This volume is a systematic and comprehensive introduction to one of the most read texts in South Asia, the Bhagavad-gita. The Bhagavad-gita is at its core a religious text, a philosophical treatise and a literary work, which has occupied an authoritative position within Hinduism for the past millennium. This book brings together themes central to the study of the Gita, as it is popularly known - such as the Bhagavad-gita's structure, the history of its exegesis, its acceptance by different traditions within Hinduism and its national and global relevance. It highlights the richness of the Gita's interpretations, examines its great interpretive flexibility and at the same time offers a conceptual structure based on a traditional commentarial tradition. With contributions from major scholars across the world, this book will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of religious studies, especially Hinduism, Indian philosophy, Asian philosophy, Indian history, literature and South Asian studies.

This book, first published in 1935, is an early western study of the practice of yoga. It examines the theories of yoga, and attempts to understand and explain its philosophy and beliefs.

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, Pratyabhijna 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 Bhartrhari (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 study attempts to elucidate a possible meeting point of the traditions of Eastern and Western metaphysical thinking. In discussing Whitehead's and Aurobindo's views on being and becoming, it seeks the possibility of a better engagement between the East and the West in the light of the philosophical insights. It is an initiation into the Sitz im Leben of Whitehead's philosophy and his general thought pattern. It carries a perceptive analysis to show the clear primacy of Becoming or Process in Whitehead that extends even to the Divine. It also highlights Aurobindo as a unique Indian Philosopher, who articulated Indian thought in Western categories. He was able to integrate the evolutionary theory of the West with the Indian understanding of becoming. The relationship between God and Creativity and Sachchidananda and the Supermind is studied within the context of Enlightenment and Modernity and the way of doing philosophy in the West and in the East.

This volume covers the philosophical, historical, religious, and interpretative aspects of the ancient Guodian bamboo manuscripts ( ) which were disentombed in the Guodian Village in Hubei Province, China, in 1993. Considered to be the Chinese equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls, these manuscripts are archaeological finds whose importance cannot be underestimated. Many of the texts are without counterparts in the transmitted tradition, and they provide unique insights into the developments of Chinese philosophy in the period between the death of Confucius (551-479 BCE) and the writings of Mencius (c.372-289 BCE), and beyond. Divided into two parts, the book first provides inter-textual contexts and backgrounds of the Guodian manuscripts. The second part covers the main concepts and arguments in the Guodian texts, including cosmology and metaphysics, political philosophy, moral psychology, and theory of human nature. The thematic essays serve as an introduction to the philosophical significance and the key philosophical concepts/thought of each text contained in the Guodian corpus. Each chapter has a section on the implications of the texts for the received tradition, or for the purpose of comparing some of the text(s) with the received tradition in terms of the key philosophical concepts as well as the reading and interpretation of the texts. The volume covers most of the texts inscribed on the 800-odd slips of the Guodian corpus dated to the fourth century BCE.

In Colors of Veracity, Vera Schwarcz condenses four decades of teaching and scholarship about China to raise fundamental questions about the nature of truth and history. In clear and vivid prose, she addresses contemporary moral dilemmas with a highly personal sense of ethics and aesthetics. Drawing on classical sources in Hebrew and Chinese (as well as several Greek and Japanese texts), Schwarcz brings deep and varied cultural references to bear on the question of truth and falsehood in human consciousness. An attentiveness to connotations and nuance is apparent throughout her work, which redefines both the Jewish understanding of emet (a notion of truth that encompasses authenticity) and the Chinese commitment to zhen (a vision of the real that comprises the innermost sincerity of the seeker's heart-mind). Works of art, from contemporary calligraphy and installations to fake Chinese characters and a Jewish menorah from Roman times, shed light light on the historian's task of giving voice to the dread-filled past. Following in the footsteps of literary scholar Geoffrey Hartman, Schwarcz expands on the "Philomela Project, which calls on historians to find new ways of conveying truth, especially when political authorities are bent on enforcing amnesia of past traumatic events. Truth matters, even if it cannot be mapped in its totality. Veracity is shown again and again to be neither black nor white. Schwarcz' accomplishment is a subtle depiction of "fractured luminosity," which inspires and sustains the moral conviction of those who pursue truth against all odds.

