Commentary on the philosophical poems by Narayana Guru, 1856-1928, philosopher-saint; includes text.

Pt. 1. The lives and teachings of the three Ācāryas and Narayana Guru -- pt. 2. Ideas of the three Ācāryas unitively revisualised.

Work on Advaita philosophy; text, translation, study with interpretation.

Do you have to be one to know one? Madhvàcàrya, the founder of the thirteenth century school of Vedànta, answered this question with a resounding 'yes!' Madhvàcàrya's insistence that one must be a Màdhva to study Màdhva Vedànta led him to employ various strategies to exclude outsiders and unauthorized readers from accessing the root texts of his tradition and from obtaining oral commentary from living virtuosos. Deepak Sarma explores the degree to which outsiders can understand and interpret the doctrine (...) of the Màdhva school of Vedànta. The school is based on insider epistemology which is so restrictive that few can learn its intricate doctrines. This book reveals the complexity of studying traditions based on insider epistemologies and encourages its audience to ponder both the value and the hazards of granting any outsider the authority and opportunity to derive important insights into a tradition as an insider. The first analysis of the Màdhva tradition, this work contributes to the ongoing controversies regarding epistemic authority and voice in religious studies. (shrink)

This introduction to the Madhva school of Vedanta is accessible to a wide audience with interest in Hinduism, Indian thought and in the comparative philosophy of religion.Deepak Sarma explores the philosophical foundations of Madhva Vedanta and then presents translations of actual debates between the Madhva and Advaita schools of Vedanta, thus positioning readers at the centre of the 700 year-old controversy between these two schools of Vedanta. Original texts of Madhvacarya are included in an appendix, in translation and in (...) Sanskrit. (shrink)

Original text with commentary on Ātmōpadēśaśtakam of Sri Narayana Guru, b. 1856-1928, work on philosophy of Ātman.

Deepak Sarma completes the first outline in more than fifty years of India's key philosophical traditions, inventively sourcing seminal texts and clarifying language, positions, and issues. Organized by tradition, the volume covers six schools of orthodox Hindu philosophy: Mimamsa (the study of the earlier Vedas, later incorporated into Vedanta), Vedanta (the study of the later Vedas, including the _Bhagavad Gita_ and the _Upanishads_), Sankhya (a form of self-nature dualism), Yoga (a practical outgrowth of Sankhya), and Nyaya and Vaisesika (two (...) forms of realism). It also discusses Jain philosophy and the Mahayana Buddhist schools of Madhyamaka and Yogacara. Sarma maps theories of knowledge, perception, ontology, religion, and salvation, and he details central concepts, such as the _pramanas_ (means of knowledge), _pratyaksa_ (perception), _drayvas_ (types of being), _moksa_ (liberation), and _nirvana_. Selections and accompanying materials inspire a reassessment of long-held presuppositions and modes of thought, and accessible translations prove the modern relevance of these enduring works. (shrink)

Study on the contribution of Citsukha, 13th century Indian philosopher, to the non-dualistic (advaita) school of Hindu philosophy.

On economic ideas of Deendayal Upadhyaya, 1916-1968, politician and nationalist leader of India.

What is your name, from where, of which caste, what job, how old? One who is free from such questions, his alone is beatitude. In the verdant countryside of south-west India, at the turn of the last century, lived the great poet-seer Narayana Guru. His message was very simple: 'Man is of one caste, one religion and one God / Of one same womb, one same form, with no difference at all.' Grounded in the mystical depths of life, he (...) wandered across the landscape, gently proclaiming justice and equality for all, interacting with the multitudes who came to meet him, electrifying them to be at their best, and galvanizing a peaceful movement to eliminate oppression in all its forms. Stalwarts like Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi sought his counsel. He inspired social reformers such as Sahodaran Ayyappan, Mahatma Ayyankali, Pandit Karuppan, V.T. Bhattathiripad, among others. Along the way, he composed a compact body of writing in prose and verse of exceptional potency. These are stimulating, deep and original explorations, entryways into a profound appreciation of the human condition. (shrink)

On the concept of Ātman in Hindu philosophy; text with Hindi translation and explanation.

Illustrations: 14 B/w Illustrations Description: Tamil Siddhas hav ebeen known as iconoclastic in their writings and tendencies. Here this misunderstanding is cleared and correct knowledge of the writings is given. For the first time also, the writings is given. For the first time also, the das adiksa and gymnosophy of the Tamil Siddhas are adumberated here in a new light, which the students of the Tamil Siddhas will appreciate. The author has attempted, successfully to prove some of the concepts and (...) the Yogic practices of the Siddhas by quoting from the Upanisads and explaining them. The modern discoveries and medicla science have helped him to assert the scientific and medical qualities of the prescriptiosn of the Siddhas for perfect health and steady spiritual progress. If the world of humanity today still carried a semblance of peace and well-being. It is by the Grace and Guidance of these Elders, the Siddha Brotherhood. May their Grace continue to guide humanity is the prayer in this study. (shrink)

Granthayojanā, anonymous supercommentary, on Śābarabhāṣya, commentary on the Mīmāṃsāsūtra of Jaimini; based on a rare manuscript preserved in the Adyar Library.

