Grace In Saiva Siddhanta Vedanta Islam And Christianity

This book presents a thorough reexamination of the role of divine grace in am kara s system and shows that am kara regarded grace as an essential component of the process leading to enlightenment and liberation. am kara s indebtedness to earlier Ved ntins is also shown

This constitues the first volume of the series. It indicates the scope of the project and provides a list of sources which will be surveyed in the sebsequent volumes, as well as provide a guide to secondary literature for further study of Indian Philosophy. It lists in relative chronological order, Sanskrit and Tamil works. All known editions and translations into European languages are cited; where puplished versions of the text are not known a guide to the location of manuscripts of the work is provided.

With rare exceptions, serious intentional, reflective and sustained interfaith encounter is a novel and recent enterprise. This book looks in detail at one such encounter--the intentional recent Hindu-Christian dialog in India--and asks why and how the practice of dialog came to replace previous attitudes of confrontation and monologue (especially on the part of Christians). Part I sets the encounter in its global context. Part II offers a comprehensive and critical analysis of the actual encounter. Part III draws on aspects of the Christian tradition as it critically examines the ways in which the dialog has been justified in Christological categories. A final chapter discusses the future of the encounter. Unlike many other works in the area of interfaith studies, this work combines both descriptive detail of the actual encounter and critical theological analysis of the strengths and weakness of the dialog model.

This fine new book, the third in a series, brings psychologists up to date on the advances of phenomenological research methods in illuminating the nature of human awareness and ex periences. In the more congenial and welcoming intellectual climate of the 1990s, phe nomenological methods have moved to the forefront of discourse on research methods that support and advocate an expanding view of science. In Valle and King (1978), phenome nological methods were presented as alternatives to behavioral methods. In Valle and Halling (1989), phenomenological methods were advanced to perspectives in psychology. This new volume is even less cautious, indeed bolder, in relation to conventional methods and epistemologies. By now, people knowledgeable about psychology, and most psycholo gists, have digested the criticisms directed against methods that operationalize, quantify, and often minimize human behavior. In bringing us up to date on the growing power of phe nomenological methods, this volume brings welcome coherence and integrity to an in creasingly harried science attempting to reenchant itself with meaning and depth, an endeavor artfully exemplified by phenomenological inquiries of the last several decades.

What is mysticism? Is there anything similar in the spiritual lives of people despite the distinct differences and variety of organised religious traditions? Are the mystics useless to humanity on the grounds that they live secluded lives? This book unfolds certain hidden truths regarding mysticism and mystics and their contribution to humanity.

The present work is an in-depth study of Tayumanavar, a seventeenth century poet-philosopher, mystic and saint of Tamil Nadu. His profoundly philosophical humns were the poet`s creative response to the contesting creeds of his time, reflecting his own intimate religious and mystical experience of God, Siva (Sivanubhava).The present study of Vedanta Siddhanta Samarasam as God-experienced by Dr. Thomas Manninezhath will no doubt, awaken a new interest in the hymns of Tayumanavar and the legacy of religious experience they bequeath to us. Religious experience (anubhava), supported by reason and enriched by reflection, has to be the meeting ground for the followers of World Religions today.It is fascinating to see how Tayumanavar sought to bring about the harmony of two opposed traditions through a re-reading of his own tradition and a re-interpretation of the scholastic Advaita in favour of a more religiously inspiring popular Advaita.The work illustrates how many of our contemporary concerns enshrined in such concepts as Comparative Religion, Ecumenism Religious Dialogue etc. were also a concern within the `household` of Hinduism even as early as seventeenth century A.D. The author`s interpretation of Vedanta Siddhanta Samarasam of Tayumanavar offers a unique basis for religious tolerance and co-existence even in our present-day context of plurality of religions and creeds. That, indeed, speaks volumes for the actuality and relevance of the work.