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Author Patil, Parimal G., author

Title Against a Hindu god : Buddhist philosophy of religion in India / Parimal G. Patil
Published New York : Columbia University Press, [2009]
©2009

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 406 pages)
Contents Comparative philosophy of religions -- Disciplinary challenges -- A grammar for comparison -- Comparative philosophy of religions -- Content, structure, and arguments -- Epistemology -- Religious epistemology in classical India: in defense of a Hindu god -- Interpreting Nyāya epistemology -- The Nyāya argument for the existence of Īśvara -- Defending the Nyāya argument -- Conclusion: Shifting the burden of proof -- Against Īśvara: Ratnakīrti's Buddhist critique -- The Section on pervasion: the trouble with natural relations -- Two arguments -- The Section on the reason property -- The Section on the target property -- Conclusion: Is Īśvara the maker of the world? -- Language, mind, and ontology -- The theory of exclusion, conceptual content, and Buddhist epistemology -- The theory of exclusion -- What exclusion is not -- Semantic value -- Ratnakīrti's inferential argument -- Conclusion: Jñānaśrīmitra's three questions -- Ratnakīrti's world: toward a Buddhist philosophy of everything -- An inventory of mental objects/images -- The contents of perception -- The contents of inferential/verbal awareness -- Nonexistence, existence, and ultimate existence -- The Īśvara-inference, revisited -- Conclusion: Who created the world? -- The values of Buddhist epistemology -- Foundational figures and foundational texts -- The soteriological significance of epistemology -- Jñānaśrīmitra on epistemology as pedagogy -- Ratnakīrti's framework of value -- Conclusion: Religious reasoning as religious practice
Summary Philosophical arguments for and against the existence of God have been crucial to Euro-American and South Asian philosophers for over a millennium. Critical to the history of philosophy in India, were the centuries-long arguments between Buddhist and Hindu philosophers about the existence of a God-like being called Isvara and the religious epistemology used to support them. By focusing on the work of Ratnakirti, one of the last great Buddhist philosophers of India, and his arguments against his Hindu opponents, Parimal G. Patil illuminates South Asian intellectual practices and the nature of philosophy during the final phase of Buddhism in India. Based at the famous university of Vikramasila, Ratnakirti brought the full range of Buddhist philosophical resources to bear on his critique of his Hindu opponents' cosmological/design argument. At stake in his critique was nothing less than the nature of inferential reasoning, the metaphysics of epistemology, and the relevance of philosophy to the practice of religion. In developing a proper comparative approach to the philosophy of religion, Patil transcends the disciplinary boundaries of religious studies, philosophy, and South Asian studies and applies the remarkable work of philosophers like Ratnakirti to contemporary issues in philosophy and religion
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Ratnakīrti.
SUBJECT Ratnakīrti fast
Subject Knowledge, Theory of (Buddhism)
God (Hinduism)
Nyaya.
Religion -- Philosophy.
RELIGION -- Philosophy.
PHILOSOPHY -- Buddhist.
God (Hinduism)
Knowledge, Theory of (Buddhism)
Nyaya
Religion -- Philosophy
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2008047445
ISBN 9780231513074
0231513070
1280599170
9781280599170
9786613629005
6613629006
0231142226
9780231142229
Other Titles Buddhist philosophy of religion in India