Shabdapramana or Testimony is a formidable doctrine within Indian philosophy. A thorough investigation of this thesis is long overdue. What is shabdapramana (word as knowledge)? What is involved in hearing words? Is the understanding derived through hearing utterances direct or indirect? Does this peculiarly linguistic understanding (shabdabodha) amount to knowledge (prama), or does it depend on certain other conditions for its truth? Further, what sort of theories of meaning, understanding, and knowledge would be required to ground a successful shabdabodha as prama,> need careful attention. It is sometimes said that Indian thinkers had no particularly interesting theory of understanding. The present work sets out to address these issues issues that have engaged traditional and modern thinkers alike. Based on the classic text, Advaita Vedanta-paribhasha of Dharmarajadhvarindra (17th century), the analysis and arguments extend to the views of and criticisms from the Nyaya, Purva Mimamsa and the grammarian/linguistic schools within Indian philosophy, with a treatment of similar concerns in Western philosophy. There is a compelling thesis here that should be taken seriously in any philosophy. Long discarded as a distinct source of knowledge in Western philosophy, Testimony might be fruitfully re-examined. This could lead to mutual dialogue between philosophy and religion, and pave the way for critical metaphysics.
Since the late 1990s, the Indian community in Australia has grown faster than any other immigrant community. The Indian Diaspora has made substantial contributions to the multi-ethnic and multi-religious diversity within Australia. The growth of Hinduism and Sikhism through gurus, temples, yoga and rituals of many kind has brought new colours, images, customs and practices to the profile of Australian religion, and the Australian landscape more widely. At the same time, Hinduism and Sikhism have themselves been transformed as Hindus and Sikhs from different parts of India as well as Fiji, Malaysia and other parts of the world have come together to establish a pan-Indian ethos. Hindus and Sikhs here have also interacted with other sectors of the Australian population and with religions from the Western world. This is the theme of this book.
The Indian Diaspora covers the theory of diaspora, the historical development of the Indian communities in Australia since the late 19th century to the present times, current practices and statistical profiles of Hindus and Sikhs in Australia, and interactions between Hindus and Sikhs with the wider Australian community. There are case-studies of the Indian students and women in the Australian community, of Indian communities in Melbourne and South Australia, and of temple building and the Sikh gurdwara.
The book has been edited by and contains contributions from Purushottama Bilimoria, an internationally-known scholar of philosophy and religion, Jayant Bhalchandra Bapat, one of Australias most senior Hindu priests and a scholar of Hinduism, and Philip Hughes, a leading analyst of the religious profiles of the Australian people. It also contains contributions from several other prominent scholars. Included are special essays on the importance of diaspora by the late Ninian Smart and on the 19th century Afghan cameleers and Indian hawkers.
There is a variety of competing ideas about the nature of self in the Hindu tradition. Efforts to bring them together under a unitary conception were underway for many centuries. Much of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Oriental scholarship and the latter-day popularist movements made considerable effort to obscure the complexity and diversity of the idea of the self and its horizon in the broad spectrum of Hindu beliefs.
This modest study discusses the different conceptions of the self, and answers questions such as what is the self? and where does the self come from? How does the personal self retain its identity over time and space? In answering these questions it draws from the Vedic texts, Upanishads and the Vedanta system, especially Advaita (non-dualism). It also looks at the Samkhya system and its radically different conception of the self, which varies considerably from that of Upanishadic formulation. Buddhist and latter-day criticisms of the Hindu positions on the self via the neo-self theory are discussed.
The book also addresses questions such as what happens to the self, what does it do? where does it go? and where ought it go? discussing fate or destiny of the self in the context of karma, dharma, death and rebirth. Issues such as ends or goals towards which a person has to strive, realizing the fullest potential and purpose of the self, are well deliberated upon. Shankaras concept of the self and critique of the non-self are also examined.