Contributed research papers presented as National Seminar on Vedic Astro Sciences, organized by S.V. Vedic University on 7th and 8th June, 2008 in association with the Centre for Theoritical Studies and Research, Birbhum, West Bengal).

Digest of published and unpublished texts on Indic philosophy.

ABSTRACT In this essay, I shall discuss Gadamer’s interpretation of Celan’s dialogical poetry in his essay “Wer bin Ich und wer bist Du?” (“Who am I and Who are You?”). One may argue that this is Gadamer’s articulation of the problem of the self-other relationship. To understand the question of self and other, it is first of all necessary to return to the poetic word from which the question arises. Speaking is, for Gadamer, the most profoundly self-forgetful action, because when (...) one speaks, one is so deeply “within the word” that one is not turned toward the word but, rather, to what one wants to say with the word. For hermeneutics, interpreting means putting oneself on the task of the poetic text. The proximity between poetizing and interpreting emerges, also in its specificity concerning the proximity between poetizing and thinking. Such a proximity, in turn, divides itself into two extremes: the word that sublates itself, and the word that stands for itself. It is hence the uncertain fullness of language, where, unsurprisingly, both poetizing and interpreting come into themselves, which constitutes the link between the one and the other. Therefore, the interpreted word, intertwined with the poetic word does not replace what it indicates, but merely points beyond itself, to what is other than itself. Both pursue a meaning that points toward an open realm. (shrink)

The paper is an attempt to revisit Rawls’ idea of a self, which elicits the concept of justice in the liberal tradition. Justice, as understood in the social and political context, is the basic feature of a well-ordered and rationally developed society and it is considered to be a virtue of the social institution. The liberal theory believes in the basic principle that right is prior to the good, and what is most fundamental to our personhood are not the ends (...) we choose but our capacity to choose them. Hence, in Rawls’ account of the self, absoluteness of the metaphysical priority has an edge over the absoluteness of the moral priority. The idea of an unencumbered self, in the social and historical sense, is at the core of the Kantian-Rawlsian theory of justice, which is under attack by the communitarians. Communitarians like Sandel, however, questions Rawls’ claim for the priority of right over good and maintains that liberals fail to recognize the self is ‘embedded,’ in and partly constituted by communal commitments and values which are objects of choice. In this paper, I examine communitarian critiques of Rawls’ liberal self. Further, I also refer to Rawls’ turn to the ‘political,’ which works as a ‘module’ that fits into and can be supported by a variety of reasonable comprehensive doctrines. (shrink)

Emergence of the requirement of justice -- Justice's major platforms -- Justice within human rights -- Judges' balancing exercise -- The calculus of social harmonization -- Equilibrating the forces of attraction and repulsion -- Principles of justice and the reasons for their mixing -- Metrics and dialectics for a reflective equilibrium -- Social institutions as equilibrium setting tools.

Vowel phonemes are a part of any acoustic speech signal. Vowel sounds occur in speech more frequently and with higher energy. Therefore, vowel phoneme can be used to extract different amounts of speaker discriminative information in situations where acoustic information is noise corrupted. This article presents an approach to identify a speaker using the vowel sound segmented out from words spoken by the speaker. The work uses a combined self-organizing map - and probabilistic neural network -based approach to segment the (...) vowel phoneme. The segmented vowel is later used to identify the speaker of the word by matching the patterns with a learning vector quantization -based code book. The LVQ code book is prepared by taking features of clean vowel phonemes uttered by the male and female speakers to be identified. The proposed work formulates a framework for the design of a speaker-recognition model of the Assamese language, which is spoken by ∼3 million people in the Northeast Indian state of Assam. The experimental results show that the segmentation success rates obtained using a SOM-based technique provides an increase of at least 7% compared with the discrete wavelet transform-based technique. This increase contributes to the improvement in overall performance of speaker identification by ∼3% compared with earlier related works. (shrink)

Study on perception in Indian philosophy.

The quest for knowledge, for Socrates, is a holistic approach in which the subject is required to transform himself. This brings Socrates’ philosophy closer to the self-enhancement practice of spiritualism. The present study tries to explore the spiritual hue in the key thoughts of Socrates, viz., self-knowledge, goodness, knowledge and virtue, conscious ignorance, training for death, and the investigative methods he used like irony, midwifery method, and dialectic method, etc. The work is an analytical study based on the relevant published (...) works and the dialogues of Plato in which the character Socrates represents the philosophy of the historical Socrates. (shrink)

On Hindu ethics and code of conduct in Hindu smr̥tis.

Verse work on the Advaita philosophy, by a Hindu religious leader and social reformer from Kerala.