Various aspects of Sir Muhammad Iqbal's philosophy, particularly the impact of Indian influence on it.

Festschrift in honor of Pushpendra Kumar, b. 1936, Sanskritist; comprises research papers on Vedic literature and philosophy and language.

Festchrift in honor of John Vattanky, Indian philosopher; Includes contributed articles on Hindu philosophy.

This article seeks to delineate some of the fundamental philosophical traits that are special characteristics of the Indian cultural soil. Tracing these from the Vedic period, it is shown that this heritage is still alive and gives a distinctive flavor to the science–religion dialogue in the Indian context. The prevalent attitude is not to view science and religion as antagonistic, but rather as forces that together could create a world where the persistent epistemological and ethical problems can (...) get resolved to the benefit of humanity. In Indian thought rationality and spirituality are not viewed as opposed categories. The notion of “evidence” has played a crucial role in all enquiries for legitimizing the sources of knowledge and the criteria by which any claim to knowledge can be tested. References to investigations pertaining to such areas as cosmology, ecology, ethics, study of consciousness, and so on are made in order to bring out their relevance for science–religion dialogue today. (shrink)

The article chronicles diasporic cultural heritage in Natal during the period of indenture in an Indian community in colonial South Africa. Using the qualitative ethnographic research methodology the focus is on the period 1895–1960. This methodology was chosen as it is a qualitative method where observation and/or interaction has taken place in real-life environments. In this article, the Indian cultural heritage as experienced by Mrs Takurine Mahesh Singh who arrived in Port Natal in 1895 is chronicled (...) through the reflective memories of her South African-born eldest grandson, Mr J.S. Singh (b.1930). Further to this, her life in South Africa is explored as she lived in different worlds through various political systems and this life experience extended to include a cultural transformation. During 1960, the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the indentured Indians to the Colony of Natal was commemorated. Hence, this study considers the period 1895–1960. Moving across continents, the indentured Indians arrived in the Colony to work on the sugar plantations. Cultural heritage may be viewed as a sense of one’s subjective self-perception based on one’s language, ancestry, values, rituals, traditions and religion. During the political era of colonisation and indenture, the Indian nationals became displaced. This displacement created an intrinsic emotional threat. This emotional threat compromised their cultural heritage and consequently led to other forms of cultural transformation. During the oral history interviews, it emerged that the Indian nationals and their descendants in South Africa did not experience abject deculturalisation as they were able to practise aspects of their cultural heritage without the complete loss of their identity. This is one of the findings of the article. The findings indicate that complete deculturalisation did not take place even though cultural transformations resulted in the Indian diaspora in Natal. Contribution: With a unique focus on aspects of cultural heritage in the Indian diaspora, this article contributes to the knowledge of the social memory historiography with a spotlight on descendants of Indian indentured labourers in South Africa. The overarching contribution of this article focusses on the cultural transformation during the period under review. (shrink)

The act of remaking one's history into a heritage, a conscientiously crafted narrative placed over the past, is a thriving industry in almost every postcolonial culture. This is surprising, given the tainted role of heritage in so much of colonialism's history. Yet the postcolonial state, like its European predecessor of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, deploys heritage institutions and instruments, museums, courts of law, and universities to empower itself with unity, longevity, exaltation of value, origin, and destiny. (...) Bringing the eye of a philosopher, the pen of an essayist, and the experience of a public intellectual to the study of heritage, Daniel Herwitz reveals the febrile pitch at which heritage is staked. In this absorbing book, he travels to South Africa and unpacks its controversial and robust confrontations with the colonial and apartheid past. He visits India and reads in its modern art the gesture of a newly minted heritage idealizing the precolonial world as the source of Indian modernity. He traverses the United States and finds in its heritage of incessant invention, small town exceptionalism, and settler destiny a key to contemporary American media-driven politics. Showing how destabilizing, ambivalent, and potentially dangerous heritage is as a producer of contemporary social, aesthetic, and political realities, Herwitz captures its perfect embodiment of the struggle to seize culture and society at moments of profound social change. (shrink)

Comparative philosophy has been subjected to much criticism in the latter half of the last century, though some of these criticisms were appropriate and justified. However, in our present cultural milieu, where traditions and culture transcend their geographical boundaries, seeping through the global network of views and ideas, it seems to be a legitimate enterprise to understand one’s own traditions and culture through the critical lens of the ‘other culture’. It is such cross-cultural understanding that paved the way towards legitimizing (...) “human rights” as a universal discourse. So also, the discourse on “environmental ethics” has gained acceptance in a similar manner across cultures and traditions. The paper attempts at an understanding of “Indian Philosophy” as a theoretical practice by exemplifying the notion of “sādhanā” in the Yoga system of Indian Philosophy through a reading of the notion of ‘phenomenological reduction’ as espoused in the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl. Thus, we reject the claim that philosophy as a pure rational activity was unique to the West as proclaimed in some Eurocentric readings. It is pertinent to recall here that the Sāṅkhya philosophy, which the Yoga system accepts as an allied school of thought was atheistic in its origin and attempted to explain the universe in terms of an evolutionary theory—the “prakṛti pariṇāma vāda”. (shrink)

