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Love of All Wisdom

~ Philosophy through multiple traditions

Love of All Wisdom

Tag Archives: Deepak Sarma

On new translations in Indian philosophy

24 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by Amod Lele in Hermeneutics, Metaphilosophy, Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, Philosophy of Language

≈ Comments Off on On new translations in Indian philosophy

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Andrew Nicholson, Charles A. Moore, Deepak Sarma, Matthew Dasti, Mrinalkanti Gangopadhyaya, Nyāya Bhāṣya, Nyāya Sūtra, pedagogy, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Stephen Phillips, Uddyotakara, Vācaspati Miśra

One of the immediate frustrations one faces in teaching Indian philosophy is that good translations are sorely lacking, certainly into English and I suspect into any Western language, perhaps even any non-Sanskrit language. A Source Book of Indian Philosophy, edited by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Charles A. Moore, has been one of the most frequently used works since its publication – in 1957. Radhakrishnan and Moore have been dead for decades. And their work leaves much to be desired, filled with so many ellipses that one feels like one is reading Radhakrishnan’s and Moore’s ideas rather than those of the original authors; the ellipses are disruptive enough that the reader can spend more time wondering what was omitted than learning the original.

And yet with respect to some texts at least, Radhakrishnan and Moore still have yet to be surpassed. Continue reading →

Of “White Buddhism”

08 Sunday May 2016

Posted by Amod Lele in M.T.S.R., Meditation, Mindfulness, Modernized Buddhism, Patient Endurance, Politics

≈ 6 Comments

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Chade-Meng Tan, Deepak Sarma, identity, race, Richard K. Payne, Śāntideva, Sri Lanka

Mindfulness meditation has become so mainstream that it’s not just doctors who prescribe it. A couple weeks ago, Boston University had a workshop on mindfulness for its information-technology staff. Google made a splash for having an in-house mindfulness coach, Chade-Meng Tan, who was recently interviewed in Religion Dispatches.

Tan makes some startling claims in the interview – most notably that American Buddhism is “purer Buddhism” because mindfulness is its “source teaching”, which temples in Asian countries have supposedly moved away from. I have spent plenty of time debunking such an approach in Ken Wilber and others, and there’s no need to say more here. What does need a response is a recent discussion of Tan by Richard K. Payne. Continue reading →

Mimicry, mockery or mumukṣutva? A response to Deepak Sarma, by Jeffery D. Long

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by Amod Lele in Karma, M.T.S.R., Modern Hinduism, Truth, Vedānta

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Deepak Sarma, guest post, identity, Jeffery Long, Paul J. Griffiths, race, rebirth, United States

This is the first time I have featured a guest post on Love of All Wisdom. Jeffery Long, a professor of religion and Asian studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, sent me this response after I had written my own piece on the topic. I disagree with a few of Jeff’s ideas, most notably the free employment of the term “Hindu”, but some disagreement is always to be expected among philosophers and humanists. I thought the piece merited prompt online publication and I found it to be in broad sympathy with the aims of this blog, so I am presenting it to readers here. I haven’t configured the site to allow others to add content, for the moment at least, so the “official” byline currently lists me as the author. But readers should be clear that this is Jeff’s work, not mine, and all credit and copyright belong to him. Enjoy. – Amod Lele

The first thing a respondent to Deepak Sarma’s essay, “White Hindu Converts: Mimicry or Mockery?”, needs to do is acknowledge the essential core of experiential truth and the genuine pain at its heart.  Racism against brown-skinned persons is real and pervasive in North America.  Being married now for over seventeen years to a Bengali, I cannot help but be aware of it.  Sometimes this racism is overt and brutal, as in the case when, shortly after 9/11, a fellow customer at a gas station pointed to my wife and asked aggressively, “Is she from Afghanistan?”  At other times it is more subtle, and perhaps even unknown to its perpetrators, such as when my wife speaks in a faculty meeting at the college where we both work only to have her words met with blank stares and confusion, while I later make basically the same comment and am told what a brilliant and insightful observation I have made. Continue reading →

In defence of White Hindu Converts

24 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by Amod Lele in M.T.S.R., Modern Hinduism, Politics

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

authenticity, Deepak Sarma, identity, race, United States

[I wasn’t planning to update this week, but I wanted to post this while it was still topical.]

I have not had as much time as I would like to read Deepak Sarma‘s work in Indian philosophy. It intrigues me, and what little I have seen so far seems to be well researched and well thought out. I hope to be more involved with it in the future.

My reaction was considerably less favourable when I saw a recent short blog post of Sarma’s at the Huffington Post. (I found out about it through the RISA-L mailing list, and there has already been some discussion of the post there.) Sarma expresses discomfort with “White Hindu Converts”, those white Americans who claim to have “converted to Hinduism”. I agree that such a claim can be problematic, given that the recent term “Hinduism” typically covers such a wide and disparate range of meanings, and the concept of “conversion” does not adequately cover much of what happens in Indian traditions (where Muslims offer prayers to revered “Hindu” sites and vice versa). But Sarma’s post goes considerably further than this. Continue reading →

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