Publication Announcement

[FRITS STAAL]

I have not seen this book but it may contain some counter-poison to
"Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights."

>
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> I am very pleased to announce the publication of my book:
>
> Nicholson, Andrew J.  Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in
> Indian
> Intellectual History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.
> < http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14986-0/unifying-hinduism >
>
> Anyone who wishes to receive a 30% discount on the $45 cover price can
> enter the discount code "NICUN" at checkout on the Columbia University
> Press website.
>
> With best regards,
> Andrew
> ______________________________________________
> Andrew J. Nicholson
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Asian and Asian American Studies
> Stony Brook University
> Stony Brook, NY 11794-5343 USA
> Tel: (631) 632-4030  Fax: (631) 632-4098
>
>
>
> Nicholson, Andrew J.  Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in
> Indian
> Intellectual History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.
>
> Book Description:
>
> Some postcolonial theorists argue that the idea of a single system of
> belief known as "Hinduism" is a creation of nineteenth-century British
> imperialists. Andrew J. Nicholson introduces another perspective:
> although
> a unified Hindu identity is not as ancient as some Hindus claim, it has
> its
> roots in innovations within South Asian philosophy from the fourteenth to
> seventeenth centuries. During this time, thinkers treated the
> philosophies
> of Vedanta, Samkhya, and Yoga, along with the worshippers of Visnu, Siva,
> and Sakti, as belonging to a single system of belief and practice.
> Instead
> of seeing such groups as separate and contradictory, they re-envisioned
> them as separate rivers leading to the ocean of Brahman, the ultimate
> reality.
>
> Drawing on the writings of philosophers from late medieval and early
> modern
> traditions, including Vijnanabhiksu, Madhava, and Madhusudana Sarasvati,
> Nicholson shows how influential thinkers portrayed Vedanta philosophy as
> the ultimate unifier of diverse belief systems. This project paved the
> way
> for the work of later Hindu reformers, such as Vivekananda,
> Radhakrishnan,
> and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted the notion that all world religions
> belong to a single spiritual unity. In his study, Nicholson also
> critiques
> the way in which Eurocentric concepts—like monism and dualism, idealism
> and
> realism, theism and atheism, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy—have come to
> dominate modern discourses on Indian philosophy.
>
> Reviews:
>
> "Unifying Hinduism does much more than deal with the philosophy of
> Vijnanabhiksu, it questions in an intelligent and constructive manner how
> Indian philosophy has been studied in modern scholarship—-and ways in
> which
> it has been done wrong." — Johannes Bronkhorst, University of Lausanne,
> Switzerland
>
> "Andrew J. Nicholson's courageous and challenging thesis is that
> processes
> of unification were at work in early modern India, particularly in the
> attempt by Vedanta philosophers to create hierarchies of philosophical
> schools, and these processes 'made possible the world religion later
> known
> by the name Hinduism.' Unifying Hinduism is a fluent, eminently readable,
> and absorbing study of a period in Indian intellectual history that fully
> deserves the attention it is now receiving." — Jonardon Ganeri,
> University
> of Sussex


Frits Staal

www.fritsstaalberkeley.com