The “unknown heritage” is the name usually given to a problem type in whose archetype a father leaves to his first son 1 monetary unit and \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\frac{1}{n}}$$\end{document} (n usually being 7 or 10) of what remains, to the second 2 units and \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\frac{1}{n}}$$\end{document} of what remains, and so on. In the end, all sons get the same, and nothing remains. The earliest (...) known occurrence is in Fibonacci’s Liber abbaci, which also contains a number of much more sophisticated versions, together with a partial algebraic solution for one of these and rules for all which do not follow from his algebraic calculation. The next time the problem turns up is in Planudes’s late thirteenth century Calculus according to the Indians, Called the Great. After that the simple problem type turns up regularly in Provençal, Italian and Byzantine sources. It seems never to appear in Arabic or Indian writings, although two Arabic texts (one from c. 1190) contain more regular problems where the number of shares is given; they are clearly derived from the type known from European and Byzantine works, not its source. The sophisticated versions turn up again in Barthélemy de Romans’ Compendy de la praticque des nombres (c. 1467) and, apparently inspired from there, in the appendix to Nicolas Chuquet’s Triparty (1484). Apart from a single trace in Cardano’s Practica arithmetice et mensurandi singularis, the sophisticated versions never surface again, but the simple version spreads for a while to German practical arithmetic and, more persistently, to French polite recreational mathematics. Close examination of the texts shows that Barthélemy cannot have drawn his familiarity with the sophisticated rules from Fibonacci. It also suggests that the simple version is originally either a classical, strictly Greek or Hellenistic, or a medieval Byzantine invention; and that the sophisticated versions must have been developed before Fibonacci within an environment (located in Byzantium, Provence, or possibly in Sicily?) of which all direct traces has been lost, but whose mathematical level must have been quite advanced. (shrink)

Medical humanities have a unique role to play in combating biopiracy. This argument is offered both as a response to contemporary concerns about the ‘value’ and ‘impact’ of the arts and humanities and as a contribution to ongoing legal, political, and ethical debates regarding the status and protection of medical heritage. Medical humanities can contribute to the documentation and safeguarding of a nation or people’s medical heritage, understood as a form of intangible cultural heritage. In so doing (...) it can fulfill a unique service in protecting indigenous cultural heritage which potentially makes it of enormous economic benefit to national governments. I use the Indian Traditional Knowledge Digital Library as a case study of the value of medical humanities in challenging biopiracy. If my argument holds, then the value of medical humanities to current intellectual property debates can be demonstrated, and its pertinence to legal and economic interests made clear. However, there are some dangers in this strategy, and my paper closes with a discussion of them. (shrink)

In order to appreciate the content and structure of this article, one must first distinguish between Indian philosophy, even in its modern form, and philosophy which is done by Indians. When a philosopher of Indian heritage writes on modern Western logic or on phenomenology, he/she is not doing Indian philosophy. Such philosophers have not been included in this essay. According to my understanding of the term, their work would be Indian philosophy only if these Western (...) ideas have some impact on their study of Indian philosophy, or if they use Indian philosophical ideas to interpret Western philosophy, or if their work is aimed at preserving and/or extending traditional Indian philosophical pursuits. Similarly, Indian philosophy is not restricted to philosophy written by Indians; it includes philosophy written by anyone, regardless of national origin, who develops, interprets, or reinterprets the themes of classical Indian philosophy. There are many excellent Western scholars of Indian philosophy, such as Eric Frauwallner, Eliot Deutsch, Daniel Ingalls, and Karl Potter. However, because of the limitations of space, I have not discussed their work in this article. I have selected only contemporary philosophers of Indian heritage whose work coherently fits into a narrative account of recent developments in Indian philosophy that reflects the continuation and enrichment of the Indian tradition. (shrink)

Publication date: 25 October 2017 Source: Author: Olga Posudiyevska This article presents the study of Rudyard Kipling’s early pieces of writing. The author proposes an alternative view to the consideration of the writer’s literary heritage from the position of jingoism and propagation of the civilizing mission of the British Empire, which can still be encountered in academic research. The analysis of Plain Tales from the Hills suggests that the praise of British imperialism was not the main idea of Kipling’s (...) early works. The researcher comes to the conclusion that Kipling did not regard India as a conquered barbarous land which the British people had to civilize. This remote exotic country became a motherland for a representative of Anglo-Indian society, who was born in Indian environment. Kipling’s love for India is felt in his strive to give a detailed description of exotic locations and ethnographic peculiarities and even to restore the manner of speech of Indian population. The reader of Plain Tales from the Hills can perceive the author’s respect for the English and Indian people, working in harsh climate, his interest and great sympathy with the aboriginal population, living in hard social conditions under the British rule. The sarcastic remarks of his characters, which reflect Kipling’s doubt in the beneficial role of the British Empire in the lives of the Indian people, finally refute the statement about the writer’s glorification of the imperialistic policy of Great Britain as the main aim of his creative art. (shrink)

