The World of Indian Philosophy: Traditions, Arguments, and Visions Reality

What if the self does not exist? What if everything is predetermined? What if reality is one, many, material, mental-or empty of any fixed essence? Indian philosophers have been arguing about such questions for more than two thousand years, usually with great sophistication and remarkably little agreement. The World of Indian Philosophy: Traditions, Arguments, and Visions of Reality is an accessible journey through Buddhism, Jainism, Charvaka materialism, Nyaya logic, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, Vedanta, and other major traditions. Along the way, you will meet the Buddha, Nagarjuna, Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Dignaga, Dharmakirti, Gangesha, Gandhi, Ambedkar, Tagore, Aurobindo, Radhakrishnan, Daya Krishna, B. K. Matilal, and others-thinkers who disagreed about the self, God, matter, consciousness, language, knowledge, freedom, and just about everything else worth disagreeing about. Clear, lively, and irreverent, this book presents Indian philosophy not as one serene mystical worldview, but as a vast and often ruthless intellectual argument about reality, suffering, morality, liberation, and how anyone can possibly know that they are right.