Secularism and Religion in Multi-faith Societies: The Case of India by Ragini Sen, Wolfgang Wagner, and Caroline Howarth Book Review Prabuddha Bharata December 2015

In this book, Muthuraj Swamy discusses how conflicts are usually caused by factors other than religious factors at the grassroots level, and how dialogue is an elitist phenomenon that does not percolate to the grassroots, who do not need it in the first place.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, is credited with having rekindled the ancient Indian discourse of an interrelation between spirituality, religion, and politics. This has been mostly studied from the perspective of faith or spirituality. The last five decades or so have seen rising scholarship on the not-so-spiritual…[Read more]

Psychoanalysis and its father in the West, Sigmund Freud, have often been seen as the antitheses of religion and faith. This book seeks to dispel this misconception and place Freud and psychoanalysis as hopes to the faithful and the hedonist alike. Ethics and morality do not get compromised and unethical and immoral behaviour do not get free…[Read more]

This book could be seen as a novel method of tracing the history of a scripture. Jacob P. Dalton does this by “tracing the vicissitudes of a single ritual system—that of the Gathering of Intentions Sutra (Dgongs pa ’dus pa’i mdo)—from its ninth-century origins to the present day” (xv). This tantra is referred to as the “root tantra” and i…[Read more]

St Teresa of Avila is one of the most studied and emulated Christian mystic. She is an extraordinary role model to be followed by a monastic religious, because she not only gives step-by-step instructions for the ‘interior’ life, but also guides life in a monastic community. She is one of the very few mystics who have recorded in detail their exp…[Read more]

Through this work, François Laruelle looks at non-philosophers from various angles. He seeks to look at them from a humane perspective and as ‘subjects of knowledge’ (25). He argues that ‘non-philosophy is a close relative of the spiritual but definitely not the spiritualist’ (26).

Religious leaders often come together for a statement of their respective beliefs seeking a false satisfaction that they are working for world peace by a disparate series of talks meant to only emphasize differences among faith traditions. This book is a welcome departure from such meaningless exercises and hopes to create a tradition of…[Read more]

Signe Cohen has done a marvelous job of editing and authoring the majority of the chapters in The Upanishads, giving readers a rich treatment of the history, culture, and philosophy contained within them. Her introduction sheds light on many aspects of the Upanishads. It is interesting, though, that while she analyzes the meaning of the word…[Read more]

Tensions among differing theoretical frameworks are often observed within the philosophy of religion, largely given disparate scientific, analytic, and continental approaches. New Models of Religious Understanding is a serious and timely reexamination of scientific and analytic perspectives, and questions the very need for these approaches. Edited…[Read more]

There are two kinds of academic writing, if we classify the work by the nature of the author’s expertise. The first one, the most prevalent, is the kind of writing that is born out of the scholarly work of the author and is primarily based on research and teaching experience. The second kind, comparatively harder to come by, is the writing of a s…[Read more]

Interreligious comparisons have been an interesting subject for both religious individuals and academics. The language of comparison has been contested by almost all who rely upon it, from some Western scholars who started such comparisons at the turn of the twentieth century, to phenomenologists and postmodernists. This range of disparate views…[Read more]

Hinduism—aka Sanatana Dharma—is the oldest living religion. Such a long history is bound to have many struggles, adaptations, evolution, misunderstandings, conflicts, resolutions, and traditions. Hinduism in the Modern World is a mirror to all these, and more. While the editor and contributors of this volume do not claim that this work is com…[Read more]

This book is a collection of the English translations of François Laruelle’s writings, mainly from the first two stages of the five-stage development of his thought of non-philosophy. The tone of the book is set by the wonderful introduction by the editor, Robin Mackay, who brings out the dissatisfaction of Laruelle that propelled him to re…[Read more]

Religion Without God by Ronald M Dworkin Book Review Prabuddha Bharata May 2016

Minimal Theologies by Hent de Vries Book Review Prabuddha Bharata February 2015

Man in Search of Immortality Testimonials from the Hindu Scriptures by Swami Nikhilananda Book Review Prabuddha Bharata January 2013

Jivanmukti Viveka of Vidyaranya by Swami Harshananda Book Review Prabuddha Bharata September 2010

Introduction to Hindu Dharma by Chandrashekharendra Saraswati Book Review Prabuddha Bharata January 2013