For over twenty years Douglas Berger has advanced research and reflection on Indian philosophical traditions from both classical and cross-cultural perspectives. This volume reveals the extent of his contribution by bringing together his perspectives on these classical Indian philosophies and placing them in conversation with Confucian, Chinese Buddhist and medieval Indian Sufi traditions. Delving into debates between Nyaya and Buddhist philosophers on consciousness and identity, the nature of Sankara's theory of the self, the precise character of Nagarjuna's (...) idea of emptiness, and the relationship between awareness and embodiment in the broad spectrum of Indian thought, chapters exhibit Berger's unusually broad range of expertise. They connect Chinese Confucian and Buddhist texts with classical Indian theories of ethics and consciousness, contrast the ideas of seminal European thinkers like Nietzsche and Derrida from prevailing themes in Buddhism, and shed light on the spiritual and political dimensions of the Mughal prince Dara Shukoh's immersion into Vedantic thought. Always approaching the arguments from an intercultural perspective, Berger shows how much relevance and resonance classical Indian thought has with ancient Confucian views of ethics, Chinese Buddhist depictions of consciousness and medieval Mughal conceptions of divinity. The result is a volume celebrating the rigor, vitality and intercultural resonance of India's rich philosophical heritage. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy tells the story of philosophy in India through a series of exceptional individual acts of philosophical virtuosity. It brings together forty leading international scholars to record the diverse figures, movements, and approaches that constitute philosophy in the geographical region of the Indian subcontinent, a region sometimes nowadays designated South Asia. The chapters provide a synopsis of the liveliest areas of contemporary research and set new agendas for nascent directions of exploration. Each of (...) the chapters provides compelling evidence that in the global exercise of human intellectual skills India, throughout its history, has been a hugely sophisticated and important presence, host to an astonishing range of exceptionally creative minds engaged in an extraordinary diversity of the most astute philosophical exploration conceivable. It spans philosophy of law, logic, politics, environment, and society, but is most strongly associated with wide-ranging discussions in the philosophy of mind and language, epistemology and metaphysics, ethics, meta-ethics, and aesthetics, and meta-philosophy. The reach of Indian ideas has been vast, both historically and geographically, and it has been and continues to be a major influence in world philosophy. In the breadth as well as the depth of its philosophical investigation, in the sheer bulk of surviving texts and in the diffusion of its ideas, the philosophical heritage of India easily stands comparison with that of China, Greece, the Latin West, or the Islamic world. (shrink)

The present work, "Indian Philosophers of the Recent Past" , reflects and deliberates over recent Indian scholarship in philosophy. It is to get the present and future generations of philosopher-scholars acquainted with the rich Indian philosophical heritage. This is going to deepen our insights into the nature of philosophical consciousness and into the act of philosophizing. It makes an attempt to analyse the philosophies of outstanding philosophers such as K.C. Bhattacharyya, S. Radhakrishnan, R.D. Ranade, A.C. Mukerji, (...) T.R.V. Murti, N.K. Devraja, J.L. Mehta, J.N. Mohanty, Daya Krishna and S.L. Pandey. The post-Independent Indian philosophy is said to have unique tendencies and trends; some of them can be easily identified as existentialist and phenomenological, idealistic, realistic, humanistic, linguistic and analytico-philosophical comparative philosophy and Indian defence of metaphysics. The volume is unique in its conceptual clarity, lucid expression, systematic presentation and critical exposition of the subject matter. It is undoubtedly a valuable contribution for the seekers of Indian philosophical system which should evoke keen interest among scholars and students of philosophy. (shrink)

Treatises on Indian philosophy have multiplied in the last thirty years, in the “West as well as in India itself. And in spite of the demanding nature of this subject—it exacts, so to speak, a uniform presentation; it entails a whole succession of systems, each one of which is elaborated in a more or less independent manner—this abundance is nonetheless profitable. Each author makes his contribution in the detailed account of new views and strives to rejuvenate a somewhat refractory (...) material, even if this involves the taking up of old views, discarded or neglected by the new generation of scholars. (shrink)

The selection of essays in this volume aims to present Indian philosophy as an autonomous intellectual tradition, with its own internal dynamics, rhythms, techniques, problematics and approaches, and to show how the richness of this tradition has a vital role in a newly emerging global and international discipline of philosophy, one in which a diversity of traditions exchange ideas and grow through their interaction with one another. This new volume is an abridgement of the four-volume set, Indian Philosophy, (...) published by Routledge in 2016. The selection of chapters was made in collaboration with the editors at Routledge. The purpose of this volume is to reintroduce the heritage of 'Indian Philosophy' to a contemporary readership by acquainting the reader with some of the core themes of Indian philosophy, such as the concept of philosophy, philosophy as a search for the self, Buddhist philosophy of mind, metaphysics, epistemology, language and logic. (shrink)

