The wisdom of Confucius, China's greatest teacher and sage, can guide each of us in our own time.

Twenty-six centuries after their origination, the principles laid down in the Analects of Confucius still act as the foundation of Chinese philosophy, ethics, society and government, and play a formative role in the development of many Eastern philosophies. In this intriguing look at the ethical and spiritual meaning of the Analects, Rodney L. Taylor, the foremost American researcher of Confucius as a religious and spiritual figure, explains their profound and universal wisdom for our own time. He shows how Confucius advocates learning and self-cultivation to follow the "path of the sage" or Way of Heaven a journey that promises to promote reason, peace and understanding.

Alongside an updated version of the classic translation by Sinologist James Legge, Taylor provides informative and accessible commentary that illuminates the meaning behind selected passages from the Analects and their insights on character development, respect and reverence, and the nature of learning, goodness, truthfulness and righteousness."

A message of love, compassion and the spiritual unity of
humankind from one of India s visionary teachers

Vivekananda s message gives us hope for the future. His love for humanity gave him the mandate for his message, and his innate purity gave him an irresistible power that nobody could match. The same love that was born as Buddha, the Compassionate One, once again assumed human form as Vivekananda. from the Introduction

At the World s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, a young Hindu monk caused a sensation. At the utterance of his simple opening words Sisters and Brothers of America the audience broke into spontaneous applause for Swami Vivekananda. What followed was a stunning speech about the validity and unity of all religions. In just a little over a century, Vivekananda s message has spread throughout the world.

In this book for spiritual seekers of all faiths and backgrounds, and for all who yearn for solutions to the ideological conflicts that threaten our world, Swami Adiswarananda presents a selection of Vivekananda s most profound and inspiring lectures and an intimate glimpse of his life through newspaper reports from the time, personal reminiscences from disciples and others close to him, and impressions of his life and message from world leaders. A chapter by Swami Nikhilananda, founder of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, offers a fascinating view of Vivekananda s spiritual mission to America a mission that brought the ideals of spiritual freedom and spiritual democracy to the forefront of Western religious thought.

This book examines the theory of consciousness developed by the school of Recognition, an Indian philosophical tradition that thrived around the tenth c. CE in Kashmir, and argues that consciousness has a linguistic nature. It situates the doctrines of the tradition within the broader Indian philosophical context and establishes connections with the contemporary analytic debate. The book focuses on Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta (tenth c. CE), two Hindu intellectuals belonging to the school of Recognition, Pratyabhijñā in Sanskrit. It argues that these authors promoted ideas that bear a strong resemblance with contemporary ‘higher–order theories’ of consciousness. In addition, the book explores the relationship between the thinkers of the school of Recognition and the thought of the grammarian/philosopher Bhartṛhari (fifth c. CE). The book bridges a gap that still exists between scholars engaged with Western traditions and Sanskrit specialists focused on textual materials. In doing so, the author uses concepts from contemporary philosophy of mind to illustrate the Indian arguments and an interdisciplinary approach with abundant reference to the original sources. Offering fresh information to historians of Indian thought, the book will also be of interest to academics working on Non-Western Philosophy, Comparative Philosophy, Indian Philosophy, Religion, Hinduism, Tantric Studies and South Asian Studies.

This book publishes, for the first time in decades, and in many cases, for the first time in a readily accessible edition, English language philosophical literature written in India during the period of British rule. Bhushan's and Garfield's own essays on the work of this period contextualize the philosophical essays collected and connect them to broader intellectual, artistic and political movements in India. This volume yields a new understanding of cosmopolitan consciousness in a colonial context, of the intellectual agency of colonial academic communities, and of the roots of cross-cultural philosophy as it is practiced today. It transforms the canon of global philosophy, presenting for the first time a usable collection and a systematic study of Anglophone Indian philosophy.
Many historians of Indian philosophy see a radical disjuncture between traditional Indian philosophy and contemporary Indian academic philosophy that has abandoned its roots amid globalization. This volume provides a corrective to this common view. The literature collected and studied in this volume is at the same time Indian and global, demonstrating that the colonial Indian philosophical communities were important participants in global dialogues, and revealing the roots of contemporary Indian philosophical thought.
The scholars whose work is published here will be unfamiliar to many contemporary philosophers. But the reader will discover that their work is creative, exciting, and original, and introduces distinctive voices into global conversations. These were the teachers who trained the best Indian scholars of the post-Independence period. They engaged creatively both with the classical Indian tradition and with the philosophy of the West, forging a new Indian philosophical idiom to which contemporary Indian and global philosophy are indebted.

An accessible guide to controlling the mind. Written in a simple and easily understandable style, Concentration is a classic among books on the art of meditation. Without the ability to concentrate, our efforts at meditation will result only in going nowhere, in spinning our wheels in an unending rut. Through a series of practical steps, the author provides the frame work of achieving the state of Samadhi. It encourages readers to actively walk the path of spirituality and achieve a state of super consciousness, rather than just passively read about it.

