Swami Narasimhananda

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:God and the World's Arrangement: Readings from Vedānta and Nyāya Philosophy of Religion by Nirmalya Guha, Matthew Dasti, and Stephen PhillipsSwami Narasimhananda (bio)God and the World's Arrangement: Readings from Vedānta and Nyāya Philosophy of Religion. Translated, with Introduction and Explanatory Notes, by Nirmalya Guha, Matthew Dasti, and Stephen Phillips. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2021. Pp. xx + 91. Paperback $19.00, isbn 978-1-62466-957-6.The scarcity of accessible English translations of Sanskrit texts that retain the philosophical rigor of the original has been a great challenge in Indian philosophy. God and the World's Arrangement, a translation with introduction and explanatory notes by Nirmalya Guha, Matthew Dasti, and Stephen Phillips, is an example of how this scarcity could be addressed without straying away from present-day idioms and context. This book discusses the perspectives on God and the arrangement of the world according to Nyāya, Vedānta, Mīmāṃsā, and Buddhist philosophies. This book is divided into two parts, followed by two appendices, and a bibliography. Each part has study questions at the end and there is an impressive reading list. The first part is a translation and analysis of Śaṅkara's theistic argument in his commentary on the Brahma-sūtra 2.2.1–10. The translators also include the subcommentary by Vācaspati Miśra. The second part contains the translation and analysis of Vācaspati Miśra's theistic argument in his commentary on the Nyāya-sūtra 4.1.19–21. All translations are followed by explanations that elaborate the contexts of the arguments. The translations in this book are elegant and use modern English idioms.The seeds of this book were sown by a guest lecture by Nirmalya Guha to a philosophy course at the University of Texas at Austin. The other two authors joined hands with Guha and worked on texts from Sāṃkhya, Nyāya, Vedānta, and Buddhist schools of thought. Scholars around the world are now interested in having a pan-global view of philosophy. However, such an understanding requires an informed engagement with the various contexts and mores of thought. This deceptively slim volume addresses this problem by succinctly providing the required background context and clarifying many commonly held misconceptions about Indian philosophy, particularly Advaita Vedānta. For a long time, there have not been many serious readings of Advaita Vedānta texts. This book comes as a relief and explains the basic concepts of Advaita Vedānta with readings from relevant portions of texts like the Brahma-sūtra. This book is a step to fill the gap [End Page 1] of texts that properly voice the perspectives of scholars from within the traditions following Advaita Vedānta.It is heartening to read a contemporary text that acknowledges the unbiased masterly exegetical work of Vācaspati Miśra that earned him the epithet sarva-tantra-svatantra, "one who is equally proficient in all the disciplines of knowledge." The translators and editors of this book have a noble goal of "coupling Vācaspati's works on Vedānta and on Nyāya" to make "it possible for a wide swath of his work to be pondered, little of which is currently accessible despite Vācaspati's importance for the whole of classical Indian philosophical thought" (p. xi). The editors lose no time in clarifying the approach of the texts explained in the book from Vedānta and Nyāya philosophies. They explain in some detail one of the means of knowledge, pramāṇa s, used by the Indian philosophies that adhere to the Vedās, the means of anumāṇa or inference. An interesting aspect of this book is the contemporary examples that the translators give, like those of a politician and automobile manufacturers. For instance, the translators explain different ways in which arguments given through an example can fail. The translators explain the error of an example not having the property to be proved in this manner:Yet another type of failure occurs when the property to be proved is not actually present in the example. Should one argue that "People who purchase Japanese vehicles...

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 is vital for understanding the history of Tibetan Buddhism, particularly the Nyingma school. This book is divided into seven chapters focusing on the various forms of the traditions surrounding this text.

Indian philosophy has been often denied the official designation of “philosophy,” and many academics around the world have dismissed it as vague theology, at best. The main reason for such a relegation has been the inaccessibility of the languages in which the source texts were written. This problem was aggravated by the lack of readable English translations. Though, beginning in the nineteenth century many books on Indian philosophy have been written in English, most of them are inaccessible to scholars outside the tradition, both in language and approach. If Indian philosophy is to be taken seriously, and if academics and lay alike have to benefit from the treasures hidden therein, it is necessary that the original concepts and theories are made more accessible and understandable—even to the beginner. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy is a welcome step in this direction.