Samkhya is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, system of classical Indian philosophy. This book traces its history from the third or fourth century B. C. up through the twentieth century. The Encyclopedia as a whole will present the substance of the various Indian systems of thought to philosophers unable to read the Sanskrit and having difficulty in finding their way about in the translations (where such exist). This volume includes a lengthy introduction by Gerald James (...) Larson, which discusses the history of Samkhya and its philosophical contours overall. The remainder of the book includes summaries in English of all extant Sanskrit texts of the system. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

The article is the first exploration of Mārganāṭyam, a new tradition in the performing arts of modern India, created from the beginning of the XXI century by an outstanding researcher of musical, theatrical and dance culture, Kalamandalam Piyal Bhattacharya and his students. It is based on the many years of the author’s personal observations, interaction, interviews and discussions with the participants of “Chidakash Kalalay. Centre of Art and Divinity”, an artistic community based on the direct transfer of knowledge and skills (...) from teacher to students, which has developed around Piyal. The features of the method of reconstruction of the ancient Indian theater, the flexible application of the legacy of the past in modern conditions are under study. Particular attention is paid to the artistic interpretation and comprehension of the Indian philosophical heritage, and above all the concepts and worldview of Nyaya and Vedanta systems, transferring them to the space of scenic images. The presented material demonstrates that an integrated approach to the artistic heritage, a metatheater, combined with individual pedagogical unfold of the personality of the artists, creates the possibility of recreating the long-vanished tradition and complex philosophical issues in a way that is well understood today, relevant and reflects the essential needs of modern creators and viewers of the Indian theater at large. (shrink)

The complementary systems of Nyaya and Vaisesika constitute one of the oldest and most important traditions within Indian philosophy. This volume offers a systematic and detailed exposition of the two schools from their beginning to the time of Gangesa. An extensive interpretive essay introduces summaries of most of the known works written within the tradition. The result is both an excellent introduction for students and an indispensable guide to the thought and literature of early Nyaya-Vaisesika. Originally published in 1978. (...) The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Hasian, Condit, and Lucaites argue that there is "a need for investigating and implementing procedures that would democratize the legal system"i and that the boundaries of the law provide a fruitful site for such investigation. I would argue that one particularly relevant site to recover such procedures is American Indian law. American Indian treaties, although more so in terms of their negotiation rather than their final form, are hybrid documents, combining elements from both indigenous and Western law. Because (...) treaties exist at the boundaries between two systems of law, they are positioned not only to illuminate differences in practice but also to shed light on the balance of power between Indian nations and the U.S. government. Evidence of law's boundaries can be found, for example, in the adherence to, or abandonment of, indigenous practices of law over time. The journals of the proceedings in particular, which recorded the negotiation of the treaties, also documented cultural understandings of power, leadership, human relations, and attitudes toward the land. So if ever there were an opportunity to investigate and implement procedures leading to a more democratized legal system, this would be one. ;Traditional American Indian communication practices were not, and still are not, empty rituals or colorful customs of an exotic culture performed for the entertainment of outsiders. Neither are American Indian law practices the quaint customs of a long-gone past but living traditions still practiced today. I document this continuity in practice by investigating two sites: first, the historical journal of the proceedings from the 1825 Treaty of Prairie du Chien, and then in the contemporary rhetoric of their descendents, Anishinaabe environmental activists. Rhetorical analyses of these texts reveal not only American Indian concepts of law, peace, and kinship but also an environmental ethic, all based upon a rhetoric of responsibility rather than rights. ;Treaties may always be the primary written documents scrutinized in the courts when treaty rights are being asserted or challenged, but if we were serious about democratizing our legal system, then we would do well to implement many of the traditional communication practices rooted in our indigenous heritage. ;iMarouf Hasian, Jr., Celeste Michelle Condit, and John Louis Lucaites, "The Rhetorical Boundaries of 'the Law': A Consideration of the Rhetorical Culture of Legal Practice and the Case of the 'Separate But Equal' Doctrine," Quarterly Journal of Speech 82 , 339. (shrink)

Description: In this book Professor Banerjee has brought together a few of his ideas, bearing directly in some cases and indirectly in others, upon the philosophic thought of India. His understanding of Indian philosophy is rather unorthodox. He is less dependent upon textual evidence than writers on Indian philosophy usually are, and he makes use of his own philosophical insight in the discovery of the true spirit of Indian thought and wisdom. It is some of the Western (...) interpreters of the religious and philosophical literature of India who have tried to establish that the Indian outlook on life is notoriously religious and spiritual and, what is more, is wedded to the doctrine of world-negation. It is most unfortunate, however, that Indians have by and large accepted with approval this misleading Western assessment of the Indian view of life. As a result, immense harm has ensued to the cause of the discovery of the cultural and spiritual heritage of India. It is, therefore, in the fitness of things that Professor Banerjee for fresh researches in the field of Indian philosophy with a view to showing that the Indian way of thinking is essentially humanistic, and that humanism in ancient India reached its culmination in the wisdom which found the clearest and the boldest expression in the life and teaching of Gautama the Buddha. (shrink)