For several years Mouni Sadhu steeped himself in the teachings of the foremost Hindu ascetic, Sri Ramana Maharshi. This book, first published in 1957, is the best attempt by a European to describe without technicalities what such teachings entail, what meditation is about, and why Indians worship their gurus. Mouni Sadhu's rare facility for describing his own mental and spiritual states enables him to pass on to the reader his knowledge and enthusiasm. It is an authentic account of life with an inspired Hindu yogi and spiritual teacher.

Originated by the great sage of modern India, Sri Aurobindo, integral yoga has been presented in this volume, first published in 1965, in the context of modern western thinking. It expounds the concept of harmonious and creative living on the basis of a fruitful reconciliation of the self-perfecting mysticism of the East and the rationalistic humanism of the West. It gives a dynamic form, an evolutionary perspective, and a creative impetus to the ancient mystic idea of union with the eternal.

The Kyoto School's Takeover of Hegel: Nishida, Nishitani, and Tanabe Remake the Philosophy of Spirit is Peter Suares' in-depth analysis of the Kyoto School's integration of Western philosophical idealism with Japanese religious traditions. Suares traces the School's attempts to develop a doctrine of absolute nothingness using Hegel's dialectic of self-consciousness. Hegel's dialectic plays a formative role in the work of the three principal figures of the School—Nishida Kitaro, Nishitani Keiji, and Tanabe Hajime—yet many of its aspects are difficult to integrate with their neo-Buddhist outlook. Suares shows how this difficulty manifests itself in the ambivalence of the three philosophers toward Hegel: they are not only his adherents, but also his outspoken critics. Their criticism itself is no less problematic. The ostensibly Hegelian ideas denounced by Nishida, Nishitani, and Tanabe are often difficult to identify in his philosophy. On the other hand, many of their own theses, which they advance in express opposition to Hegel, are in fact quite compatible with his teachings. Given the pivotal importance of Hegel to the Kyoto School, Suares demonstrates how these misreadings signal a problem with the coherence of the School's broader worldview. The Kyoto School's Takeover of Hegel suggests how this problem could have been mitigated, making the School's philosophy of nothingness more effective than it is today.

The History of Indian Philosophy is a comprehensive and authoritative examination of the movements and thinkers that have shaped Indian philosophy over the last three thousand years. An outstanding team of international contributors provide fifty-eight accessible chapters, organised into three clear parts: knowledge, context, concepts philosophical traditions engaging and encounters: modern and postmodern. This outstanding collection is essential reading for students of Indian philosophy. It will also be of interest to those seeking to explore the lasting significance of this rich and complex philosophical tradition, and to philosophers who wish to learn about Indian philosophy through a comparative lens.

With an intense focus on both the depth and practicality of Mahatma Gandhi's political and religious thought this book reveals the valuable insights Gandhi offers to anyone concerned about the prospects of liberalism in the contemporary world. Gandhi's Religious Thought and Liberal Democracy makes the case that for Gandhi, in stark contrast to commonly accepted liberal orthodoxy, religion is indispensable to the public life, and indeed the official activity, of any genuinely liberal society. Gandhi scholars, political theorists, and activist members of a lay audience alike will all find much to digest, comment upon, and be motivated by in this work.

India has a rich tradition of meditative practices designed to study the phenomenon of consciousness. From the distant past to the present, India has evolved a unique psychological culture with grand unifying themes and universal modes of meditative practice. This book provides a detailed analysis of classical and modern Indian views on consciousness along with their related meditative methods. It offers a critical analysis of three distinct trends of Indian thought, viz., a dualistic mode of understanding and realizing consciousness in Hindu Samkhya, an interactive mode in early Buddhist abhidhamma, and the evolutionary transformational mode in the teachings of the twentieth-century sage Sri Aurobindo. This book explores the unifying features in Indian first person practices with regard to consciousness and the importance of these applied psychological practices and their associated understanding of our conscious inner lives. The most striking feature of the work is that side by side theoretical exposition of consciousness, it includes a number of worksheets which explain how to use meditation to achieve relaxation as well as cognitive 'maps' of the different levels of conscious states and instruction and how one can traverse from one state to another. The final chapter explores Sri Aurobindo who introduced new and decisive Indian spiritual thought and practice to India in the form of Integral Yoga. This innovative book will be of interest to scholars studying Indian philosophy, Indian religion and the emerging field of contemplation studies.

