...) Buddhist pilgrims to India, including the legendary Bodhidharma, and Faxian and Xuanzang. (shrink)

This essay contrasts two characterizations of the subject: One derived from continental philosophy—the subject as a lack of being, and the other, derived from ancient Indian philosophy of Vedanta, which posits the subject as plenum. This modern contrast of viewpoints reveals how reason breaks down when faced with what is immediate, over-proximate, and primordially inaccessible in human experience. A modern examination of the fundamental tenets of Advaita Vedanta demonstrates how the linguistic signifier functions in thought’s native impulse towards totality, unity, (...) and identity. This essay further suggests how the condition for the possibility of experience necessarily precludes both complete/perfect knowledge and obviates the possibility of ever directly experiencing absolute oneness. (shrink)

It is an hazardous undertaking to arrange the meanings of an ancient Indian term like brahman in such a manner that a definite process of evolution may be read off from the very arrangement, because all that is connected with such power-concepts or represents them can in principle bear the same name and, further, because many meanings given in our dictionaries owe their existence only to the fact that our languages are not able to express the Indian concept by (...) one word. Unlike other Western scholars the present author preferred to test the probability of the Indian tradition which always regarded brahman as a derivative of the root brh- « to be strong or firm, to support ». The sense of the term in various periods of Indian literature, viewed in the light of the outcome of modern research in the domain of Indian philology, comparative linguistics and the history of religions, have led him to the conviction that the Indian interpretation has not been duly considered by modern scholars. (shrink)

Although there are various studies comparing Greek and Indian philosophy and religion, and Chinese and Western philosophy and religion, Brahman and Dao: Comparatives Studies in Indian and Chinese Philosophy and Religion is a first of its kind that brings together Indian and Chinese philosophies and religions. Brahman and Dao helps close the gap on a much needed examination on the rich history of Buddhist transmission to China, and the many generations of Indian Buddhist missionaries to China and Chinese (...) Buddhist pilgrims to India, including the legendary Bodhidharma, and Faxian and Xuanzang. (shrink)

The encounter of Alexander the Great with the Indian Brahmans or Oxydorkai/Oxydracae forms an important episode of the Alexander Romance as well as featuring in all the extant Alexander historians. The purpose of this paper is to consider how far the various accounts reflect genuine knowledge of India in the sources in which they are based, and to what extent the episode in the Alexander Romance diverges or adds to them and to what purpose. A future paper will consider the (...) development of the episode in later works, Geneva Papyrus inv. 271 andPalladius De gentibus Indiae et Bragmanibus, as well as theCollatio Alexandri et Dindimi. (shrink)

About the Book: - Brahman and Person is a collection of essays by the late Richard De Smet (1916-1997) on the topic of person in Indian thought. Overturning the current interpretation, De Smet proposes that the nirguna Brahman can be regarded as properly personal, provided person is understood in the original and classical sense that emerged in the Christian effort to speak abut the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The Rendering of saguna and nirguna Brahman (...) as personal and impersonal, instead originated with the Western translators of Sanskrit works, who were influenced by an individualistic idea of the person and the consequent restriction of its application to the human being. De Smet also dedicated attention to the question of the human person in Indian and Western thought over a number of essays, proposing that a properly holistic and organic notion of the human person can be found especially n the thought of sankara. This collection of essays by an eminent Indologist constitutes and important contribution not only to Indological studies but also to cross cultural and interreligious dialogue. About the Author:- Richard De Smet taught Indian Philosophy at Jnana Deepa Vidyapeeth, Pune. Born in Belgium in 1916, he joined the Jesuits in 1934 and came to India in 1946. He earned a Ph.D. in 1953 from the Gregorian University, Rome, for his thesis on the theological method of Sankara, proposing both that sankara was srutivanadin, and that he used the method of analogy in his interpretation of the Upanisadic mahavakyas. De Smet was a life member of the Indian Philosophical Congress and the Indian Philosophical Association and Founder-President of the Association of Christian Philosophers of India and in these capacities carried out an ongoing dialogue with Indian philosophers and religious personalities. He died in 1997. Ivo Coelho is Reader in Gnoseology and Metaphysics at Divyadaan: Salesian Institute of Philosophy, Nashik, and editor of Dvyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Education Born in 1958 at Mumbai, he studied under De Smet at Pune, and went on to specialize in the hermeneutical thought of the Canadian Philosopher theologian and economist Bernard Lonergan. He is interested in issues of cross-cultural and interreligious understanding, dialogue and collaboration. He is the author of Hermeneutics and Method: The Universal Viewpoint in Bernard Lonergan (Toronto, 2001). (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