The third in a series, this volume is a reference book of summaries of the main works in the Advaita tradition during the primary phase of its development in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D., up to and including the works of Samkara and his pupils. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of (...) these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Bharat, Bhartiya, and Bhartiyta: A Philosophical Exploration seeks to delve deep into the core of Indian culture, identity, and philosophy. This book explores the timeless concepts that define Bharat (India), its people, and their intrinsic sense of Bhartiyta (Indianness). Through a philosophical lens, it traces the evolution of Indian thought, drawing from ancient texts, history, and spirituality. The work unravels the rich tapestry of Indian philosophy, highlighting how its foundational principles contribute to the modern understanding of identity, (...) values, and nationhood. This exploration not only celebrates India’s rich heritage but also contemplates its relevance in a global context, offering insights into the enduring essence of Bhartiyta in contemporary times. (shrink)

The convergence of India’s rich cultural and religious heritage with its rapidly transforming economy provides a unique opportunity to understand how senior executives navigate the demands of the business environment within the context of their religious convictions. Forty senior executives with varying religious backgrounds and global responsibilities within Indian multinational corporations participated in this study. Drawing from virtue ethics theory and using systematic content analysis, several themes emerged for ethical virtues. The analysis illustrates how these deeply seated ethical (...) virtues helped to form and refine these executives’ ethical mindsets via guiding principles such as an ethical culture, environment, molding, education, commitment and leadership. In turn, these ethical mindsets influenced the executives’ ethical decision-making processes. We find that these executives’ ethical virtues and mindsets are inspired by their religious backgrounds. In summary, a very complex mental tug-of-war appears to take place as these executives rationalize and negotiate unethical circumstances while being cognizant of personal religious beliefs. We contend that in a pluralistic multi-faith society such as India, it is critical for corporations to align the virtues of its senior executives with those of the corporation so that virtues are applied consistently when dealing with various stakeholders. The findings present several theoretical and practical implications, which are discussed. (shrink)

It has been said that a language will delineate and limit the logical concepts of the individual who speaks it. Conversely, a language is an organ for the expression of thought, of concepts and principles of classification. True enough, the thought of the individual must run along its grooves; but these grooves, themselves, are a heritage from individuals who laid them down in an unconscious effort to express their attitude toward the world. Grammar contains in crystallized form the accumulated (...) and accumulating experience, the Weltanschauung of a people. (shrink)

This Book Focuses On The Evolution Of Philosophy In India With Reference To Socio-Political And Economic Conditions, Through Which One Can Learn That Life And Thought Are Invariably Interconnected With Polity And Persons, Economy And Environment. This Book Is Unique In The Sense That It Contains A Review In The Conclusion; And The Philosophical Heritage Has Been Evaluated In Its Introduction.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar is one of the names who advocated to change social order of the age-old tradition of suppression and humiliation. He was an intellectual, scholar, statesman and contributed greatly in the nation building. He led a number of movements to emancipate the downtrodden masses and to secure human rights to millions of depressed classes. He has left an indelible imprint through his immense contribution in framing the modern Constitution of free India. He stands as a symbol of struggle (...) for achieving the Social Justice. We can assign several roles to this great personality due to his life full dedication towards his mission of eradicating evils from Indian society. The social evils of Indian society, also neglected this great personality even in intellectual sphere too. The so-called intellectuals of India not honestly discussed his contribution to Indian intellectual heritage, rather what they discussed, also smells their biases towards a Dalit literate and underestimated his great personality. This paper will attempt to discuss important facts about life and a short description of the literature written by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. This is followed by discussion his philosophy in the five major sections i.e. Feminism and women empowerment, philosophy of education, ideas on social justice and equality, philosophy of politics and economics and philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Bhakti is a remarkable existential tendency that shows itself in the rich expanse of the tradition originating from the Vedas. Recognized as a prize possession of the religions, philosophies, and culture of India, it has often won fascination and admiration from students of Eastern heritage. However, its nature, role, and history remain misunderstood and have not received all the attention they deserve. Its role as a gatherer of life, love, thought, and the divine is missed in its partial characterizations (...) as “Hindu devotion” or “divine love” or “theism implicit in polytheism.” Its status as a perennial thematic concept of the Indian civilization is missed when its pervasiveness is overlooked by the cultural historians preoccupied primarily with its periodic eruptions. Furthermore, the philosophical role of bhakti is missed when it is deemed as an alternative to jnana (knowledge) rather than “the living of jnana.”. (shrink)

