Philosophy and Religion - Essays in Interpretation

This volume brings together a seminal collection of papers by a scholar whose interests ranged from Heidegger to the Vedas, and from the critique of western civilization to the future of philosophy in India. Is it possible to bring to bear on Indian philosophical texts, which belong to a tradition of their own, an interpretive framework derived from a different tradition? Professor Mehta addresses this crucial question through witnessing to a dialogue of cultures in which he himself was deeply involved. This lead him to reflect on Heidegger, the study of world religions, Sri Aurobindo, the Mahabharata, the Rigveda, and the rich area in Indian thought in which philosophy, religion and poetry interfuse. He pays his own tradition the homage of retrieval and rethinking. He is able to do this with the consummate skill and bifocal vision of an Indian philosopher deeply versed in the thought of Heidegger and the whole hermeneutic approach; one who experienced in his own being the poignancy of philosophizing in a modern idiom and yet in the light of insights and concept rooted in the distant past.

About the Author:

Professor Jarava Lal Mehta (1912 - 1988) was an internationally recognized Heidegger scholar. He taught philosophy at Banaras Hindu University for more than two decades until his retirement in 1972. Dr Mehta was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawaii and visiting Professor at the Center fro the Study of World Religions, Harvard University. He published widely in both Indian and Western philosophical journals. His books include The Philosophy of Martin Heidegger (1967, 1971), revised as Martin Heidegger: The Way and the Vision (1976), his English translation of Walter Biemel's Martin Heidegger (1976) and a collection of essays entitled India and the West: The Problem of Understanding (1985).

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