The literature of Bhartṛhari and Maṇḍana attention in contemporary times. The writings of the prominent linguistic philosopher and grammarian Bhartṛhari and of Manḍana, an encyclopedic scholar of later seventh century and most likely a senior contemporary of Śaṅkara, shape Indian philosophical thinking to a great extent. On this premise, this study of the influence of Bhartṛhari on Maṇḍana’s literature, the scope of this essay, allows us to explore the significance of Bhartṛhari’s writings, not only to comprehend the philosophy of language, (...) but also to understand the contribution of linguistic philosophy in shaping Advaita philosophy in subsequent times. This comparison is not to question originality on the part of Maṇḍana, but rather to explore the interrelationship between linguistic philosophy and the monistic philosophy of the Upaniṣadic tradition. Besides excavating the role of Bhartṛhari writings on the texts of Maṇḍana, analysis this will reveal the interrelatedness of the Advaita school of Śaṅkara often addressed as ‘pure non-dualism’ (Kevalādvaita) and the Advaita of Bhartṛhari, identified as ‘non-dualism of the word-principle’ (Śabdādvaita). (shrink)

Hindu religious and philosophical thought revolves around the basic metaphysical thesis that Atman, the individual self, is identical with Brahman, the Universal Self in which all things are sustained. With a few notable exceptions most Western philosophers have found this thesis too far removed from common sense to consider seriously. My purpose in this essay is to clarify and defend five theses about consciousness which, while formulated independently, have their closest collective affinities to the Advaita Vedanta view of consciousness.

In this article, I study the concept of brahman—the exhaustive formulation of truth about the world—in the early Upaniṣads. Based on close reading of two stories appearing in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, the Kauṣītaki and the Chāndogya Upaniṣads, I reconstruct two competing theories about brahman, namely the “theory of puruṣa ” and the “theory of ātman.” While the theory of puruṣa refers to the creation of human and divine beings as a result of duplication of the anthropomorphic form of the (...) universe, the theory of ātman traces the phenomenal reality in its various forms to the inner, formless self “made of consciousness” capable of creating and projecting forms out of itself. These two theories are discussed in the dialogue between Gārgya Bālāki and Ajātaśatru, the king of Kāśi appearing in two versions in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣads. Bālāki’s theory of puruṣa is further revised and modified in the light of Ajātaśatru’s criticism in the story from the Chāndogya Upaniṣads, in which the god Prajāpati teaches Indra and Virocana about the self. (shrink)