No doubt the Western conceptualization of the East generally served to subjugate the Indians to their colonial rulers, but it also provided a set of beliefs to which disgruntled Western occultists and radicals, and also Western-educated Indians, could appeal in order to defend the dignity and worth of Indian religion and society. No doubt the founding theosophists had no intention of promoting political radicalism on the subcontinent, but the discourse they helped to establish provided others with an instrument they (...) could use for political ends. Indeed, the formation of the Indian National Congress shows how Western-educated Indians were able to join with Hume to promote their political ends using the particular advantages that involvement in the Theosophical Society had given them. The founders of the Indian National Congress relied on the contacts and commitments generated within the Society; they relied on a capacity for, and a belief in, cooperation, both at an all-India level and also between Indian nationalists and liberal Britons; and they relied on a background discourse that emphasized the strength and claims of India, its heritage and religion.Although we have focused on the origins of the Indian National Congress, the process we have uncovered continued to operate for much of the nationalist era. Annie Besant, like Hume and Sinnett, used theosophy to resolve the Victorian crisis of faith after she had spent some time investigating spiritualist phenomena, and her theosophy combined with her radicalism to take her into the nationalist movement, where she became the only Western woman ever to be elected as president of the Indian National Congress (Taylor 1992). Gandhi (1948), like Malabari, Rao, and Sen, used theosophy to help restore his pride in his native culture to support his vision of ancient India as a vital, rational, and moral society. British occultists such as Besant and Western-educated Indians such as Gandhi turned to theosophy for different reasons, but once they had done so, they shared practices and intellectual commitments that helped sustain the nationalist movement. (shrink)

Among the galaxy of scholars, Swami Vivekananda stands out as a majestic tower of light who has given a new tempo to the building up of a new sense of nationalism in modern India. The uniqueness of Vivekananda was his endeavour to translate every ounce of Vedanta into a social living and was never a cold theoretician or an abstract metaphysician. He was aware that India's life is governed by her sovereign sense of the inclusiveness which nourished her national life (...) and India has been a spiritual strength for her people, implanting the seeds that have continuously sprouted in her art, literature, religion, philosophy, science and politics. It is a civilization that should be seen, not as a closed system or as a product, but as a dynamic and unfolding process. Whatever the differences, India's spiritual heritage should be recognized as the focal point and to be appropriated in the conception of a new resurgent India. Regrettably, what we had been glorifying as the central value of this culture and civilization is disorientated today due to the brutal exhibition of barbarous instincts which were exhibited through the rivalry between religious groups. What is being experienced is the loss of inherited values and our inability in reinventing new values. By virtue of its characteristic pluralism and its continuously evolving synthesis, India represents a nation which is continuously unfolding its civilizational potentialities. In making of such an Indian ethos, the foundational ideal which has been the basis of Indian culture and civilization is the concept of Dharma and Vivekananda was able to comprehend and articulate the relation between morality and human affairs which are the concerns of practical Vedanta. (shrink)

There is a post-modernist myth that metaphysics has always been an exclusively Western heritage. This article refutes such a view by reviewing the many centuries of debate between Indian mind-body dualists and champions of reductionist physicalism. It also suggests the relevance of the Indian dualistic arguments for contemporary discussions of the mind-body issue.

Illustrations: Numerous Colour and 15 B/w Illustrations Description: The volumes of the PROJECT OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND CULTURE IN INDIAN CIVILIZATION aim to discover the central aspects of India's heritage and present them in an interrelated manner. In spite of their unitary look, these volumes recognize the difference between the areas of material civilization and those of ideational culture. The Project is not being executed by a single group of thinkers, methodologically uniform or ideologically identical in (...) their commitments. Rather, contributions are made by different scholars of diverse ideological persuasions and methodological approaches. The Project is marked by what may be called 'methodological pluralism'. In spite of its primarily historical character, this project, both in its conceptualization and execution, has been shaped by scholars drawn from different disciplines. It is the first time that an endeavour of such unique and comprehensive character has been undertaken to study critically a major world civilization. History of art, unlike that of science, is not an accumulation of facts. It comprises concurrences and overlappings cutting across the linearity of time. Based on this premise the essays in this volume delve into the discourse as also forms of creativity in the Indian tradition in terms of both the perennial and the ephemeral aspects of aesthetic experience. The essays form four groups dealing with (a) core concepts which permeate the discourse on aesthetic theories, and having ramifications in many other disciplines and domains; (b) The Rasa theory in the framework of classical philosophical traditions of Vedanta, Mimamsa, Samkhya, and Kashmir Saivism, and (c) the comprehension of the foundational concepts of aesthetic theory, namely, Rasa and Dhvani from the perspectives of Indian thought traditions addressing also music, dance and the visual arts. There is no clear-cut demarcation between the four groups of essays though in their own framework they illustrate a transition from the discourse (sastra) to practice (prayoga) i.e., from theorizing on the nature of aesthetic experience to the process of concretizing it into forms of music, dance, architecture, and painting. The contributions highlight the fact that the history of Indian aesthetic tradition comprises various textual and performing traditions that have flourished in the Indian subcontinent. What we have is not a single history but multiple histories based on various philosophical and methodological approaches adopted by art historians. Some of these histories pertain to the technical details of a given art form, and some with the changes that have occurred in the evolution and development these forms. While some historical accounts focus on the relevant biographical details of the artists, some art histories focus on the social, cultural, political, and even the economic conditions of civilization that determine the nature of an art form. Considering the multi-dimensional and multi-level complexities of Indian civilization and culture, the contributions to this volume have investigated into a number of factors which are directly and indirectly relevant for comprehending the complexities of the Indian aesthetic tradition. (shrink)

