Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu and Budhist Thought

by Richard King and Richard E. King

Book Overview

What is Indian Philosophy? Why has India been excluded from the history of philosophy? Richard King provides an introduction to the main schools of Hindu and Buddhist thought, emphasising the living history of interaction and debate between the various traditions. The book outlines the broad spectrum of Indian philosophical schools and questions prevailing assumptions about the 'mythical' ahistorical and 'theological' nature of Indian thought. Central...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0748609547
• ISBN13: 9780748609543
• Release Date: May 1999
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.19 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Worthwhile Read

Richard King's book "Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu and Buddhist Thought" is a well-written and insightful overview of its subject matter. King does not get bogged down in Sanskrit terminology, yet does not ignore it either. The result is a nice clear flow to the presentation with enough textual references to ensure that this introduction carries over to further studies of one or more of the six schools presented in this volume. He assumes no prior knowledge of these traditions. King also does an exquisite job of presenting the question: "What is Philosophy?" and how a `Western' tradition of thought can be compared to the thought of `Eastern' traditions. He does so primarily by showing that such East/West divisions are wrong-headed to begin with. While he does not perform any kind of comparative hermeneutic here, he does take the time in the first two and last chapters to ensure that the arbitrary distinction that is normally made between Oriental and Occidental thought is obviated before he begins discussion of the Hindu and Buddhist philosophical schools that are the main subject of his work. King starts by giving an overview of the origins and nature of Hindu Philosophy, and then compares and contrasts, with enough historical context to enable the reader to discern the interrelationships between, six major schools of Hindu thought - the Purva Mimamsa, Uttara Mimamsa (Vedanta), Vaisesika, Nyaya, Samkhya, and classical Yoga. He then highlights salient points of Buddhist thought in the Abhidharma and Mahayana traditions. Following these overviews he then covers Ontology, Epistemology, Perception, Consciousness and the Body, and Creation and Causality, comparing and contrasting the various schools and again highlighting their historical interrelationships. I found this book to be a worthwhile read. James Corrigan An Introduction to Awareness

Valuable work for the study of religions

I must say that I read this book from cover to cover. It is an extremely readable book, which is quite amazing, since it deals with epistemological, ontological, and metaphysical positions of the six orthodox Indian schools, as well as the materialist school and various Indian Buddhist schools. The book is subtitled "An Introduction to Hindu and Buddhist Thought", and it is a fine introduction, for both those who are newcomers to the field, and those with some knowledge of this intriguing area of human thought, but would like to put the many pieces of the puzzle into a more structured frame.King's writing style is impeccable, and he also uses highly amusing examples not to frighten away his readers... The introductory and concluding chapters are very valuable as well, dealing with the areas of hermeneutics, and ethnocentrism, and the study of religions in this postmodern age (for the West at least...) His comments in these areas are very thought provoking, and offer the interested reader a new approach and methodology for the study of religions. It is a pity that King has not included the philosophical stance of the Jainas in this work. It is perhaps not his area, but it seems that the Jaina perspective is seriously lacking: a few gems of Jaina epistemology would have made this book a most fine one for students of the Indian traditions. I recommend this work highly to one and all.

Author is knowledge

Author seems have read a lot about these philosphy.If you are interested in these phylosphy this will give you some idea about the same. Like any other human being probaly some of the portion seems to be a little bit biased by author's thought Must read