Ovaj članak predstavlja tragove ranoga vedāntskog tumačenja Maitreyī-brāhmane, jednog od najpoznatijih dijelova Brhadāranyaka-upanišadi u Brahma-sūtrama, temeljnom tekstu filozofske škole vedānte. Predmet diskusije je egzegeza Maitreyī-brāhmane prema trima starodrevnim komentatorima Āśmarathyi, Audulomiu i Kāśakrtsni. Cilj je ovog rada pokazati kakve se metode tumačenja upanišadskih tekstova koriste u različitim vedāntskim školama. Također možemo vidjeti tehnike tumačenja preuzete iz pūrva-mīmāmse, škole tumačenja vedskih tekstova, koje su preoblikovane za tumačenje upanišadi. Članak također pokazuje kako filozofsko stajalište o odnosu sopstva i apsoluta služi egzegetskoj svrsi (...) pomirenja različitih upanišadskih učenja. Učenje BS i starodrevnih komentatora je bhedābhedavāda, istodobna različitost i nerazličitost sopstva i apsoluta. Śankara tumači sūtre kao da poučavaju monistički iluzionizam. On na dvije razine istine razlikuje niži brahman i najviši brahman. Na ovaj je način mogao pomiriti sva upanišadska učenja, bilo da naginjuteizmu ili monizmu. Važna je i hermeneutička rasprava Śankarina s bhedābhedavādinom Bhartrprapañcom o prirodi znanja i djelovanja, odnosno prvenstvu upanišadi koje se bave znanjem brahmana nad brāhmanama koje se bave obrednim djelovanjem.This article presents some traces of early vedāntic interpretations of Maitreyī-brāhmana, one of the most famous parts of Brhadāranyaka-upanishad, in the Brahma-sūtras, the fundamental work of the philosophical school vedānta. Topic under discussion conveys the exegesis of Maitreyī-brāhmana according to three ancient commentators, Āśmarathya, Audulomi and Kāśakrtsna. The purpose of this article is to show the methods of interpretation of upanishadic passages in different vedāntic schools. Also, we can see some techniques of interpretation taken from pūrva-mīmāmsa, the school of vedic interpretation, and adapted for upanishadic interpretation. The article shows how the main philosophical standpoint on the relation of the self and the absolute serves the exegetical purposes. So the standpoint of the BS and the ancient commentators is bhedābhedavāda, teaching of both the difference and non-difference between the self and the absolute, like sparks and fire. Śankara interprets the sūtras as teaching monistic illusionism. He also differentiates between the two levels of truth and accordingly the lower brahman and the highest brahman. In this way he was able to reconcile all upanishadic passages, whether they inclined to theism or monism. There is also an important hermeneutical discussion of Śankara with bhedābhedavādin Bhartrprapañca on the nature of knowledge and action and priority of the upanishads, part of sacred canon dealing with knowledge of brahman over the brāhmanas, which are dealing with ritual action. (shrink)

Over the last fifteen years, studies on Sanskrit intellectual history between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries have produced a body of scholarship that has fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the period. Yet, despite significant advances in the understanding of the social-historical circumstances of authors and disciplines as well as success in elucidating major features of intellectual thought, a main point of difficultly has been in combining both the intellectuality and sociality of Sanskrit scholars. By examining a debate within the discipline (...) of nyāya during the seventeenth century about how one cognizes the universal property ‘Brahman-ness ’ and by connecting it with a social debate that is found in available historical documents of the period, this essay attempts to combine the sociality of the Brahman scholarly community in Vārāṇasī with their intellectuality and offer a larger analysis of nyāya intellectual history for this period. The essay concludes by considering the ways in which the social world impinged upon nyāya argumentation and nyāya argumentation upon the social world. (shrink)

In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James suggests that the human experience of a fundamental and existential uneasiness can be found at the core of most religious traditions, and that these traditions constiute essentially a proposed solution to this uneasiness. The present investigation focuses upon the notion of uneasiness, particularly fear, and its solution in the early Hindu tradition. Through a close examination of textual expressions of both desire and fear from the R̥gveda, the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, and the Br̥hadāraṇyaka (...) Upaniṣad, it is proposed that “liberation” in the early Upaniṣadic period, or at least the precursor to the traditional notion of liberation, actually meant freedom from fear, rather than freedom from karma or saṁs̥ra. The Br̥hadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad suggests that the origin of duality is desire, and duality necessarily results in fear. By relinquishing the sorts of desires so frequently expressed in the earlier vedic literature, together with an understanding of the essentially non-dual relationship between the ātman and brahman, a state of complete freedom from fear (abhaya) may be achieved. (shrink)

Hindu religious and philosophical thought revolves around the basic metaphysical thesis that Atman, the individual self, is identical with Brahman, the Universal Self in which all things are sustained. With a few notable exceptions most Western philosophers have found this thesis too far removed from common sense to consider seriously. My purpose in this essay is to clarify and defend five theses about consciousness which, while formulated independently, have their closest collective affinities to the Advaita Vedanta view of consciousness.