Jo Ann Boydston, 2 July 1924 - 25 January 2011Jo Ann Boydston enjoyed a distinguished career as general editor of the Collected Works of John Dewey and director of the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Born in Poteau, Oklahoma of Choctaw Indian heritage, she graduated summa cum laude from Oklahoma State University in 1944. She received an M.A. from Oklahoma State (1947), a Ph.D. from Columbia University (1950), and honorary doctorates from Indiana University (1994) (...) and Southern Illinois University (2004).In 1961, Boydston joined the staff of a modest research project at Southern Illinois University called "Co-operative Research on Dewey Publications" as assistant to project .. (shrink)

In a post-apartheid South Africa, the value of reflective memories and their impact on community history gives credibility to their relationship with personal struggles such as disability, be it physical or political. Shaped by South African Indian heritage, an isolated individualised case of a second-generation descendant’s ability–disability experience is researched and narrated in this article. The respondent, Dr Kasturi Varley is a woman of the South African Indian community, who was born almost 101 years after the first (...) shipload of Indian indentured labourers arrived in the then Colony of Natal. Her memories shed light on a unique Indo-African-European experience. Her indentured paternal grandfather arrived in the African continent in August 1900. Her reflective memories and shared experiences of various episodes of the ability–disability paradigm add to the body of knowledge of the Indian indentured labour system that already exists and partially fills up the prevalent gaps in the research on this topic. Her story is unique in that she worked wheelchair-bound at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria and subsequently settled in the United Kingdom. This study applied a qualitative research methodology.Contribution: This article provides insight on reflective memories within the domain of social memory and contributes to an understanding of the historiography of the descendants of Indian indentured labourers in South Africa. In 2020, this community commemorated the 160th anniversary of the arrival of the labourers to the Colony of Natal. (shrink)

The major part of India’s architectural heritage is to be found in its towns. This paper will, after an historical survey, look at the various agencies that over the last two decades have been concerned with urban heritage, to examine their agenda, and the pressures they face. ‘Heritage cities’ is a term which appears not only in documents of the Archaeological Survey of India and of the Indian National Trust but also, more recently, in statements made (...) by the Ministry of Urban Development, the Government of Delhi in the context of the Commonwealth Games, and the Ministry of Tourism. The paper will discuss ‘preservation’ of facades/interiors of individual buildings, or of precincts, the use/reuse of historic areas/buildings, and the references to history, through commemoration, naming/renaming, erasing. It argues that conservation should be part of a holistic and humane town-planning policy. (shrink)

The Indian poet and educator Rabindranath Tagore was the creator of an original philosophy that gives additional meaning to the picture of the history of Indian philosophy in the 20th century. He usually emphasized his identity as a poet and an artist, not considering himself a philosopher. However, Tagore embodies the phenomenon of a poet-thinker who comprehends universal philosophical problems and, in the process of philosophizing, offers his own vision of them. Moreover, he owns a number of texts (...) of a religious-philosophical and socio-philosophical nature, in addition to the content of poetry and fiction. The philosophy created by the poet requires a comprehensive holistic study, which, in turn, raises the problem of research methodology. The article proposes the author's methodology for the reconstruction of Rabindranath Tagore's philosophy, based on an understanding of his personality, the contexts of thought and the hermeneutics of texts. The methodological model of philosophy reconstruction includes three levels. The first involves analyzing the personality of R. Tagore using the categories "cross-cultural thinker" and "problematic thinker". The second is a description of the contexts of his philosophizing: external general civilizational, internal epochal and internal biographical. The third is the hermeneutics of texts, taking into account the poetic component and the philosophical problems of speeches and fiction. The novelty of the described methodological model is due to the possibilities and prospects of reconstructing Tagore's philosophical thought and concepts. 1. Description of the phenomenon of a poet and writer creating a philosophy in which the experience of artistic creation generates a universal religious and social meaning and actualizes humanistic issues. 2. Presentation of the process of formation of cross-cultural philosophy of the XX century on the material of a particular thinker. 3. The analysis of the contexts of the unfolding of philosophy helps to trace the continuity of the thinker and his ideas with the Indian philosophical tradition in a broad sense and at the same time identify innovation, not least due to his dialogue with Western culture and modernity. 4. Seeing Tagore's philosophy as a kind of quintessence of the Bengali Renaissance heritage, it is not difficult to notice its significance and relevance for modernity. 5. Reconstruction along the proposed methodological path will open up not only direct, but also comparative prospects for studying Tagore's philosophical thought in comparison with the reflections of philosophers from different cultural areas, primarily peripheral to the West and non-Western ones. (shrink)

