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Covers the most interesting and important issues and topics of Vedānta from the point of view of one of the greatest experts of the twentieth century.
Philology and Confrontation brings together the most influential and penetrating essays of Paul Hacker (1913–1979), one of the twentieth century's greatest scholars of Indian philosophy, offering English readers their first comprehensive access to his groundbreaking work on Vedānta, Advaita, and modern Hindu thought.
Ranging from meticulous philological studies of Śaṅkara and early Advaita Vedānta to wide-ranging philosophical and cultural analyses, Hacker’s essays illuminate both the internal logic of nondualism and its broader religious, ethical, and historical implications. His work is distinguished by an unusual combination of textual precision, philosophical rigor, and sensitivity to the theological dimensions of Indian traditions. Particularly influential are his analyses of key Vedāntic concepts such as avidyā, māyā, nāmarūpa, Īśvara, degrees of reality, and the nature of personhood and spirit.
"This collection of Paul Hacker's essays contains all those which I personally consider to be his most brilliant and fascinating ones. They have been translated here from German for the first time and will thus receive, at last, the attention they highly deserve, now that they will be accessible to a larger public." — L. Schmithausen, University of Hamburg
"A very useful collection of the writings of one of the most important twentieth-century Indologists. The editor's Introduction is especially helpful, placing as it does Paul Hacker's work in the context of cross-cultural studies in general." — Eliot Deutsch, University of Hawaii, Honolulu
"The book makes available to the English reader for the first time major works of one of the most important modern scholars of Indian philosophy." — Patrick Olivelle, University of Texas, Austin
"Hacker's work is indispensable for anyone who would understand Vedanta and related strands of Indian intellectual traditions both ancient and modern. The content of his essays is important, many of the articles are ground breaking, and Hacker's style of scholarship is paradigmatic: philologically expert, historically and critically attuned, capable of handling the philosophical issues raised by the texts, sensitive to broader and deeper religious and theological issues." — Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Boston College
Wilhelm Halbfass (1940–2000) was Professor of Indian Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding; Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought; and On Being and What There Is: Classical Vaisesika and the History of Indian Ontology; all published by SUNY Press.
Foreword
by Lambert Schmithausen
Introduction
by William Halbfass
An Uncommon Orientalist: Paul Hacker's Passage to India
I. Sankara and the Traditions of Advaita Vedanta: Philological Explorations
1. On Sankara and Advaitism
2. Relations of Early Advaitins of Vaisnavism
3. Sankaracarya and Sankarabhagavatpada: Preliminary Remarks Concerning the Authorship Problem
4. Distinctive Features of the Doctrine and Terminology of Sankara: Avidya, Namarupa, Maya, Isvara
5. Sankara the Yogin and Sankara the Advaitin: Some Observations
II. Nondualism and Its Implications: Understanding and Confrontation
6. The Theory of Degrees of Reality in Advaita Vedanta
7. The Idea of the Person in the Thinking of Vedanta Philosophers
8. Sankara's Conception of Man
9. Being and Spirit in Vedanta
10. Cit and Nous, or the Concept of Spirit in Vedantism and in Neoplatonism
III. Neo-Hinduism and Modern Vedanta: Studies in Reinterpretation
11. Aspects of Neo-Hinduism as Contrasted with Surviving Traditional Hinduism
12. The Concept of Dharma in Neo-Hinduism
13. Schopenhauer and Hindu Ethics
14. Vivekanada's Religious Nationalism
15. A Prasthanatraya Commentary of Neo-Hinduism: Remarks on the Work of Radhakrishnan
Bibliographical Notes on the Texts and Translations
Abbreviations
Index