Arthapatti is a pervasive form of reasoning investigated by Indian philosophers in order to think about unseen causes and interpret ordinary and religious language. Its nature is a point of controversy among Mimamsa, Nyaya, and Buddhist philosophers, yet, to date, it has received less attention than perception, inference, and testimony. This collection presents a one-of-a-kind reference resource for understanding this form of reasoning studied in Indian philosophy. Assembling translations of central primary texts together with newly-commissioned essays on research topics, it features a significant introductory essay. Readable translations of Sanskrit works are accompanied by critical notes that introduce arthapatti, offer historical context, and clarify the philosophical debates surrounding it. Showing how arthapatti is used as a way to reason about the basic unseen causes driving language use, cause-and-effect relationships, as well as to interpret ambiguous or figurative texts, this book demonstrates the importance of this epistemic instrument in both contemporary Anglo-analytic and classical Indian epistemology, language, and logic.

Addressing arguments that comparative philosophy is itself impossible, or that it is indistinguishable from philosophy more generally, this collection challenges myopic understandings of comparative method and encourages a more informed consideration. Bringing together a wide variety of methodological options, it features scholars spread across the globe representing multiple philosophical traditions. From the beginnings of comparative philosophy in the 19th century to present-day proposals for more global philosophy departments, every chapter serves as a viable methodological alternative for any would-be philosophical comparativist. With contributions from leading comparativists that are both distinctive in their method and explicit about its application, this valuable resource challenges and enriches the awareness and sensitivity of the beginning comparativist and seasoned veteran alike.

Whereas the discovery by Europeans of the continents of our earth has been the subject of countless studies and its protagonists (such as Columbus) are universally known, research on the European discovery of our globe's "spiritual continents" - its religions and philosophies - is still in its infancy. The Christian West's discovery of Asia's largest religion and fount of philosophies, Buddhism, is a case in point: though it triggered one of the most significant and influential spiritual and cultural encounters in world history, even the most basic questions remain unanswered. What did Europeans first learn about Buddhist thought? When and where did this discovery take place and who was involved in it? What kind of Buddhism did they study, how did they understand or misunderstand it, and what were the repercussions of such discoveries in Europe? Based on a wide range of sources in European and Asian languages, Urs App - the author of The Birth of Orientalism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010) - identifies the protagonists of the first Western encounter with Buddhism and shows how their interpretation of Buddhist doctrines led to the invention of a single "Oriental philosophy" reigning from Egypt to Japan: an atheist philosophy anchored in "nothingness" and "emptiness" that was revealed by the Buddha to his closest disciples on his deathbed. Leading thinkers of the Enlightenment came to regard this philosophy as the most ancient form of atheism, the ancestor of Greek philosophy, the precursor of Spinoza, and the fount of mysticism as well as countless heresies including monism, pantheism, quietism, and gnosticism.

Brimming with mythical imagination, poetic sallies, and often ferociously witty remarks, the Zhuangzi is one of China’s greatest literary and philosophical masterpieces. Yet the complexities of this classical text can make it a challenging read. This English translation leads you confidently through the comic scenes and virtuoso writing style, introducing all the little stories Zhuangzi invented and unpicking its philosophical insights through close commentaries and helpful asides. Romain Graziani opens up the text as never before, showing how Zhuangzi uses the stories as an answer to Mencius’s conception of sacrifice and self-cultivation, restoring the critical interplay with Confucius’ Analects, and guiding you through the themes of the animal world, sacrifice, political violence, meditation, illness, and death. In Graziani’s translation, the co-founder of Taoism emerges as a remarkable thinker: a dedicated disparager of moral virtues who stubbornly resists any form of allegiance to social norms and the only Warring States figure to improvise with the darkest irony on the weaknesses of men and their docile subservience to the unquestioned authority of language. For anyone coming to Chinese philosophy or the Zhuangzi for the first time, this introduction and translation is a must-read, one that reminds us of the importance of thinking beyond our limited, everyday perspectives.

This book analyzes the contemporary global revival of Nondual Saivism, a thousand-year-old medieval Hindu religious philosophy. Providing a historical overview of the seminal people and groups responsible for the revival, the book compares the tradition's medieval Indian origins to modern forms, which are situated within distinctively contemporary religious, economic and technological contexts. The author bridges the current gap in the literature between "insider" (emic) and "outsider" (etic) perspectives by examining modern Nondual Saivism from multiple standpoints as both a critical scholar of religion and an empathetic participant-observer. The book explores modern Nondual Saivism in relation to recent scholarly debates concerning the legitimacy of New Age consumptive spirituality, the global spiritual marketplace and the contemporary culture of narcissism. It also analyzes the dark side of the revived tradition, and investigates contemporary teachers accused of sexual abuse and illegal financial activities in relation to unique features of Nondual Saivism's theosophy and modern scholarship on new religious movements (NRMs) and cults. This book shows that, although Kashmir Saivism has been adopted by certain teachers and groups to market their own brand of "High Tantra," some contemporary practitioners have remained true to the system's fundamental tenets and teach authentic (albeit modern) forms of Nondual Saivism. This book will be of interest to academics in the fields of religion and Asian philosophies, especially South Asian, tantric, neo-tantric and yoga philosophies, alternative and New Age spiritualities, religion and consumerism, and NRMs and cults. Winner of the inaugural 2021 New Zealand Asia Society Book Award, second prize.

The Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions presents critical research, overviews, and case studies on religion in historical South Asia, in the seven nation states of contemporary South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, and in the South Asian diaspora. Chapters by an international set of experts analyse formative developments, roots, changes and transformations, religious practices and ideas, identities, relations, territorialisation, and globalisation in historical and contemporary South Asia. The Handbook is divided into two parts which first analyse historical South Asian religions and their developments and second contemporary South Asia religions that are influenced by both religious pluralism and their close connection to nation states and their ideological power. Contributors argue that religion has been used as a tool for creating nations as well as majorities within those nations in South Asia, despite their enormous diversity, in particular religious diversity. The Handbook explores these diversities and tensions, historical developments, and the present situation across religious traditions by utilising an array of approaches and from the point of view of various academic disciplines. Drawing together a remarkable collection of leading and emerging scholars, this handbook is an invaluable research tool and will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of Asian religion, religion in context, and South Asian religions.

This book is an analysis of the philosophical chapters of the Tattvarthadhigama (TA), a foundational text for the Jaina tradition and the first text that presented the Jaina worldview in a clear and systematic way. The book also includes the first English translation of its oldest commentary, the Tattvarthadhigamabhasya (TABh). Focusing on the philosophical sections of the TA and TABh, which deviate from the traditional views and introduce several new concepts for the Jaina tradition, the analysis suggests that the TA and the TABh were written by different authors, and that both texts contain several historical layers. The texts reflect aspects of the concurrent intellectual movements, and the textual analysis includes comparisons with the views of other schools, such as the Nyaya and Vaisesika traditions, and offers an in-depth analysis of the philosophical content of these works. The appendix contains an English translation from the original Sanskrit text of the TA and provides the first English translation of the commentary on these passages from the TABh. Situating the text in the wider history of Indian philosophy, the book offers a better understanding of the role of the Jainas in the history of Indian thought. It will be of interest to those studying Indian philosophy, Indian thought and Asian Religions.

For its extensive research and novel interpretations, Dasan's Noneo gogeum ju (Old and New Commentaries of the Analects) is considered in Korean Studies a crystallization of Dasan's study of the Confucian classics. Dasan (Jeong Yak-yong: 1762-1836) attempted to synthesize and supersede the lengthy scholarly tradition of the classical studies of the Analects, leading to work that not only proved to be one of the greatest achievements of Korean Confucianism but also definitively demonstrated innovative prospects for the study of Confucian philosophy. It is one of the most groundbreaking works among all Confucian legacies in East Asia. Originally consisting of forty volumes in traditional bookbinding, Noneo gogeum ju contains one hundred and seventy-five new interpretations on the Analects, hundreds of arguments about the neo-Confucian commentaries on the Analects, hundreds of references to scholarly works on the Analects, thousands of supporting quotations from various East Asian classics for the author's arguments, and hundreds of philological discussions. This book is the fourth volume of an English translation of Noneo gogeum ju and includes the translator's comments on the innovative ideas and interpretations of Dasan's commentaries.

The Classic of Changes (Yi jing) is one of the most ancient texts known to human civilization, always given pride of place in the Chinese classical tradition. And yet the powerful fascination exerted by the Classic of Changes has preserved the archaic text, widely attracting readers with a continuing interest in trying to understand it as a source of reflection and guide to ordinary circumstances of human life. Its monumental influence over Chinese thought makes the text an indispensable element in any informed approach to Chinese culture.Accordingly, the book focuses on the archaic core of the Classic of Changes and proposes a structural anthropological analysis for two main reasons. First, unlike many treatments of the Yi jing, there is a concern to place the text carefully in the context of the ancient culture

Each essay in this volume provides a cultural perspective on shame. More specifically, each chapter focuses on the question of how culture can differentially affect experiences of shame for members of that culture. As a collection, this volume provides a cross-cultural perspective on shame, highlighting the various similarities and differences of experiences of shame across cultures. In Part 1, each contributor focuses primarily on how shame is theorized in a non-English-speaking culture, and address how the science of shame ought to be pursued, how it ought to identify its object of study, what methods are appropriate for a rigorous science of shame, and how a method of study can determine or influence a theory of shame. In Part 2, each contributor is primarily concerned with a cultural practice of shame, and addresses how shame is related to a normative understanding of our self as a person and an individual member of a community, how culture and politics affect the value and import of shame, and what the relationship between culture and politics is in the construction of shamed identities. Cultural Perspectives on Shame will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in cross-cultural philosophy, philosophy of emotion, moral psychology, and the social sciences.