The World and God Are Not-Two is a book about how the God in whom Christians believe ought to be understood. The key conceptual argument that runs throughout is that the distinctive relation between the world and God in Christian theology is best understood as a non-dualistic one. The “two”—“God” and “World” cannot be added up as separate, enumerable realities or contrasted with each other against some common background because God does not belong in any category and creatures are ontologically constituted by their relation to the Creator. In exploring the unique character of this distinctive relation, Soars turns to Sara Grant’s work on the Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedānta and the metaphysics of creation found in Thomas Aquinas. He develops Grant’s work and that of the earlier Calcutta School by drawing explicit attention to the Neoplatonic themes in Aquinas that provide some of the most fruitful areas for comparative engagement with Vedānta. To the Christian, the fact that the world exists only as dependent on God means that “world” and “God” must be ontologically distinct because God’s existence does not depend on the world. To the Advaitin, this simultaneously means that “World” and “God” cannot be ontologically separate either. The language of non-duality allows us to see that both positions can be held coherently together without entailing any contradiction or disagreement at the level of fundamental ontology. What it means to be “world” does not and cannot exclude what it means to be “God.”

This book, first published in 1922, examines the science of Raja Yoga. All the orthodox systems of Indian philosophy point to one goal, the liberation of the soul through perfection - and the method to attain this is through Yoga. This book presents lectures on Yoga, delivered to a western audience view to explaining Indian philosophy; the lectures are accompanied by the Sutras (aphorisms) of Patanjali, along with an explanatory commentary.

The talks presented in this volume, first published in 1977, were originally delivered during a retreat in New York, in which speakers from a variety of spiritual traditions were represented. It aims to show the value of yoga in everyday life, and its relation to many other religions and philosophies.

Shabad Yoga is the highest of the Indian yoga systems. Shabad means divine or inner sound, and refers to the power which in the Bible is called the Word or Logos. Shabad Yoga is similar to the basic spiritual teachings of the Bible. This book, first published in 1963, gives an explanation of many vital Bible truths as taught by the spiritual masters of the Orient.

In this book, first published in 1956, the two authors, representatives of two different worlds and two entirely different attitudes, explore the wide domain of Eastern and Western philosophy. They put forward the theory that it is in Yoga that the two worlds meet.

This book offers a systematic and radical introduction to the Buddhist roots of Patanjala-yoga, or the Yoga system of Patanjali. By examining each of 195 aphorisms (sutras) of the Yogasutra and discussing the Yogabhasya, it shows that traditional and popular views on Patanjala-yoga obscure its true nature. The book argues that Patanjali's Yoga contains elements rooted in both orthodox and heterodox philosophical traditions, including Sankhya, Jaina and Buddhist thought. With a fresh translation and a detailed commentary on the Yogasutra, the author unearths how several of the terms, concepts and doctrines in Patanjali's Yoga can be traced to Buddhism, particularly the Abhidharma Buddhism of Vasubandhu and the early Yogacara of Asanga. The work presents the Yogasutra of Patanjali as a synthesis of two perspectives: the metaphysical perspective of Sankhya and the empirical-psychological perspective of Buddhism. Based on a holistic understanding of Yoga, the study explores key themes of the text, such as meditative absorption, means, supernormal powers, isolation, Buddhist conceptions of meditation and the interplay between Sankhya and Buddhist approaches to suffering and emancipation. It further highlights several new findings and clarifications on textual interpretation and discrepancies. An important intervention in Indian and Buddhist philosophy, this book opens up a new way of looking at the Yoga of Patanjali in the light of Buddhism beyond standard approaches and will greatly interest scholars and researchers of Buddhist studies, Yoga studies, Indian philosophy, philosophy in general, literature, religion and comparative studies, Indian and South Asian Studies and the history of ideas.

What does the Confucian heritage mean to modern East Asian education today? Is it invalid and outdated, or an irreplaceable cultural resource for an alternative approach to education? And to what extent can we recover the humanistic elements of the Confucian tradition of education for use in world education? Written from a comparative perspective, this book attempts to collectively explore these pivotal questions in search of future directions in education. In East Asian countries like China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, Confucianism as a philosophy of learning is still deeply embedded in the ways people think of and practice education in their everyday life, even if their official language puts on the Western scientific mode. It discusses how Confucian concepts including rite, rote-learning and conformity to authority can be differently understood for the post-liberal and post-metaphysical culture of education today. The contributors seek to make sense of East Asian experiences of modern education, and to find a way to make Confucian philosophy of education compatible with the Western idea of liberal education. This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory.

