Sri Aurobindo was an Indian nationalist, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. This book is an enquiry into the integral philosophy of Aurobindo and its contemporary relevance. It offers a reading of Aurobindo s key texts by bringing them into conversation with religious studies and the hermeneutical traditions. The central argument is that Aurobindo s integral philosophy is best understood as hermeneutical philosophy of religion.

Such an understanding of Aurobindo s philosophy, offering both substantive and methodological insights for the academic study of religion, subdivides into...

Hinduism comprises perhaps the major cluster of religio-cultural traditions of India, and it can play a valuable role in helping us understand the nature of religion and human responses to life. Hindu image-worship lies at the core of what counts for Hinduism - up-front and subject to much curiosity and misunderstanding, yet it is a defining feature of this phenomenon.

This book focuses on Hindu images and their worship with special reference to Vaiṣṇavism, a major strand of Hinduism. Concentrating largely, but not exclusively, on Sanskritic source material, the author...

Sarasvati assumes different roles, a physical river and a river goddess, then as a goddess of speech and finally that of a goddess of learning, knowledge, arts and music. References to Sarasvati in the Vedas and the Brahmanas, the Mahabharata and the Puranas and her marked presence in other religious orders, such as Buddhism, Jainism and the Japanese religion, form the basis of discussion as regards her various attributes and manifestations. In Jainism, her counter-part is Sutra-devi, in Buddhism it is Manjusri and Prajnaparamita and in the Japanese religion, Benten is the representative...

The field of Hindu-Christian studies revives theology as a particularly useful interreligious discipline. Though a sub-division of the broader Hindu-Christian dialogue, it is also a distinct field of study, proper to a smaller group of religious intellectuals. At its best it envisions a two-sided, mutual conversation, grounded in scholars' knowledge of their own tradition and of the other.

Based on the Westcott-Teape Lectures given in India and at the University of Cambridge, this book explores the possibilities and problems attendant upon the field of Hindu-Christian Studies, the...

Modern Hindu Traditionalism addresses Hindu traditions that resisted contact with both Neo-Hindu thought and views of 'classical' Hinduism.

This books provides an in-depth understanding of Modern Hindu Traditionalism through the case study of the Rāmānandī order (sampradāya) and the portrait of the Jagadguru Rāmnareśācārya.This guru belongs to an ancient tradition, and the Rāmānandī order (sampradāya) is active at the present time and the biggest religous order in India. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, this book casts...

Vaisesika is one of the six systems of Hindu philosophy. It represents a pluralistic realism and is usually held to be an atomistic, metaphysical theory. This book explores the basic tenets of the Vaisesika classical school of Indian philosophy from a new perspective. It argues that it reveals an epistemological formulation of its own, which was diminished due to later developments in the history of Indian philosophical tradition.

Focusing on the principles of knowable objects and the processes of knowing as propounded by the Vaisesika school of Indian Philosophy, the book offers a...