The question I pose in this paper is simple but crucial: Why did Aśvaghoṣa present Brahmanism as the backdrop for the emergence of Buddhism? In both his epic poems, he presents Brahmanism as the obvious and natural condition of society and kings, in the same way that it is depicted in the Brahmanical writings themselves. It has become increasingly clear that Brahmanical texts present ideologically motivated programs for social engineering rather than accurate descriptions of social reality. If social reality did (...) not obligate Aśvaghoṣa to adopt this posture, then why did Aśvaghoṣa buy into this ideological position of Brahmanism? Why did he not describe the social reality underlying Buddhism in a way similar to Aśoka? While attempting to explore these questions, I will analyze Aśvaghoṣa’s arguments against some central theological positions of Brahmanism: First, there is the theological argument that a person must turn to asceticism only after he has raised a family and performed his other religious obligations spelt out in the trivarga and the āśrama system. Second, there is the issue of kāma, both within the trivarga and within the common conception of a householder’s life. The paper will attempt to analyze the way Aśvaghoṣa in his two epic poems deals with these two areas, one more strictly theological and the other dealing with themes of sex, eroticism, and conjugal love, all of which present obstacles to the Buddhist path of liberation that runs through the celibate monastery. (shrink)

I have devoted a separate study to the question of how far the account in the Alexander Romance of Alexander's meeting with the Naked Philosophers, later known as Brahmans, rests on genuine information about India. My conclusion was that the author of the Romance knew the Alexander historians but did not add any genuine knowledge; and that he incorporated a separate text of Cynic origin, the series of ten questions and answers.

In this discussion, we ponder the discourse about the ‘body of the Divine’ in the Indian tradition. Beginning with the Vedas, we survey the major eras and thinkers of that tradition, considering various notions of the Supreme Divine Being it produced. For each, we ask: is the Divine embodied? If so, then in what way? What is the nature of the body of the Divine, and what is its relationship to human bodies? What is the value of the body of (...) the Divine to the spiritual aspirant? We consider, where relevant, which views are pantheistic and which might be considered panentheistic. Panentheism is connected with discourse on the world as the body of God. It has origins in medieval Christian theology with anticipatory traces in Plato’s Timeaus. Under pantheism, were the world to end—were it to collapse or disappear irreversibly, perhaps, into a huge black hole—then God would disintegrate without a remainder as well; for in this view the Divine Spirit is the universe. The same is not true under panentheism which posits a more complex relationship between the Divine and the world. According to panentheism, God pervades the world—God is in the world—and at the same time, God sustains the world—the world is in God. This allows that God be greater than, transcendent of and independent of the world. In our conclusion we remark on how the views we have surveyed link to, resonate with, or dis-compare with the current—should one say revivified—interest in intellectual quarters with panentheism. (shrink)

This article examines significant, yet apparently unnoticed sociolinguistic aspects of the common Sanskrit particle bhoḥ and its Prakrit equivalent bho, which are frequently used in respectful addresses in our literary sources. Its specific aim is to demonstrate the important connection between bhoḥ and members of the twice- born social classes, especially Brahmins, that pertained during a large period of early South Asian history. The major conclusion it draws is that, at least according to the normative Brahmanical view of this time, (...) both addressing others with the particle bhoḥ and being addressed by others with it marked a person as a member of an elite fraternity that was comprised exclusively of either twice-born men or speakers of Sanskrit. (shrink)

