Religious Pluralism and Truth - Essays on Cross cultural Philosophy of Religion

Religious Pluralism and TruthEssays on Cross - Cultural Philosophy of ReligionEdited by Thomas DeanSri Garib Dass Oriental Series No. 213Sri Satguru Publications (Delhi), ISBN: 81-7030524-1
Price: Rs. 400
About the Book
This book is an introduction to cross-cultural philosophy of religion. It presents an alternative to Western-oriented philosophy of religion by focusing on questions of truth in the context of religious pluralism, including the criteria, models, and hermeneutics of cross-cultural truth in religion. The essays included are by some of the leading philosophers of religion and scholars in comparative religious thought such as Ninian Smart, Raimundo Panikkar, Harold Coward, William Wainwright, William Christian Sr., and Frederick Streng.
Thomas Dean is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at Temple University. He is co-founder of the newly-established International Association of Asian Philosophy and Religion.
"This anthology helpfully and provocatively questions many current assumptions in various schools of scholarship about the value-free nature, or ethical, cultural, and rational relativism, inherent to the comparative study of religions. This I think in itself makes the book important and helpful. Moreover, many of the essays suggest and evaluate possible normative-constructive criteria appropriate to the cross-cultural philosophy of religion, and some essays also helpfully raise and clarify some of the methodological weaknesses of past comparative studies."
Michael Stoeber, The Catholic University of America
Contents:
PrefaceIntroduction: Cross-Cultural Philosophy of ReligionThomas Dean
Part I. Religious Pluralism and Cross-Cultural Truth
1. The Philosophy of Worldviews, or the Philosophy of Religion TransformedNinian Smart
2. Philosophical Pluralism and the Plurality of ReligionsRaimundo Panikkar
3. Religious Pluralism and the Future of ReligionsHarold Coward
Part II. Criteria of Cross-Cultural Truth in Religion
4. Truth, Criteria and Dialogue Between ReligionsNinian Smart
5. Doctrinal Schemes, Metaphysics and Propositional TruthWilliam J. Wainwright
6. Religious Pluralism and Cross-Cultural Criteria of Religious TruthMary Ann Stenger
Part III. Models of Cross-Cultural Truth in Religion
7. The Logic of Oppositions of Religious DoctrinesWilliam A. Christian, Sr.
8. The Doctrines of a Religious Community about Other ReligionsJoseph A. DiNoia
9. The Logic of Interreligious DialogueNorbert M. Samuelson
10. Gadamer's Hermeneutics as a Model for Cross-Cultural Understanding and Truth in ReligionMary Ann Stenger
Part IV. Hermeneutics of Cross-Cultural Truth in Religion
11. Rethinking the Doctrine of Double-Truth: Ambiguity, Relativity and UniversalityConrad Hyers
12. Mystical Experience as a Bridge for Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion: A CritiqueJohn Y. Fenton
13. Structures of Ultimate Transformation and the Hermeneutics of Cross-cultural Philosophy of ReligionFrderick J. Streng
14. The Hermeneutics of Comparative Ontology and Comparative TheologyAshok K. Gangadean
NotesContributorsIndex

The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Vedas

The Limits of ScriptureVivekananda’s Reinterpretation of the VedasBy Anantanand RambachanSri Garib Das Oriental Series No. 193Sri Satguru Publications (Delhi), ISBN 81-7030-468-7xi, 171 pages
Price: Rs. 270
Contents:Introduction. 1. Attitudes toward scriptural authority and revelation from Rammohun Roy to Ramakrishna. 2. Vivekananda’s concept of the nature, role, and authority of the Vedas. 3. Karma, Bhakti, and Jnana as direct and independent ways to Moksa. 4. The meaning and authoritativeness of Anubhava in Vivekananda. 5. Vivekananda and Sankara. 6. The Legacy of Vivekananda. Notes, Glossary, Bibliography, Index.
About the Book
Hailed as one of modern India’s cultural heroes, Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) has been credited not only with interpreting Hinduism to the west but with interpreting it to India itself. Despite his pervasive influence, critical assessments and attempts to "demythologize" Vivekananda have been rare, and rarer still are historical and hermeneutical clarification of his work. The Limits of Scripture offers a close examination of Vivekananda’s understanding of the authority of sruti (the Vedas) and its relationship to anubhava (personal experience).
Beginning with an analysis of western influences and Hindu responses in the nineteenth century, Anantanand Rambachan moves on to a careful explication of Vivekananda’s understanding of the Vedas, the nature and scope of their authority, and the hermeneutical principles employed by him in his approach to the texts. Throughout the discussion, the author also clarifies the generally overlooked distinctions between Vivekananda’s view of anubhava as the source of liberating knowledge and that of Sankara (ca. 788-820), the principal systematizer and exponent of the Advaita tradition, who argued for the Vedas as the authoritative source of this knowledge. The task of critically distinguishing Sankara and Vivekananda has not been thoroughly accomplished elsewhere and is crucial for understanding religious and philosophical change in modern Indian thought.
In addition this work evaluates the coherence and consistency of Vivekananda’s reinterpretations, drawing attention to important problems in his claim for the supremacy of personal experience, his arguments for "many paths to the same goal," and his attempts to reconcile the insights of Hinduism with the methods and findings of science. In undertaking this assessment and analysis, The Limits of Scripture makes a real contribution to the understanding of Vivekananda’s legacy, Indian religions, and the wider study of religion."

The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai

The Inheritance of Loss opens with a teenage Indian girl, an orphan called Sai, living with her Cambridge-educated Anglophile grandfather, a retired judge, in the town of Kalimpong on the Indian side of the Himalayas. Sai is romantically involved with her math tutor, Gyan, the descendant of a Nepali Gurkha mercenary, but he eventually recoils from her obvious privilege and falls in with a group of ethnic Nepalese insurgents. In a parallel narrative, we are shown the life of Biju, the son of Sai's grandfather's cook, who belongs to the "shadow class" of illegal immigrants in New York and spends much of his time dodging the authorities, moving from one ill-paid job to another.In the north-eastern Himalayas, in a crumbling isolated house, there lives a cantankerous old judge, who wants nothing more than to retire in peace. But with the arrival of his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and the son of his chatty cook trying to make his way in the US and stay a step ahead of the immigration services, this is far from easy. When a Nepalese insurgency threatens the blossoming romance betweeen Sai and her handsome tutor, they, too, are forced to consider their colliding interests. And the judge must revisit his past, his own journey and his role in this grasping world of conflicing desires – every moment holding out the possibility of hope or betrayal.'All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths. Briefly visible above the vapour, Kanchenjunga was a far peak whittled out of ice, gathering the last of the light, a plume of snow blown high by the storms at its summit.Sai, sitting on the veranda, was reading an article about giant squid in an old National Geographic. Every now and then she looked up at Kanchenjunga, observed its wizard phosphorescence with a shiver.

Theosophical Society

1. Karma - William Q. Judge Series no. 6 2. Ancient Teachings, Adepts and Yogis - H.P. Blavatsky Series no. 3

Essays

1. Next Sunday - R.K. Narayan [Delightful, vastly entertaining literary gems which gently and humourously make a strong case for a more widespread use of common sense.]

Philosophy

1. Words to Live By - Ed. William Nichols

Thesis

1. Unto This Last - John Ruskin