What is it about?
The Upanishads are ancient Sanskrit texts which have been interpreted in many ways by Hindu religious thinkers, and also by European and American authors. My chapters are on: The older Vedas and the Upanishads; the religious and ritual background; karma and rebirth; knowledge and liberation; the emergence of theism; their place in later Hinduism; some characteristics of the two longest and oldest Upanishads
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Why is it important?
The book is for people without specialized knowledge, who want to know about one of the world's great ancient collections of ideas: students of Indian religions, anyone interested in Indian traditions or in world literature, anyone who has found the Upanishads mentioned by Schopenhauer, Yeats, Eliot, Gandhi or whoever, and wondered what they are. It explains the thought of the Upanishads, and the ideas on which they drew and which have been drawn from them, in a way that has never been done before in a single book.
Perspectives
It was a stimulating experience writing for this book, joining with specialists in a book covering a wide range of material that all belongs together. It inspired me to write a poem, and I was agreeably surprised when the editor asked if she could put it in the front of the book.
Dr Dermot Hastings Killingley
Newcastle University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Upanisads, September 2017, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.4324/9781315758701.
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