The great Advaita Vedāntin Śaṅkara puts forth a mystic parallelism thesis that is identified and examined here: mystical and sensory experiences are epistemically parallel. Among the conclusions drawn are that the Advaita metaphysics precludes successful defense of a Brahman-centered philosophy on the basis of such a thesis because Advaita precludes a story about how the experience of its Brahman could arise. Thus Śaṅkara needs "scripture" (śruti) to secure important parts of his view. A truly mystical Vedānta, in contrast, (...) would not. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 45, no. 1. © 2019 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 253 Sonja Thomas The Women’s Wall in Kerala, India, and Brahmanical Patriarchy On January 1, 2019, a human chain of women, between three and five million strong and 385 miles long, gathered to protest the barring of menstruating women from entering Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, India. The so-called Women’s Wall received widespread news coverage; in the United States, (...) NPR, the BBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times all had stories on it. Debra Messing, Kerry Washington, and Rose McGowan tweeted about it. As a scholar of caste, gender, and religion in Kerala, India, I watched the news and international attention with a good deal of interest and a bit of unease about how the intersections of casteism and patriarchy (brahmanical patriarchy) were glossed over in the reporting. The issues surrounding the Women’s Wall reveal the ways in which certain groups invest in the protection of brahmanical patriarchal power; a power that is reflected in political tensions between the Kerala state and the Indian central government that may come to a head in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Casteism and religious divides in Kerala are rarely discussed in depth because Kerala is largely seen as a progressive state, with a 94 percent literacy rate. Other development indicators also point to the assumption that Kerala is exceptional: low infant mortality rates, low maternal mortality rates, low fertility rates, and a population where there are more women than men. Kerala is seen as secular because there is a large number of both Christian and Muslim religious minorities. In 1957, 254 News and Views Kerala made history by democratically electing a communist government and initiating a set of far-reaching (although not all-encompassing) land distribution policies. The state is seen as transgender friendly with a transgender beauty pageant and support for trans surgery. The “feminist ” Women’s Wall protest fits in quite neatly within the dominant narrative that Kerala is exceptional, progressive, and thus a model for other Indian states and for countries in the Global South to follow. However, even as “progressive” Kerala is celebrated today, it is not clear that women in the state are necessarily as empowered as commonly believed. The state has some of the highest rates of violent crime in the nation and violence against women is widespread.1 Kerala’s suicide rates are two times the national average, and Kerala leads all other states in India in the number of family murder/suicides.2 Women are vastly underrepresented in politics.3 Although women are educated, the female workforce participation rate is one of the lowest in India.4 There is evidence to suggest that educated, nonworking women are using their education toward securing a better marriage match rather than for employment or empowerment.5 Kerala has a history of extremely repressive caste practices. This area of India once not only practiced untouchability, but what is known as “distance pollution.” A Dalit (the most oppressed caste in the caste hierarchy) was not allowed within sixty feet of a Brahmin (the most privileged caste), and the mere shadow of a Dalit falling upon a dominant-caste person could result in a Dalit’s death.6 Dalit Bahujans were prohibited 1. See Swapna Mukhopadhyay, ed., The Enigma of the Kerala Woman: A Failed Promise of Literacy (New Delhi: Social Science Press, 2007). 2. Jocelyn Lim Chua, In Pursuit of the Good Life: Aspiration and Suicide in Globalizing South India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014). 3. J. Devika and Binitha V. Thampi, New Lamps for Old? Gender Paradoxes of Political Decentralisation in Kerala (New Delhi: Zubaan: 2012). 4. Praveena Kodoth and Mridul Eapen, “Looking Beyond Gender Parity: Gender Inequities of Some Dimensions of Well-Being in Kerala,” Economic and Political Weekly 40, no. 30 (2005): 3278. 5. Sonja Thomas, “Education as Empowerment? Gender and the Human Right to Education in Postcolonial India,” in Human Rights in Postcolonial India, ed. Om Prakash Dwivedi and V. G. Julie Rajan (New York: Routledge, 2016), 82; Ritty A. Lukose, Liberalization’s Children: Gender, Youth, and Consumer Citizenship in Globalizing India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 104. 6... (shrink)