On the occasion of Peru’s Independence, the champions of the Creole nation elevated the Inca State Indian to the status of a respectable ancestor, thus eliminating the Amerindian historicity of the population. The archaeological remains provide support to an indigenist ideology that ignores the sociological Indian, considered to be ontologically inferior. Today, these Inca vestiges contribute to the construction of the national narrative: the Inca solar cult is thus reinvented on the site of Sacsayhuaman. To what extent can (...) the work of archaeologists serve to corroborate partisan ideologies? The presidents of the Peruvian and Bolivian Republics were inducted as pre-Hispanic rulers, the first on the Inca site of Machu Picchu, the second at the Tiwanaku Sun gate. To what extent can the vestiges of a civilization be instrumentalized by politics? The Inca sites are now assailed by New Age mystics from the United States and Europe under the leadership of local neo-shamans. They are indeed reputed to carry positive “energy”, one that is exploited by mystical tourism agencies. To what extent can the heritage of the nation, maintained by public services, be the object of private profits, ideologies that may be sectarian and possibly irreparable damages? In the culture of traditional Andean communities, the pre-Hispanic ruins had a classificatory and symbolic function. This function disappears when the setting of a myth is replaced by a historical site. How can we respect the indigenous perception of archaeological remains? These are the ethical questions that this article seeks to raise on the basis of specific and concrete cases of archaeological sites on which the author has carried out excavations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Shimmering Maya and Other EssaysPatrick HenryThe Shimmering Maya and Other Essays, by Catharine Savage Brosman; 149 pp. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994, $24.94.When the author was fifteen, she held the rank of “prospector” at Girl Scout Camp. Now, over forty years later, she is “digging down through the layers, sifting through the running stream of memory” (p. 14). Her art of prospecting affords the reader (...) a linear impression of a journey that begins with “The Shimmering Maya,” a recountal of a family move in August 1944 from Colorado to South Texas. “Desert Silvery Blue” describes life in Alpine, Texas, while “Leaving for Good” narrates her experience of displacement as she departs Alpine in 1951 to attend Rice Institute, known then as “the atheist school” (p. 37). From Alpine to Houston, she experiences the greening of America and the shock of Gulf Coast humidity, “a sensation of being hit in the face and smothered” (p. 42). At Rice, she finishes her degrees, travels to France, her intellectual home, and returns, in “Cherry Time”—“Yes, Virginia, there is a Virginia” (p. 52)—to describe her life in full bloom during this relatively short but intense period, spent in and around the state of Virginia, before her permanent move to New Orleans. Two essays conclude the volume even as they bend back toward its beginning. “Winter Light” narrates the life of her grandfather, Edward Hill, newspaperman, teacher, doctor, writer, and formidable learner whom she knew only in the winter of his life but whose light illuminated her being and “whose heir I feel, or wish, myself to be” (p. 130). “Turn My Face Out to the West” recounts a recent camping trip in New Mexico but, more profoundly, a return to the Western land of her youth. Like the Anasazi and Pueblo Indians, she too was born there and, reclaiming their heritage as partly hers, extols their solar-based science, courage, sense of community, independent spirit, and love and respect for the land.Brosman paints being, however, as well as becoming. Essays six through eleven focus more centrally than the others on her habitual self: her self-portrait as teacher, scholar, poet, traveler, and traditional woman. As a teacher of language, she offers “at once an end and a means” (p. 86) and, as literature teacher, not “entertainment chiefly but the pursuit of truth” (p. 88), undogmatically attempting to elicit self-awareness without imposing a single view. [End Page 136] A traditional woman who has never felt uncomfortable around men and doesn’t consider them her enemies, Brosman thinks Women’s Studies are “regressive” (p. 84), deplores language “barbarisms” such as “chairperson” and “herstory” (p. 75), and holds for a “nongendered intellectual patrimony of arts, letters, and science” (p. 84). While she admits that it’s a miracle that all marriages don’t simply fall apart, the differences between the sexes, she argues, constitute “the whole basis for attraction” (p. 70), and she prefers her cigar-smoking husband “to men who boast about their Hollandaise sauce” (p. 70). Not interested “in valorizing only the male principle” (p. 70), she seeks “vigor of mind” in all persons and considers herself a “feminist in the cupboard,” one who operates within the family but travels freely and enjoys a rich professional life. She links herself to her Aunt Margaret and other “closet feminists” (p. 100) in her family’s history who demonstrated self-reliance and a sense of their own value, and argues, against de Beauvoir’s thesis in The Second Sex, that female work for American women of the nineteenth century did indeed, like male work, go beyond biology “to remake the world through invention (production)” (p. 102).Brosman demands a metaphysical self-consciousness that recognizes unhappiness, anguish, and disorder but concomitantly posits the good life as the synthetic unity of the mind, body, and heart. This metaphysical consciousness is deeply rooted in the physical world—we are not only in the world but of it—and in a shared sense of place and a commitment to communal enterprises. Her thought is perhaps above all characterized throughout by a sense of “grace” and the “intimation of... (shrink)