This volume features new perspectives on the implications of cross-linguistic and cultural diversity for epistemology. It brings together philosophers, linguists, and scholars working on knowledge traditions to advance work in epistemology that moves beyond the Anglophone sphere. The first group of chapters provide evidence of cross-linguistic or cultural diversity relevant to epistemology and discuss its possible implications. These essays defend epistemic pluralism based on Sanskrit data as a commitment to pluralism about epistemic stances, analyze the use of two Japanese knowledge verbs in relation to knowledge how, explore the Confucian notion of justification, and surveys cultural differences about the testimonial knowledge. The second group of chapters defends "core monism"-which claims that despite the cross-linguistic diversity of knowledge verbs, there is certain core epistemological meaning shared by all languages-from both a Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and skeptical perspective. The third cluster of essays considers the implications of cultural diversity for epistemology based on anthropological studies. These chapters explore real disparities in folk epistemology across cultures. Finally, the last two chapters discuss methods or perspectives to unify epistemology despite and based on the diversity of folk intuitions and epistemological concepts. Ethno-Epistemology is an essential resource for philosophers working in epistemology and comparative philosophy, as well as linguists and cultural anthropologists interested in the cultural-linguistic diversity of knowledge traditions.

This book represents the cutting edge of theoretical works on Confucianism. Starting from Confucianism's comeback in modern China and ending with the proposal of the new philosophical concept of "multiple universality" in the face of the world culture, the author conducts an in-depth analysis and discussion of many facets of the relationship between Confucianism, Confucian traditions and the modern world culture. It has a focused theme and a strong sense of contemporaneity, and responds to the current challenges confronting Confucianism from the perspective of modern culture. The chapters not only elucidate the Confucian position in the face of challenges of global ethics, dialogues on human rights, and ecological civilization, but also provide a modern interpretation of classical Confucian ideas on education, politics and ritual politics as well as an analysis of the development of modern Confucianism. All in all, this work is a comprehensive exposition of the Confucian values and their modern implications.

This book develops a critical understanding of Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy and practice in the context of contemporary challenges and engages with some of his key work and ideas. It highlights the relevance of Gandhi's legacy in the quest towards peace-building, equity and global justice. The volume examines diverse facets of Gandhi's holistic view of human life - social, economic and political - for the creation of a just society. Bringing together expert analyses and reflections, the chapters here emphasise the philosophical and practical urgency of Gandhi's thought and action. They explore the significance of his concepts of truth and nonviolence to address moral, spiritual and ethical issues, growing intolerance, conflict and violence, poverty and hunger, and environmental crisis for the present world. The volume serves as a platform for constructive dialogue for academics, researchers, policymakers and students to re-imagine Gandhi and his moral and political principles. It will be of great interest to those in philosophy, political studies, Gandhi studies, history, cultural studies, peace studies and sociology.

Understanding Yoga Therapy offers a comprehensive and accessible perspective on yoga therapy as a complementary, integrative route to promoting whole-person well-being. Readers will come away from the book understanding how the philosophy, texts, and teachings of yoga benefit a wide range of health conditions. The book is split into three helpful sections: Part I discusses foundational texts and their interpretations; Part II outlines the biopsychosocial-spiritual and neurophysiological model of integrative health pertinent to yoga therapy; and Part III focuses on practical applications separate from the more familiar diagnosis-driven models. Experiential activities and case studies throughout the text illuminate how yogic practices can be incorporated for optimal health. Bridging the ancient and modern, philosophical and scientific, Understanding Yoga Therapy offers a clear explanatory framework for yoga therapists, physicians, allied and complementary healthcare providers, and their patients and students.

The Book of Tea (1906) is a book-length essay by Okakura Kakuzo. Connected to the author's overall project of celebrating Japanese culture and emphasizing the role of the East in creating the modern world, The Book of Tea is considered a classic work on the subject. His description of chado, or teaism, remains incredibly influential in England and around the Western world. "[Teaism] insulates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life." Part philosophy, part history, The Book of Tea explores the role of tea in shaping the arts and culture of Japan, China, and the world. Beginning with an investigation of the historical uses of tea, Okakura reflects on the specific techniques of tea brewing, the connections between tea and religion, and the interconnection of tea and the creative arts. Informative and meditative, The Book of Tea is an essential work for tea drinkers everywhere. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Okakura Kakuzo's The Book of Tea is a classic of Japanese literature reimagined for modern readers.

This book, first published in 1980, comprises separate sections on Taoist and Buddhist contemplative yogas, each divided into a theory part (summarising their fundamental principles and outlook) and a practice part (detailing their various practices).