With a few notable exceptions, analytical philosophy of religion in the West still continues to focus almost entirely on the Iudaeo-Christian tradition. In particular, it is all too customary to ignore the rich fund of concepts and arguments supplied by the Indian religious tradition. This is a pity, for it gratuitously impoverishes the scope of much contemporary philosophy of religion and precludes the attainment of any insights into Indian religions comparable to those that the clarity and rigour of analytic philosophy has made possible for the Iudaeo-Christian tradition. This volume seeks to redress the imbalance. The original idea was to invite a number of Indian and Western philosophers to contribute essays treating of Indian religious concepts in the style of contemporary analytical philosophy of religion. No further restrietion was placed upon the contributors and the resulting essays (all previously unpublished) exhibit a diversity of themes and approaches. Many arrangements of the material herein are doubtless defensible. The rationale for the one that has been adopted is perhaps best presented through some introductory remarks about the essays themselves.

The research for this work was undertaken during my tenure of a Senior Tutor ship in the Faculty of Arts and Music at the University of Otago (1983-85). Versions of some of the chapters herein have already been accepted for publication in the form of journal articles in Philosophy, Philosophy East and West, Sophia, and Religious Studies. My thanks to the editors and publishers concerned for permission to reuse this material. A number of people have assisted me in various ways. My greatest debt is to Graham Oddie, who supervised my doctoral research in this area and with whom I have had the benefit of innumerable discussions on these and other philosophical matters. I am very grateful for all I have learned from him. I would also like to thank: Bob Durrant for commenting helpfully on Chapter 2; the late Jim Harvie, both for his valuable suggestions (particularly regarding the material of Chapter 4) and for his encouraging enthusiasm for the whole project; George Hughes for his extensive comments on the whole work; and (for various points of detail) Alan Musgrave, Charles Pigden and Bryan Wilson. Despite much good advice, however, I have some times preferred to go my own way, recalling Blake's proverb: "If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. " With regard to the typing of the manuscript I am indebted to the word-processor wizardry of Jane Tannahill and Christine Colbert."

With a few notable exceptions, analytical philosophy of religion in the West still continues to focus almost entirely on the Iudaeo-Christian tradition. In particular, it is all too customary to ignore the rich fund of concepts and arguments supplied by the Indian religious tradition. This is a pity, for it gratuitously impoverishes the scope of much contemporary philosophy of religion and precludes the attainment of any insights into Indian religions comparable to those that the clarity and rigour of analytic philosophy has made possible for the Iudaeo-Christian tradition. This volume seeks to redress the imbalance. The original idea was to invite a number of Indian and Western philosophers to contribute essays treating of Indian religious concepts in the style of contemporary analytical philosophy of religion. No further restrietion was placed upon the contributors and the resulting essays (all previously unpublished) exhibit a diversity of themes and approaches. Many arrangements of the material herein are doubtless defensible. The rationale for the one that has been adopted is perhaps best presented through some introductory remarks about the essays themselves.