Debates in Indian Philosophy: Classical, Colonial, and Contemporary Book

This book retraces the severity of the impact of colonialism and Western philosophy on the making of Indian thought. It highlights the general tendency in contemporary Indian philosophy to avoid direct dialogue as opposed to the rich and elaborate debates that formed the pivot of classical Indian tradition. The author peruses works in and on Indian philosophy, searching for possible and hidden dialogues and identifies three important areas where there is a clear possibility of dialogue: between Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi, V.D. Savarkar and Mahatma Gandhi, and Sri Aurobindo and K.C. Bhattacharya. He retrieves these debates on state and pre-modern society, religion, and politics, and science and spiritualism respectively. He concludes by indicating possible directions that Indian philosophy can take, and explicates the nature of the postcolonial self not merely at a political level but by restoring the metaphysical texts of contemporary India. This book will be of considerable interest not only to students and scholars of Indian philosophy and religious studies but to scholars of politics and sociology as well.